Here's a few of my thoughts on all of this - certainly never a dull moment around here, both in terms of club and sport!

1) The future of Leigh and the future of RL in the UK are closely intertwined. I think this is about the only thing that I have disagreed with, in everything that Andy (SRW) has posted on these message boards, which has been full of common sense, openness and pragmatism. He expressed the view that there was no point thinking about future formats of the game until Leigh's own future was sorted, i.e. the former is academic until the latter is achieved. I do beg to differ and here is why. Ultimately, it appears that there is still no sugar daddy on the horizon who is willing/able to sink hundreds of thousands of pounds every two or three years just to keep a club afloat. We may have investors who can contribute a decent amount but they will be looking for radical changes in order for the club to become, largely self-sufficient. There are certainly radical changes needed internally in aspects of budgeting, finance, marketing and general communication to name but four. But, ultimately, is anything that is done really going to amount to a hill of beans (to use a North American expression) without changes to the way the game operates. I believe that if the game adopts a good, new structure going forward then this will appeal to fans, which in turn will get them through the gates, which will generate sponsorship and investor opportunities. What the new proposals appear to offer, on the surface at least is that simple concept - hope. Hope that one day Leigh might be at the level that it needs to be and deserves to be - frankly a hope that has disappeared and left the I Beleighve campaign looking a bit daft to be honest. It is that same hope that will give us the reason to carry on. Yes, we cannot wait for the details to be finalized before we secure our existence BUT our existence only has purpose in the context of the overall game itself.

2) What excites me about any of the proposed structures is that they seem to have a decent chance of placing Leigh in a sensible place in the RL hierarchy. We have been, at best, a yo-yo club for time out of mind, not good enough for SL but with the potential, at least, to be too big for the Championship (in some years for certain). Suddenly, being in the second division of a 2 division SL sounds about right, as does being in the second of three divisions of 8 after the split mid-season. Both options give us a few games a season with, relatively, bigger club (OK London are smaller than us!) and the more radical option with the mid season split could cause some surprises and some bigger teams failing to make the top 8 and ending up with us. Better yet, there is a reasonable prospect that, in some years, we might find ourselves in the opening top 12 for the first half of the season and getting to play ALL the big teams at least once. What I also like about the most radical format proposed is that things keep moving and almost all games are going to have some kid of relevance - you have a bad season, it is not the end of the world you can still get back up there without having to go through a franchising rigmarole.

3) And there's that word - franchising. I haven't read too much media coverage but I have to say I am surprised that there has not been more said about the fact the franchising is being dropped. Note that there are three options on the table and franchising isn't one of them, having already been rejected. I suppose some credit is due to us flatcappers who have not gloated too much about the demise of a system that we knew was doomed from the start. But isn't it an incredible thing that the end of franchising should come to pass and at such relative speed? I honestly thought that the RFL would be too stubborn to budge and keep it until the whole game went bust.

What I think this confirms for us is that the architect of the whole franchise system was none other than Dicky Lewis. He was the one doing the interviews at the time, not Nige - it was Dickys baby. Now he has gone it looks like the RFL and the clubs cannot get rid of franchising quick enough! These new proposals now seem to be Niges baby and I haven't heard a thing on the subject from Brian Barwick.

4) Where does this leave the SL partnership with Championship clubs? If we go through with the radical proposal of 3x8 split - you could conceivably have a scenario where the "senior" and "junior" clubs end up in the same 8 - what happens then?

No system is going to be ideal on all fronts, but I have to say that this crazy 3x8 idea sounds increasingly interesting...

Martin

Some great points sir, and I'm also of the opinion that the imminent structure changes should be looked upon positively whatever they may be and I think while i personally may be caught up looking at the imeadiate future short term goals which is clearly to stabilise our club and give it some real solid foundations on which to finally view things long term and build a sustainable model, we need to make due considerations of the bigger picture your right.

The four main areas you mention that need a major overall and development will go a long way to make sure we not only have a long term goal but a realistic chance of achieving it.

