Leigh selling players now

[Rupert Prince]

6 hours ago, Krzzystuff said:

So what happens now with Leigh? Much smaller budget in a very competitive Championship no matter who goes up or down. If Dr. K doesn't come in it looks like a long fight back to the SL no?

So much for the benefits of parachute payments then...

[Private Baldrick]

8 minutes ago, Rupert Prince said:

So much for the benefits of parachute payments then...

For the connoisseurs of the programme with my user name in, it would appear that the parachute payment was not spent on a massive turnip, but lots of little ones !!

[Tommygilf]

Bodene Thompson signed for Wire.

[Rupert Prince]

 

12 minutes ago, Private Baldrick said:

For the connoisseurs of the programme with my user name in, it would appear that the parachute payment was not spent on a massive turnip, but lots of little ones !!

Wire are determined to aquire the silliest player names in super league. (not meaning Thompson!!)

[Harry Stottle]

6 minutes ago, Private Baldrick said:

For the connoisseurs of the programme with my user name in, it would appear that the parachute payment was not spent on a massive turnip, but lots of little ones !!

No wrong Private Baldrick, there were a lot of 'Massive Turnips' packaged as the 'Finest Asparagus' but in reality the taste was tainted, and should have been put straight into the waste disposal

[Tommygilf]

From the look of Twitter Widnes are primed to sign a fair few Leigh players. (Ben Reynolds, Hansen and Hall at least atm)

Good move or final act of desperation?

[Magic XIII]

25 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

From the look of Twitter Widnes are primed to sign a fair few Leigh players. (Ben Reynolds, Hansen and Hall at least atm)

Good move or final act of desperation?

Cummins did say if the right players became available .....

[deluded pom?]

3 hours ago, LeeF said:

It's not so much a sale more a give away to get the get players off the wages bill

I said you buy one you get one free, you buy one you get one free.

[phiggins]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

No wrong Private Baldrick, there were a lot of 'Massive Turnips' packaged as the 'Finest Asparagus' but in reality the taste was tainted, and should have been put straight into the waste disposal

Unfortunately the plan now doesn't seem to be very cunning...

[Oliver Clothesoff]

30 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

The 8s working brilliantly I see

Only one side in the Championship are guaranteed to be in the four going into the final week of the season, with five teams going for three remaining places. It’s working. 

What isn’t working is Leigh’s business model and they’re paying the price for it and that isn’t The RFL’s/the Championship’s/Super League’s/Robert Elstone’s/The formats fault, it’s the fault of the club and the club only. 

 

[Bedford Roughyed]

So leigh went for the 'we must finish in this position or bust' plan that has worked so well for clubs over the years...

[phiggins]

3 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Only one side in the Championship are guaranteed to be in the four going into the final week of the season, with five teams going for three remaining places. It’s working. 

What isn’t working is Leigh’s business model and they’re paying the price for it and that isn’t The RFL’s/the Championship’s/Super League’s/Robert Elstone’s/The formats fault, it’s the fault of the club and the club only. 

 

Agree in part. I don't think budgeting for a top 4 finish was entirely unreasonable, so wouldn't blame the business model in general. However horrific decisions were made around coaching setup and playing squad which is brought this about. But it is definitely the club that is solely to blame for this.

[roughyedspud]

 

Leigh Centurions owner Derek Beaumont has issued the following statement:

It was with a heavy heart and tear in my eye that the realisation sunk in that we would not make the Qualifiers. I have said publicly on numerous occasion and privately to the group that my position as owner of the Club would become untenable should that happen.

The Club will receive circa £200k in 2019 from £1.25m this year and circa £1.7m in 2017 and that is a drop too far to sustain the Club in its current form. To that end I must act in the best interests of the Club’s ability to survive going forward and in the short term to fulfil this season’s fixtures and also to reduce its commitments to make it more attractive to any party that may express an interest in taking it forward.

This week is deadline week and therefore an ideal opportunity for players to be able to secure their futures elsewhere and at the same time reduce the Club’s obligations. I can confirm there will be a large number of exits and that may bring some opportunities for others but that will be ongoing this week right up until deadline.

I am committed to ensuring the Club reaches the end of the season and hope during that time a new investor or group of investors can be attracted to take the Club forward. I will be making a more detailed statement at the beginning of next week and until then will not be in a position to comment further. I apologise to our loyal fans and sponsors for this failing which ultimately has to rest with me.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

10 minutes ago, phiggins said:

Agree in part. I don't think budgeting for a top 4 finish was entirely unreasonable, so wouldn't blame the business model in general. However horrific decisions were made around coaching setup and playing squad which is brought this about. But it is definitely the club that is solely to blame for this.

They chose the “Super League or bust” approach this year. Budgeting for a top four place wasn’t unreasonable but it seems the scale of such wages should they not make the four (during the toughest Championship in memory) was a poor decision  

 

1 minute ago, scotchy1 said:

Leighs business model is a feature of the system, not a bug.

They chose the “Super League or bust” model. Nobody else. They’re paying the price for it now. 

[Amber Avenger]

Wasn't it Leigh and Mr B who convinced the RFL to expand the Championship salary cap to the same as the SL one? If there is a bug in the system, they certainly helped to place it there. 

[Oliver Clothesoff]

1 minute ago, scotchy1 said:

The drop from 1.7m to 1.25 to 200k was too much to have the club running in its current form.

It was always Super League or bust.

These weren’t figures thrown on them last minute, they knew the consequences and went for it. It’s not come off. Still the club’s fault. 

