It does seem a logical idea and one a board with the prospect of diminishing gates you'd think would consider.
Like yourself I've seen what people put and the overiding nag in the back of my mind is that if this was just purely about pathways and the long term positives of youth development then why no mention in the lead up, Instead it was a hastily released press statement after the Journal ran the story (with even Radlinski's quotes reportedly altered as the day went on !) which hardly inspires confidence.

Something needs doing as otherwise this club could be in trouble and action needs to be quick.

Mike , moral duty to do what exactly? , and who's source of talent?

What exactly are we ' making right ' ?

I know our current board can't live on the - we kept this club alive and kicking when it was close to bust - excuse for anything they do forever, but for me everyone is decending into a mass state of panick and lynch mob mentality. Why not just turn up and watch those lads perform on the pitch. Is that not what we are, FANS? Whose first prioity is to get our s to as many terraces as we can and make as much noise as we can. Since the club have opened up a bit we really have come to think that we have a right to a say in the clubs running. When Lynda was invited to be on the board I said that it was a bad idea because of the reasons I have read on here with people having a pop at her for being there. We fans do not run this club. If you think that by saying you won't watch Leigh again - because of what is happening with this new realationship - you can alter the boards decision or bring it down, you are very much mistaken and completely out of order. If you don't want to watch Leigh then don't. I personally am giving my full backing to this as I personally can't be bothered with this anti Wigan campaign anymore. I can't even contemplate not watching my team and if you worked away like I do missing games you would be just like I am. We have'nt been playing that well this year so when the players get wind of the posts on here and their form drops, are you going to blame the club for that? Get a bloody grip and back the club instead of moaning. I want to see that team winning with local lads. Wigan is local to Leigh.

Spot on

Top Post

Voicing a concern is not being a lynch mob .
This is after all a independent message board people can post what they want on here as long as it stay within the rules of the aup.
I don't think anyone has stepped out of line on here.
If we wasn't so passionate about the club we wouldn't care about this arrangement .
Let's wait and see what happens.
I just hope it doesn't make cash-flow problem worse by losing more fans.
I just think we have good enough players of our own and hearing the fans say that won't that boost theitpr performances not see a drop in them ?

Our moral duty as a central pillar of our community to right by that community.

We're making right, as best as possible, the missteps of our sport funding body. We also can't do it on our own.

Mike, its a business

Or are you suggesting Leigh Centurions should start running under 6 teams? As I put earlier the RFL Sport England funding was almost undetectable in the Wigan Borough , and last time I looked there were more top level players from this borough playing RL than any other in the country

Sorry no guilt trip for me

I think those are things clubs as part of the community should aim for but as a Pro RL club I'd hope getting fans through the door was priority number 1 and then building your sports business (as thats what it is)

I'm a bit perplexed at where all this borough stuff has come from recently(even more so as to why Wigan with its millions over the years hasn't felt like doing the honourable thing to help all these kids in the borough) or why Leigh haven't mentioned much about it in the recent weeks with such vigour.

Whilst not living in Leigh (so you could say its easy for me not to be too fussed about how many kids play sport etc) I think the things you mention should be a aspiration after we have got the other things right - namely a semi successful club.
Alternatively if everyone is saying we want a successful club to show how well the borough is doing then you could say its already in place - its callled Wigan Warriors.
I'm sure you'd agree though that Wigan Warriors probably doesn't represent your part of the borough.

If we don't get it right, it will strangle our player pipeline and we'll pay a heavy price in 5-6 years time. It would be folly for us to allow our youngsters to be neglected, even if it shouldn't be our responsibility. Our governing body and sporting bodies have let us down, but the torch falls to us.

Have you had your body ' snatched ' ?

This borough provides something like 20% of the players in SL , that post is complete bollox

This borough HAS produced 20% of the talent in SL.

The foundation that provided that pathway has been or is being dissolved and we need to help fill that gap for our local players.

What ' Foundation ' ?

Apologies mate (and i'm not being sarcastic) but do you think this is our club saying we are struggling to get players or maybe in 10 years time we will struggle to get players because the RFL have stopped the funding so this is the main reason we should pool resources with Wigan ?