It's key for me that we are hand in hand with the RFL and working closely with them love them or hate them which ever way they decide to go forward we can't attempt to fight the system or waste time back biting critising and questioning it whatever it may be we must formulate a plan and find a way to work with it and be successful. Being against or at loggerheads with the RFL won't ever help us.

While 90/95 % of people agreed with Alan Rowleys comments when Salford and Celtic were awarded licences professional people simply can't conduct themselves in that way a big lesson should have been learned from Steve O Conners measured and clam approach, he said the right things then walked away and built a plan to make sure they wouldn't miss the boat again. Before im shot done yes I appreciate he was a white knight figure with the money to do whatever he realistically wanted to but my point is he made an Widnes an align of the RFL and not an enermy and the main point is the way professionals conduct themselves in buisness and communicate not just to thier own staff/fans/community/ media but with the sports governing body is key.

I think from what I'm told Keith and Trevor to a lesser degree have worked on this the last couple of years and understood its importance so whoever takes things forward as the RFL rep may it be Keith or anyone else we need to continue to build on the work done over the last couple of years.

Cheers

Andy

Great post from 'maple leyther'.

The RFL has shown great interest, this past couple of years, in the way our club has been conducting some of its business. They are very impressed with the Player Pathway and also the self-sustainability model for running the club. (even though it obviously hasn't been the perfect solution for us - yet!)

Some good idea's from the OP.
2 football clubs I'm involved with each have a 'team of the week' (one calls it community club of the week) in which every home game a local junior football club is invited down to parade around the pitch at half time, they get a write up in the programme and are afforded free entry for the children and the managers / helpers who arrive in the club jackets /strip- frequently
the family's come along as well.
Maybe at Leigh we could have a half time game of junior RL (I forget what its called but its what we had success at doing at Hilton Park when the club was last run as a community club that was visually good to see with small mini RL games) with two such clubs with helpers invited in.

I do however understand where Starbug is coming from, as playing sport doesn't mean you might follow that team you play for but done right and if we had links through the club for the players I'm sure we would could get that to work for us especially if caught at a early age (7 - 10 years old) ,your creating young fans that ensure you have a future as they will either play for you or support you - get the links with East , Miners and all clubs in the area formed as a matter of
urgent/ priority along with every single school and nursery school.

The new options being placed on the table worry me on 3 fronts

1 How are the finances going to be distributed fairly ?

2 Will this result in clubs once again just expecting the structure of the competition to provide the extra income through the turnstiles , rather than working hard to make their own clubs improve ?

3 This once again , like the under 23 / DR fiasco is a case of the RFL , supposed the governing body and the ' Leaders ' of our Sport abdicating their reponsibilities just because they havent a clue what they are doing ? , bearing in mind I attended the NL council meeting when the Salary Cap was introduced and the complete lack of understanding of even the simplest functions of clubs by the RFL was plain to see

I hear this term used so often , and yet I still dont understand exactly what it entails ?

One thing is for sure 'IMO,any club that gets it wrong this time is done for as an independant club.Because when the format that is chosen fails,as it surely will, then the next option will be full on franchising and ther'll be no going back from that

You get a pat on the head for devoloping players for other clubs

That was going to be the 4 th front I was worried about , and it is the RFL letting the clubs choose that worries me , if you want to avoid putting your name to something you think probably wont work , pass the buck to someone else , then you get to keep your job when it fails

JC sometimes in life you have to be optimistic.

When you get into a mindset of everythings going wrong and always will do you'll have nothing to hope for.

You cant go on keep making the wrong decisions and expect to keep getting another chance.
Wind the clock back to the early 2000s and we were a pretty good club,we were only stopped from progressing by huddersfield & salford who were allowed to stay pro.

I feel we have that oportunity again if the club makes the right decision NOW,if they dont then you i are just going to get older and watch the club go further and further backwards.

I'm genuinely sorry mate but i see no reason to be optomistic with everything that has happened at this club in the last 18 months

We've known for a while that sl clubs have the power in rl so unless sky cut there funding for sl or other broadcasters come in and pay good money directly to the rfl then nothing is going to change soon