On the pitch,,,,

The World champions scored 4 tries in 17 minutes to win.

How would you? You'd have been in Widnes, surely?

Wakey get told all the time to share a stadium with Cas. It's exactly the same.

Why would you be sure of that?

We don't want them, much more kudos having man u reserves sharing than that lot

A single club playing out of a stadium doesn't make sense financially. Whether it's another rugby league club, a union club or a football club, shared stadiums are the only way to make them financially viable.

Forward thinking club, Gloucestershire all golds, are in talks about building and sharing a stadium with football club Gloucester City.

I think that you should re phrase that.
Sharing may make more financial sense but, it's not absolutely essential.
Of course, in the modern world, its all about "maximising revenue streams" and the more use that clubs can get out of their facilities, the better it should be financially, that is, unless you share with a premier league football club and then you can only play when they let you

Or a Third Division Football Club?

FA rules are the same for any club in any division, ie. ground sharing is only allowed if the football club has priority over the ground. AFAIK it's simply not possible for an RL club (or anyone else) to sign a contract that gives them priority.

Hull FC don't seem to have too many problems.

Their ground isn't built on a swamp

I think he was referring to the fact that the football club doesn't have priority over the rugby club. They are both tenants.

Well, if EGW is correct in his assertion upthread that it's an FA rule, then that's not a true statement, is it?

2.3.1 A Club’s Ground may be shared with another Club or any other club (including a club
engaged in another sport) providing, where sharing with a football club the Club or club
playing in the most senior competition has priority of fi xtures at all times and, where
sharing with a club engaged in another sport, the Club has priority of fi xtures.

TAKEN FROM THE f.A's standard rules.....

Can't see how they could enforce it if the football club don't own the ground. In the Wigan case. Wigan RL playing, wouldn't have stopped Wigan AFC playing, just made it inconvenient.

it all comes down to the actual contract for use of the ground with the owners...because F.A. rules state the football club has to have priority use over any other sport to be allowed to play there if they don't own the ground 2.3.1 above and 2.3.2. below:-

2.3.2 A Club must either (a) own the freehold of the Ground or (b) as at 31 March in each year,
have a lease of the Ground which does not expire until at least the end of the next Playing
Season or (c) possess a written agreement for the use of the Ground which is acceptable to
The FA and the Competition

Doubt whether the RFL have any such conditions with clubs within their rules....

End of the day Lenigan was told he couldn't use the pitch on Friday and the contract he inherited probably doesn't allow him to force the issue

Pretty sure you're on the money. I think if he'd come out and said as much he'd have attracted far less flak.

After all of todays rain, the DW pitch is looking unplayable ......

Anyone got any sprinklers they could borrow ?

The RFU have a primacy of tenure rule which attracted the interest of the OFT and was legally tested by London Welsh. Laughably Leeds apparently signed a piece of paper which confirmed that Headingley's third club had primacy there - it was never put to the test and notwithstanding its existence RU games were occasionally moved for Leeds RL ones but never the other way around whilst they were in the top flight.

This document has a bit to say about the matter:

[url=http://www.farrer.co.uk/Global/Briefings/13.%20Sports%20Briefing/Analysis%20of%20the%20London%20Welsh%20Case.pdfAnalysis of the London Welsh case[/url

The John Smiths Stadium is jointly owned, neather the Giants or Town are tennants, a few years back when Town went into admin, the Giants bought them, so how could the FA insist that Town, (the tennants) take priority over the Giants, (the owners) isnt it just the case, that as usual the RFL are being bullied into axceptence, of what a court might see as unenforcable rules. l realalise we are a minority sport, but does that mean the RFL just rolls over.

They can set whatever rules they want for teams to be eligible and be able to host fixtures in their competition, and they do so to avoid a shambles like the Wigan Widnes debacle.

What sort of governing body allows a club to postpone a game, rather than have referee inspect and decide if the pitch is playable? That's right, the RFL.

The RFL are investigating Wigan for the unilateral actions? The RFL rules are very clear - why are you trying to paint what happened as their fault?

FWIW, clubs can own a ground but assign primacy of tenure to another side (as Leeds appear to have done in favour of the RU club even if in practice an RL game would never be moved for a RU one).

Why investigate after the event? They should've told Wigan that they'd send an official to inspect the state of the pitch. Then when it was apparent it was just because of the football game at the weekend, then there should have been a threat of a penalty for not being able to host the game.

No problem with the game being switched to Widnes, but it should still have officially been a Wigan home game. This whole thing should've been sorted months ago when the fixtures came out.

I've no idea what you are on about.
The Latics club said we couldn't play, why would they give a fig what some RFL bod has to say?

And the match was postponed due to the extreme weather, I didn't realise the storm was forecast last November?

The game was cancelled based on what they thought the pitch would be like after a forecasted storm. This in itself is laughable. Unless Athletic ordered Wigan not to play(can't see how they could unless Wigan's tenancy states they could) , then Wigan need to be punished heavily for bringing the game into disrepute.

RL always seems to shoot itself in the foot or in this case Wigan. They do something brilliant and beat the Aussies to become WCC then throw all that positivity away by doing what they did.