Frank it depends which way you look at it. For arguments sake say we want Player X but he's carrying water for W***n that week - we get offered Player Y or whoever they decide to make available instead. OK we always have the option not to use Player Y, but the point is our "partners" decide on a whim who's available to us on a weekly basis, so in that sense they do dictate who we are able to play. The old system of loans was much better but didn't offer as much control to the SL clubs.

Personally I haven't stayed away from any games or cancelled LISA/Lifeline etc over it, or as I agree those courses of action only hurt our club. However that isn't to say I support the DC system or our partnership with our neighbours - far from it. The club also shouldn't assume that the current fanbase is all in favour of duals and partnerships, just because we didn't all spit our dummies out.

My biggest current gripe with it at the moment is that we're also letting DR's take up spots in our U21s - spots we should be using to develop our own players. We already know we're losing Hoppy at the end of the season & should be pushing development of our own youngsters even harder with a view to accelerating the next one through to play for us next season - Bate, for example looks a good prospect and is no doubt the result of a lot of hard work in our youth setup. Identifying and signing our own young prospects offers the biggest benefit to development in general as it gives a chance to players who weren't initially snapped up by the W***n's etc, and hopefully results in players that would be contracted to Leigh should they make the grade. Any DR player in a U21 spot for me is preventing us developing one of our own, for very little benefit to their parent club, whilst also working against the interests of our own club, and so for me is just wrong.

While dual reg's are the flavour of the month I can see an argument that says we may have to put up with them. But I certainly don't like our current situation with them. IMO we should use them as little as possible, certainly not become reliant on them (as I feel we have with 1 of our forward spots each week), not allow them to prevent our own players stepping up (first example comes to mind I still haven't seen an answer as to what young Hill did wrong in the first team however no further opportunities since, while we've seen Lloyd & others brought into the team on occasions). And finally we should not let them interfere with our own development of our own young players in the U21s.

Apologies for the rant, and for continuing the deviation from the topic about Ryan btw

So now SL is shrinking I presume Ryan knows he is better off staying at a club where the fans want him and not bother commuting to Castleford every day ?

Great post Andy

Thanks Andy - once more an example of how useful and informative it is to have a member of the BOM communicate with us on this forum.

Excellent post Andy & Steve - thanks for clarifying things.

Great post Andy and very happy that you do post on here .Keep it up please .