I think we would have beaten Wakey last night with Tony Christie playing for us !!

Come to think of it , he does fit the age bracket.....

The point I was making was that the gulf between top and bottom is perfectly identified when a mid table team like Leeds can so easily put 64 points on the bottom team. Like I said if we had played like that against Wigan or Warrington then then we would have been on the receiving end of the same.

My comment stands, Wakey were like a pub side.

Sorry but you've just invented that scoreline. I assume it was when Wakefield rallied from 34-4 to 34-14, briefly winning the 2nd half at that point with back-to-back scores.

Leeds will win **** all this season same as us FACT

this is like Mick Gledhill circa 2008

Wakefield have had an exceptionally tough year on and off the field, and are playing under a coach who's leaving. Check out some past results against them - 2005 mid-season we beat them 70-6 away, 2008 third game of the season 44-8 away, again mid season 58-12 at home. Similar results against other teams at different stages of the season over many many years.

These scorelines have nothing to do with P&R or franchising - they are down to too many cr*p sides in the competition, who have for too long been happy with scraping a few wins. Under P&R coaches would target games they thought they had a realistic chance of winning, and quite often get hammered around those. In recent years we've seen the perennial strugglers focus on getting a few early season wins (cue Kear as master coach threads every year early in the season) and then fall away as the bigger teams get into gear.

Franchising is the only way to get some clubs to focus on issues beyond immediate survival - new grounds, player development etc. What has to be remembered is the inertia of existing playing squads when franchising was introduced, the very low levels of finance available at too many clubs meaning a lot of teams spend nowhere near the cap, and the addiction to cheap imports as a way of making a side competitive.

As it is we're finally seeing some movements on the stadium front, and even the RFL's p*ss weak stance on imports will start to have an effect (accelerated by the rise of the Aussie dollar). It will take a long time, anyone who thought RL in England with its lack of real money could change much faster is in cloud cuckoo land.