Leigh hoping to use Dual Registration in 2022

[The Phantom Horseman]

So the elephant in the room then...looks like Dual Reg might be back next year. Had a brief listen to an interview between the Leigh chairman and the newly-appointed head of rugby Chris Chester - it's a bit weird, the chairman asking Chester questions, but he asked him if they'd be continuing the DR agreement they had with St Helens previously and Chester said "yeah, we're hopeful." He went on to say they were going to have a squad of 23 or 24 players so that means DR would be a mainstay of their promotion bid.

if that's the case and a team which was in SL in 2021 and is remaining full time is going to use DR, it's hard not to see most other Championship clubs following suit in the current funding situation, including us presumably?

As an aside, it's amusing to remember at least one Leigh fan coming on here in 2019 when we were on our play-off run and telling us that teams who have used DR shouldn't be eligible for promotion...

[Robin Evans]

Bol lox. Dual reg rears its ugly head once more. 

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

1 hour ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

So the elephant in the room then...looks like Dual Reg might be back next year. Had a brief listen to an interview between the Leigh chairman and the newly-appointed head of rugby Chris Chester - it's a bit weird, the chairman asking Chester questions, but he asked him if they'd be continuing the DR agreement they had with St Helens previously and Chester said "yeah, we're hopeful." He went on to say they were going to have a squad of 23 or 24 players so that means DR would be a mainstay of their promotion bid.

if that's the case and a team which was in SL in 2021 and is remaining full time is going to use DR, it's hard not to see most other Championship clubs following suit in the current funding situation, including us presumably?

As an aside, it's amusing to remember at least one Leigh fan coming on here in 2019 when we were on our play-off run and telling us that teams who have used DR shouldn't be eligible for promotion...

If it's the one I think he's already pontificating that we will be (heavily) reliant on DR in 2022

[Ovenden Grunt]

[The Phantom Horseman]

10 minutes ago, Les Tonks Sidestep said:

If it's the one I think he's already pontificating that we will be (heavily) reliant on DR in 2022

Woudln't surprise me if we use it. Would be a first if we are "reliant" on it, but I guess that depends on semantics.

[tms]

21 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Woudln't surprise me if we use it. Would be a first if we are "reliant" on it, but I guess that depends on semantics.

That will always be down to fans of other clubs who's DR wasn't as good as ours 

[spanishknight]

21 minutes ago, POR said:

That will always be down to fans of other clubs who's DR wasn't as good as ours 

For those fans could you D/R with Hunslet.

[tms]

2 minutes ago, spanishknight said:

For those fans could you D/R with Hunslet.

WE once did and lent them some of ours

[RobLambert]

8 hours ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

So the elephant in the room then...looks like Dual Reg might be back next year. Had a brief listen to an interview between the Leigh chairman and the newly-appointed head of rugby Chris Chester - it's a bit weird, the chairman asking Chester questions, but he asked him if they'd be continuing the DR agreement they had with St Helens previously and Chester said "yeah, we're hopeful." He went on to say they were going to have a squad of 23 or 24 players so that means DR would be a mainstay of their promotion bid.

if that's the case and a team which was in SL in 2021 and is remaining full time is going to use DR, it's hard not to see most other Championship clubs following suit in the current funding situation, including us presumably?

As an aside, it's amusing to remember at least one Leigh fan coming on here in 2019 when we were on our play-off run and telling us that teams who have used DR shouldn't be eligible for promotion...

Yeah Leigh fans in particular still bang on about it - you know the usual thing that our whole team was entirely made up of Leeds reserves in 2019 (which we did well to get away with given that we were only allowed 4 out of the 17).  They also used this as a reason why they deserved to take up Torontos place last year. Again a bit rich given that they brought in the big guns for the 2019 play offs (Kevin Brown etc) but still failed miserably

[The Phantom Horseman]

10 hours ago, RobLambert said:

Yeah Leigh fans in particular still bang on about it - you know the usual thing that our whole team was entirely made up of Leeds reserves in 2019 (which we did well to get away with given that we were only allowed 4 out of the 17).  They also used this as a reason why they deserved to take up Torontos place last year. Again a bit rich given that they brought in the big guns for the 2019 play offs (Kevin Brown etc) but still failed miserably

Yep. Of course, we are in no position at all to point fingers about DR ourselves, but the fact is just about every club in the Championship has used DR at some point (including Leigh with St Helens in that 2019 season you referred to).

I think I've said this before on here, but there's a line in the wonderful movie "The Sting" where Robert Shaw's character Doyle Lonnegan is told that Paul Newman's character had been cheating when he beat him at cards, and Lonnegan responds "What was I supposed to do - call him for cheating better than me?" That's what some of the comments about our use of DR remind me of, resentment that we were better at using a dodgy system than they were.

Hope we don't use it, but it will make little financial sense for most teams not to use it if it's in the rules.

[The Blues Ox]

23 or 24 players is a pretty small squad for a team flush with money.  Does look like they are having real difficulty picking up players.

[The Phantom Horseman]

2 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

23 or 24 players is a pretty small squad for a team flush with money.  Does look like they are having real difficulty picking up players.

Or they're trying a direct imitation of our blueprint from 2019. Chester said they had already talked about which individual St Helens players would be available to them.

[Blind side johnny]

Aren't the SL reserve teams due to return in 2022? If so then the DR opportunities (opportunism?) may be more limited.

[The Blues Ox]

1 hour ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Or they're trying a direct imitation of our blueprint from 2019. Chester said they had already talked about which individual St Helens players would be available to them.

I believe we have already had the same conversation with Huddersfield.

[J Phil Loxton]

Jeez. I hope Leeds don't come along and spoil our team

[The Phantom Horseman]

2 hours ago, Blind side johnny said:

Aren't the SL reserve teams due to return in 2022? If so then the DR opportunities (opportunism?) may be more limited.

Doubt it, most SL teams would much rather their fringe players were playing in the Championship rather than for the reserves, which are less intense games in front of negligible crowds and more likely to be used for youngsters. For instance, the reserves comp returned pre-Covid in 2020 but the likes of McLelland, Holoryd and Sutcliffe played on DR for Fev rather than for Leeds reserves.

[tms]

18 minutes ago, The Phantom Horseman said:

Doubt it, most SL teams would much rather their fringe players were playing in the Championship rather than for the reserves, which are less intense games in fronf of negligible crowds and more likely to be used for youngsters. For instance, the reserves comp returned pre-Covid in 2020 but the likes of McLelland, Holoryd and Sutcliffe played on DR for Fev rather than for Leeds reserves.

If you remember after FEV reserves got disbanded  some lads who had been playing for us played for leeds reserves  while leeds lads came to us on DR