It confuses me because I'd say regardless of Leigh and Wigan either flooding the borough with coaches or doing nothing the 'borough' will still produce enough players for at least two Pro / Semi Pro teams coaching set up to work on and progress (not to mention the local schools and amateur clubs in the borough).

I suppose it still leaves unanswered that if its about replacing the work the RFL did then why put some Wigan U23's in Leighs squad now (or have the potential to do so this season) - they never did it when the RFL was looking after junior development and I'd say the borough has produced more top flight RL players than most areas of the UK.

As far as I understand it, the RFL payed for 1 community development officer in the Wigan and Leigh Borough, just 1 , please anybody correct me if I'm wrong

So how much actual junior player production were they responsible for ? , compared to over a dozen amateur clubs?

The loss of the Sport England funding will hardly be noticed in this borough

As I said, if anybody knows different for certain, please correct me

What about the loss of community coaches at pro and semi-pro club level? That's one thing that comes to mind without doing any research.

As for responsibility, we need to take responsible for ensuring that players can take a smooth development path at 16+ and that they're not left to develop solely with the amateur game and the inherent limitations that come with that.

What a load of bollox from Jenky & the North stand bloke & what may well have been the Chuckle Brothers to me to you Steve love , Lynda and Starbug alternating comments all day .

If your on the board Lynda why wasn't this little nugget " Leaked " ?

Let me help you out a bit the curse of Juniors Rugby ( and Leigh are as much responsible ) is this community / schorarship fiasco which takes 11 / 12 players each from the Easts and Miners U16's each and make these lads think they've made it and the other 10 lads in their teams won't get a game for months on end and so walk away ?

Of the 20 odd in the service area farce only 3 or 4 may be kept on , and of the 3/5th's of the ones released they bigged it up so much signing that they can't swallow their pride and return and and walk away and for the ones that do ........ there's no team left for them to return to



Now who's turn is it on the compy Lynda ? , is it Trev or Simon ?

WHO? , who Michael? How many community coaches did the 2 clubs have?

Tiswallace, can you expand and simplyfie this post, I think I know what you mean, but I just want to be sure

Sorry Lynda, not a lynch mob more a witch hunt. I just can't believe what I am reading on here. I hope it doesn't get so far as fans hating fans because that is a sure way of reducing crowds. Well done scare mongerers. Get over this hate Wigan thing people. We are Leigh and will always be Leigh.

I would still repeat so what has any of that got to do with immediate effect being allowed to put Wigan Warriors contracted players in Leigh Centurions squad.
However as I have clearly upset you by discussing what I feel is a huge mistake by the club I'd be wasting my time so instead I do apologise as its clearly offended you.

Trevor stated in the audio interview, which I am convinced you haven listened to attentively, that we lost funding for posts for both Gary Ecclestone and John Duffy as community coaches.

The DC part of things simply reflects the DC system from previous seasons, with two minor differences:

1) The RFL won't allow us to take DC players from a club we're not in a partnership with, so this limits our options to Wigan players where we had free range previously. In practice, we entered in to informal agreements with clubs like Warrington so always saw the value of building a relationship.

2) We can take 5 players instead of 4, though we have stated our intention is to restrict this to 4 in practice.

One thing that is clear is that this is causing an unnecessarily huge rift between a significant number of supporters, and I'm certain that the vast, vast majority are all 'time served' in one way or another, so I think it's a little below the belt to be starting some sort of überfan contest.

The club has already got my season ticket money so I'm sure I'll attend the Workington game (and other forthcoming games) and am prepared to see how this pans out, but it's an understatement to say that I'm extremely concerned as to how all these shenanigans may affect the club's long-term prospects, never mind the damage it is likely to do to the already dire need to improve attendances significantly.

Wish I knew the solution.

Duffy works/worked in Bolton , Gary was player performance manager, neither did junior development in Wigan borough , as I understood it Tommy Gallagher was the CDO in Wigan

And even so compared to over a dozen amatuer clubs, potentially hundreds of coaches, what impact would they really have % wise?