Having just watched Cas v Widnes I would say the chances of promotion to SL look slim for any Championship Club including ourselves.

The general pace of play & especially the PTB is far quicker than what even the best Championship Clubs become acclimatised to.
Herein lies the problem 'acclimatisation', while we & Bradford/London are used to the pace of our League & the intensity or lack of regarding a real challenge other than the top 3/4, to suddenly step up to SL standard is a big ask.

Now I say it is "a big ask" but NOT impossible, the timing has to be good, meet a faltering SL team who are low on confidence while simultaneously being on an upward curve, hitting form & being high on confidence & it all swings to being very much do-able.

This year more than last we have a higher level of quality running much deeper throughout the squad, recruitment has been outstanding barring Tonga & Rangi.
Some of the guys who have come in late are doing a fantastic job, Smith, Hood, Drinkwater, Travis Burns.

Last season would have been probably the ideal time to hit SL, Wakefield were shocking, KR were there for the taking & should have been tucked up in bed with a rusk & an ickle blanky before their come back.
Salford were unpredictably poor/good week to week & we got them away on the wrong week.

The way we just crumbled at the business end might just be less likely this season with the likes of Higham, Hanson, Paterson to lead us round the field.

Hope we get Leeds at home & see 10,000 on at the LSV. I also hope that this team hits form bang on time for the 8's & we might have a chance.

#BeLeighve

Speed is definitely an issue and the team's near the top of our league try to play with it but are often stopped by spoiling tactics from the lower opposition, this is where the refs have to step up and allow faster PTBs etc.
We need as much intensity and fast games as we can get, then, and only then will we be able to compete, and even then I think as part time we will struggle over a 7 week period due to the turnaround.

I watched Leigh play Bradford whilst in Marbella, and I must say that the PTB and line speed in that game was almost up to SL standard. Leigh have a stronger pack this season for which should be able to place a tackled player on their backs therefore delaying more PTB's to a dominant tackle. Its the backs this year that is the issue, but SL clubs are forward dominated so our playing style has adapted to that.

I will be honest in saying that I feel there will be no promoted Championship clubs again this year, but 2 years of stability and having the ability to spend money on quality players, maybe next year IS the chance for a club to be promoted.

Its great to have a chance to be promoted, albeit by a format which seems to be unfair purely on the intensity alone.

Think the whole point of The Qualifiers idea is to allow clubs to grow progressively. Under all 1 up 1 down promotion the gap between the leagues was (& still possibly still is) so big anyone who went up had to gamble huge sums of money trying to stay up. Qualifiers, the additional money to the Championship & the sliding scale of funding allows Championship teams to improve & get a bit of experience playing SL teams to improve each year. I think the Championship is improving & will carry on to do so meaning someone will have a good chance of going up. Biggest worries are as has been mentioned the quality of refereeing in the Championship is so poor teams may struggle to step up when playing SL teams with SL refs. Also with the constant talk of SL salary cap any increase in that will push the gap between SL & Ch even bigger.

I thought I read somewhere, early in the season, that the top Championship teams would be allocated SL refs, so that when the Qualifiers arrive, they will know what to expect from the SL refs? I know there is currently a shortage of refs, but we have had a lot of Championship One officials, with the exception of Chris Kendall and Sam Ansell, who are 'fringe' SL officials. Of course, we always get James Child, when we play at Bradford!!