[tim2]

"It won't happen to us. We've got a better business and rugby plan than all those previous failures." - said all the previous failures.

The irony of the system being introduced to help Leigh in their long term plan effectively ending up being the cause of this meltdown is not lost on anyone.

The question is, for the RFL and for the fans, do the RFL act as a nanny to protect clubs from themselves or do they let them make their own bad decisions?

I don't mind the latter as long as the club has to face the consequences, no matter how severe. Bradford is the obvious example.

 

 

[Amber Avenger]

1 hour ago, scotchy1 said:

Changing that simply introduces another one of the competitiveness of the championshi clubs with the SL clubs.

And even at the lower SC didn't Bradford (and Sheffield and halifax) do exactly the same anyway?

I'm not aware of Bradford, Sheffield and Halifax asking the RFL to raise the salary cap. I'm not even sure if Sheffield or Halifax even spent more than the previous salary cap limit, either way it's not relevant to what I'm trying to say. 

Clubs will always overspend it seems, but my point is it's ironic that the one club that lobbied hardest for a change in salary cap is being undone by the very same changes because they may well have thought they'd be long gone from the division by now. 

[Harry Stottle]

1 hour ago, Bedford Roughyed said:

So leigh went for the 'we must finish in this position or bust' plan that has worked so well for clubs over the years...

Being that most of those player's were on 2 year contracts the intention was honourable, the fly in the ointment was the identification, selection and ultimatley signing of those players, as I stated previously Keiron Cunningham accepted all the plaudits for each of those conditions, he was 'the expert' empolyed to take the club forward, as with his coaching abillities the man's expertise is in tatters, he would do no worse taking up Tibetan Yak herding, in fact he may do better than having a further carear in Rugby League, he is clearly not suited to it.

[Manx RL]

Leigh are being undone through allowing emotion and sentiment into decision making, which in turn lead to innefective management appointments and the disastererous start to the season.

[Amber Avenger]

6 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

It is relevant because those clubs spending an even lower salary cap still saw the same boom and bust scenario. 

It's relevant to your point about boom and bust, it's not relevant to my point about the irony of the situation.

[Harry Stottle]

16 minutes ago, Amber Avenger said:

I'm not aware of Bradford, Sheffield and Halifax asking the RFL to raise the salary cap. I'm not even sure if Sheffield or Halifax even went spent more than the previous salary cap limit, either way it's not relevant to what I'm trying to say. 

Clubs will always overspend it seems, but my point is it's ironic that the one club that lobbied hardest for a change in salary cap is being undone by the very same changes because they may well have thought they'd be long gone from the division by now. 

Ask the question, under the 8's system if there had been no parity on the spending power being equal for both SL and Championship would Leigh have gone up in 2016, HKR in '17 and if TWP had the original spending limit would they be expected to be a favourite to play in SL next season, considering they would not have been allowed to amass a squad as good as this present one?

[DoubleD]

34 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Being that most of those player's were on 2 year contracts the intention was honourable, the fly in the ointment was the identification, selection and ultimatley signing of those players, as I stated previously Keiron Cunningham accepted all the plaudits for each of those conditions, he was 'the expert' empolyed to take the club forward, as with his coaching abillities the man's expertise is in tatters, he would do no worse taking up Tibetan Yak herding, in fact he may do better than having a further carear in Rugby League, he is clearly not suited to it.

Is it KCs fault? The standard of player he has brought in has been impressive - that is shown by the hoard of clubs now swarming over the recruitment of them. Surely the fault lies with the previous coach who failed to get the players gelling at the start of the season?

[Amber Avenger]

24 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Ask the question, under the 8's system if there had been no parity on the spending power being equal for both SL and Championship would Leigh have gone up in 2016, HKR in '17 and if TWP had the original spending limit would they be expected to be a favourite to play in SL next season, considering they would not have been allowed to amass a squad as good as this present one?

Ask the question, is it worth using Leigh as a positive example of going up in 2016, if two years later their main benefactor walks away from the club after - upcoming game pending - their lowest league finish in almost a decade?

Bradford were in a whisker of going up under the old cap system (bust surely would have followed, regardless, I'm sure), and this year we potentially have (IMO) one of the weakest SL sides yet to grace the bottom four in Widnes - apologies Widnes fans.  So arguably the only team to benefit from the changes so far are a, very unlucky, Hull KR who were a well run club to begin with and cut their cloth accordingly. Do you think had the drop goal gone the other way, Salford would have bounced back to SL at first time of asking with the enhanced cap? Genuine question, I'm not so sure myself. 

Honestly, there is a lot of devil's advocate in this. I don't particularly give two hoots, but the irony is too interesting to let slip by. I genuinely feel for the Leigh fans, as we've been there and are still suffering the consequences. Your posts regarding spending money on the wrong players/staff are all too familiar, and Leigh won't be the last club caught out here. 

[RP London]

for everyone using Sheffield as an example.. they believed someone was going to pay them a large wedge of cash and they decided to go full time on the back of that... if that wedge of cash had materialised (and the stadium that was part of the package etc) then the bust would arguably not have occured. However, rather than waiting to see the actual colour of the money Sheffield spent away and that money never appeared.. that was a fault of the leadership of the club not of any system in place. 

the present issue is around either the clubs leadership or the local council, a bit of both or just utter incompetence.. again nothing to do with the system.

leave Sheffield alone, we have enough problems without being brought into a fight that isnt ours!