He is staying in Super League with Widnes, as is Joe Mellor.

Bloody mutants......if its not Basil you can expect it to be them.......................think theyre still upset at all the good hidings we give em when they were in the Championship - its their way of getting back at us....

Semmingly all SL clubs except Salford have now formed "partnerships" with Championship clubs some have two.
Wigan have partnered with Leigh and South Wales Scorpions. Wolves with Swinton.
This is to allow SL players not eligible for the SL Under 19 and not selected for the 1st team to be available to the partnership and is a step further from the loan/dual registration that has operated.
Now Championship clubs will only be able to receive players on dual registration from their partner club. clubs not in partnerships will only be able to take players on loan. However loans will still be available to all Championship clubs. Clubs can have any amount of dual registered players but i understand that its not been decided how many can play in a team i believe 4,5 or 6 are the options.
Will it work not sure, benefits to Champioship clubs dual registration will cost nothing, loans will.

Where does it say Leigh and wigan have partnered.

Do you have s full list of SL clubs and their feeders All this is not good for season ticket sales etc. Especially if you are wrong

But can the CC clubs all afford the £50-£60 K to run these teams?

Has anyone mentioned the coaching staff that will come with this feeder league from the SL team? Who has the final say who plays? How much input does the parents' clubs coach have? Will the club be able to get a franchise , being a feeder club. After all it was the SL clubs that VOTED to do away with the junior teams.

Nonsense. Well at least as far as Leigh are concerned.

I Think you will find the deal has been done with Wigan I expect to see 7 or 8 Wigan players in our under 23s team for next season
I do not think the C.E.O and the board of Directors of the Leigh realise the past History between both clubs
This is what makes a game between Leigh and Wigan so special the feud between both clubs has existed for many years and now the CEO (who is not a Leyther ) and the board want to destroy all this and tie us up with Wigan
The only club that will benefit from this move is Wigan as Leigh’s fewer than 23s will have to make way for the Wigan Players hence weakening Leigh for the future
Why do we need to tie up with Wigan?
If this happens another season ticket gone

Why isn't the club putting out a statement telling us exactly where they stand on the matter .I know they said at the forum meeting it wasn't going to happen but all this has come out since and I think the fans would want to know .

Believe we only spent half of the allowed salary cap this season so yes we can afford to run the reserves next season and it always as been the plan to start it up again next season.

U23s only......i could stomach that...just

Your coach too will have to stomach it , as he could become nothing more than an assistant coach to the Wigan coach. Is he strong enough to tell the Wigan coach he is not picking a certain Wigan player over his own? The team that is Twinning with Leeds are even to have an assistant coach from the Leeds camp.

We only spent a fraction of the salary cap, because that's all we can afford. Same this coming season.

Maybe nothing has been finalised - hence nothing else to say. The club has said they WILL NOT become a feeder club though. A joint arrangement at under 23's is a different matter, whereby both clubs can save money by running a joint team, funded by both clubs.

As for the coaching, Paul is our Head Coach and will surely not be assistant to anyone. He's signed about 20 players (off the top of my head) and they are his first team squad. I'm confident that no Wigan Under 23 player will take precedence over any of that first team squad, who we have spent our precious funds on. I'm also of the opinion that Paul would try to avoid D/C arrangements if he can.

The idea that a Leigh coach would take instructions from a Wigan coach or indeed any other clubs coach is ridiculous.

Really hope it doesn't happen and i'm sure you know more than me Alan . The team Paul has picked has/will really gel together very nicely and we don't want anything upsetting all the hard work the club and Paul has put into this team ,as for the under 23s I suppose thats a different matter .

If thats the case Alan then surely it should be us sending players to there u23s to help bring them up to the required standard and not bringing sl u23s down to "what is in effect" below amateur level.

Sl clubs now only run one seniorish team below first team and that's U19s. An absolute joke.

I don't think so, j.c. if that U 23 side is competing against similar 'joint' sides.

I think this matter needs clarifying because of Season Ticket sales could be affected over this.

I think doing it the right way is better, and maybe we won't lose the hardcore fans by sticking to this. But if fans are staying away because we can't get the monkey off our backs by winning a playoff game against unfashionable teams already, then they are hardly going to turn up when getting thumped by the Hunslet Rhinos etc.
Its a real pickle. And it kind of highlight the selfishness of some clubs (not just in SL), because if one or 2 clubsgo down this route then you get other clubs getting sweeped away by it as well. Otherwise they will fear missing out.

Also some have said the competition up to now has been relatively untouched and prospered because of this. I disagree. How many threads have we had on here about so and so is in the Warrington Squad meaning not playing for us etc? The DC players wasn't our players, and so we have already had agreements with SL clubs deciding when players they lend us play or not.

That's under the normal loan dc rule of 4. Not 6-10 like you will see at swinton. Plus we never had 4 at all last season (i don't think). And if you think the dropping of 20s and 18s at sl level is good then you know nowt.

They wer already competing against similar sides Alan.

Leigh,swinton ,york,dewsbury etc could have just handed over £50k to a sl club and said please help us to devolope some of our players in your u23s

Everyone who supports Leigh RLFC' plus the board and coaching staff know already we can NEVER ever be Wigan's feeder club.

No statement is needed. We have a club with ambition. Does anyone seriously think that becoming Wigans feeder club is possible ? Be sensible folks.

Having a reserve side is vital and doing so by allowing contracted Wigan youngsters into our reserve side will not effect our first team because our coaching staff are as Leigh daft as I am. This will save our club money and is sensible.

10 contracted Wigan players in our first team forgive me but it will never happen and is not even a possibility.