Quote ="Snowy"Man for Man, Fax have a fine squad and can play some top rugby. OK, you maybe lack a bit of depth but you can go toe to toe with Leigh and Fev thats for sure. Loosing and drawing silly games seems to be your achilles heel !
The Leigh board have done miracles this year and finishing in the top 2 this season is mere preparation with a majority of the SAME players being made up to FT next season. With crowds now topping 2500 and budgeting for 2000, the investment seems to be paying off.
I am in agreement that next season is the big one and top 4 a must. But with 2 SL sides going down, you would expect London and Bradford to be 2 of the 4 next season. Promotion next season is still heavily in favour for these fancied sides as the middle 8 will be 6 SL sides and 2 Championship sides In my opinion.
I feel this is the logic of finishing top 2 to finance what will be one hell of a competative division next season. Going FT can only help and the 500k would go a long way to helping that.
Leigh have taken a gamble, and it seems to be paying off.'"
Good post, I can see Bradford being competitive but there is a slight doubt as to whether London will go into free fall but lets say they don't.
That would have Bradford, London, Leigh, Fev and a couple more all vying for the top spots.
For Fax if this years form and results are the benchmark that would mean a very real chance of not getting into the top 4 and completely missing out on the 8 playing off for the SL places and the implications that would have both on and off the field.
The comment on the SAME players is also very apt.
Same players just on more money and it depends on whether or not a full time environment will improve their game as the return for the higher wages otherwise the club has now got more of a liability with little to show from the same group.
Others will be brought in but there is no guarantee these will be any better than those they replace, their is a shortage of quality in the game and rival clubs will not want to release their better players.
Paul Rowley is very shrewd when it comes to recruitment so if anyone can do it he can.
It is a bit of a gamble to try and take the next step but is it more of a gamble not to try with the danger of stagnation or going backwards, who knows, rugby league seems to be littered with clubs having problems in these areas as maintaining success year on year is hard to achieve with the resulting yo yo scenario.
