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?

You know exactly what I mean Steve , after they've finished screwing with these kids dreams and then threw them back on the heap to swallow their pride and lick their wounds the team that was left behind has gone leaving them nowhere to go ........ ala Leigh Miners U16's and U18's last year .

The part of this that worries me is that a few weeks ago we were told we wouldn't be partnering with Wigan but now we have, this makes me a bit worried what else could change during the season.

But I will stick by my beloved Leigh RLC and will not turn my back on them despite not being happy with what as gone on and will still be at as many games as I can work permitting.

I give up on here. Enjoy trashng the club you idiots.

Was that aimed at me for my post Tony?

Steve has a tablet I have a laptop tiswallace

Infact we've a pc and laptop too but we don't take turns

I love this club and want what's best for it


I still can't see how it help us even after Trevor has given Dave that interview.

I hope it does work out ok and it works like what we had with wire but unless the same players are used it's not the same is it, we could in fact have 21 different wigan players over what's left of the season , please please tell me how that's helps us, as I don't understand.

I know our squad small and we've no money to bring in players if we get more injuries but surely it must fill the fringe players with confidence knowing they won't get a game due to us playing wigan players purely because other SL clubs decided to save money and get rid of the reserves grades.

That is where I thought you were going, in essence quite often the pro clubs abuse the juniors at the amateur clubs with false hopes and promises , then drop them

So it begs the question, are the pro clubs fit for purpose to oversee the junior development?

I'm paraphrasing the audio interview. If you'd like to call Trevor out as a liar then that's your call.



Do you ask me this question knowing that I'm in no possible position to be able to answer with any accuracy at all, expecting an answer or not?

Maybe we should just become sycophants and have done with it!