Three years on with the franchise experiment and is it working in the championship?

Right if I remember rightly as they worded it at the time it was meant to help the championship clubs strengthen as we have 3 years to grow oh and knock together a super state of the art ground as well

So on the end of the three year journey which three clubs as this system spat out at us

Widnes-ground yep,nutter with money yep-crowd growing yep- team errr no,one train final win no grand final appearances let alone wins

Barrow- ground no,nutter with money -yep,crowd growing- possible yep,grand final apperance and win

halifax-ground yep,nutter with money??? not sure,crowd-potential yep,grand final wins and appearances

So after three years these clubs are the ones who qualify for the right to go up

But shouldn't these three clubs be forging ahead of the rest of the clubs this season seeing as this is the season were all there planning comes together?

Instead we have a widnes which must be the worst team in the clubs history.

Barrow chopping and changing coaches through the season no movement on ground

Halifax floundering at the wrong end of the table

So what becomes of the team that gets the nod this week? do they throw the towel in completely this season thus effectively ruining the league this season?

One other thing does our season this season count to the next 3 seasons,confused yep only in rl could you make such a mockery of a great sport

I don't think there will be a new entry for 2015 unless something drastic happens. As long as the Championship remains as unpredictable as it is now then I'm happy.

I agree Matt , I don't think anybody will get into SL in 2015 , 2013/4 possibly , because quite simply it is only a matter of time before the Crusaders go bust again , and I can see that happening before 2015

Wether we want to be the club that replaces them is another matter ?

We have to move forward or we will die,simple as that

Couldn't agree more.

Life for Leigh is never going to be easy - but if we give up striving to be the best then we might as well pack it all in, because the club will go the same way as the others with no ambition (think Rochdale, Swinton, Oldham, et al). Of course, we shouldn't bankrupt ourselves trying, but we should take calculated risks and we should seize opportunities that are presented to us.

If you look at some of the clubs already in SL, then I don't see why we can't compete in there. And even if the clubs were all awesome, I'd like to find out what we can achieve within our budget and resources if presented with the opportunity.

Case in point, W***n and Blackpool would never have been given a chance if the Premier League worked the same way - and look how much fun they've had proving the naysayers wrong.

Think of like this, if we get promoted, fans come, yeah, we'd probably get whipped a lot, but the dream of going to leeds, saint helens, wigan, hull, bradford, seeing leigh against the top clubs every week would be a dream realised. I want us to be in Super League or a Wembley cup final appearance, that should be the clubs ambition.

Who says it isn't Tom? with the amount being put into the club I can't see our benefactor wanting second best

I agree Fred. I think we should have top ambition, it annoys me hearing some people say we should give up on the Challenge Cup, I heard it going to the ground today, and i thought well, we aren't gonna get anywhere with a small club mentality. If we aim high then it gives us somethiong to strive for, ad well. I'll say lets go for something this season, either GF or NRC WIN and get something under our belts for the next round of applications.

Quite right Tom. Be content with second best and we always will be.

I am working on a plan to have a bylaw introduced in Leyth at 2-30pm every match day so that all pubs must close at that time and free beer at the LSV at HT.

Maybe then we will get more back' after today our lads deserve that.

Good word that , ' Ambition '

Great if somebody else is paying for your ' Ambition '

Yes I'm sure we would all be happy going to W1g4n , Leeds , Saints , Wire and the rest getting hammered every week , but do you really think the so called ' fans ' that will happily be at Blackpool if we reach the NRC , be happy to cough up twenty quid a time to see us get snotted at home week in week out , year in year out ?

That my friends is the issue here , who pays for this ' Ambition ' ?

some other buddger

then again your rich

Times like that you find out who your real fans are. Yeah fair enough, ambition is costly, but I bet staying in a lower league with no ambition would cost more.

Starbug just for once man try and be happy or dare I say positive,I hope you don't go around leigh at the weekend with such a happy lookout on life

You have Starbug very wrong guys. He's very happy where we are at the moment, and where we are is probably the right place at the moment. To be the best in the league we are in is what we have to strive for, until we are ready for the step up. We're not there yet but I don't think we are too far off.

Believe me , tonight I am deliriously happy after today's match , but tomorrow morning I'm back at work , in the real world , and our club and enjoyment is somebody elses ' real world '

I am ambitious as anybody else , perhaps even more so , I look for ways outside the usual ( if we have a winning team the fans will come flooding back ) ways to achieve that ambition , the world has changed , if we don't change it will leave us behind

Just the ' playing of RL matches ' cannot fund the running of a team to play RL matches , and you can add all the other already tried and failed ways of funding clubs at our level as well , it still won't do it , you need to diversify , find new revenue streams outside of anything relevant to RL to run and build a club with the potential to comp eye in SL , until we do that , we are just treading water

Looks like they have already. Widnes will be the last team to make the jump to SL until the format changes. The RFL wont make the mistake of guarenteeing a place for a Championship club this time and there will be no expansion of SL in the near future.

That sound you can hear is the drawbridge been well and truly lifted.

After Widnes get the franchise if the RFL came to Leigh and guaranteed a SL spot should we hit certain goals, would 500 people pay £500 a year to make it happen, because that is all it would take. RL is penny's in comparison to Soccer.

We need to stop the negativity and create a platform to finance ambition.

I agree with you Neil. Ok, so Sooper Dooper League might kill off the club, but having to tread water, with nothing to aim for, and steadily declining gates is also going to achieve that - for ALL Championship clubs.

personally it would be great if the rfl take two up as is likley that cas and wakey come down i think championship rugby as Matt said previously would make for a very interesting league.

We'd get to see a lot of Aussies if that happened!

We're supposed to get used to and excited by the prospect of playing in Division 2, sorry - the Championship, forever. Half of our fan base doesn't and won't buy it and because of this, any success will be short lived with the successful coach being poached along with a few of the best young prospects. Unfortunately, with no realistic prospect of progression, that seems to be the only logical outcome of any investment which brings about success.

How long will IM be happy looking across at that empty stand?

As far as I'm concerned, the only time to seriously consider hammering down the doors of Red Hall are when we're doing as Widnes have done off-field and maintaining our current form on it. Aside from having a damn good side and the continuing hard work of the community department, what do we have to show now that is different from the last time we applied?

The problem is WF , our fan base isn't big enough to start with , until we can find a way to build it , we will not progress

Simple Matt , fill the stadium , then you cannot be ignored

There is low hanging fruit out there and I'm not talking about those who sit moaning at the bar about the good old days.

What is our potential fan base? How many would show up to a promotion decider? How many Leigh fans were there against Whitehaven in the NL final? Just to get back to the crowds of the Terzis era would be a great start.