Not what I heard but I'm prepared to be corrected if you have some way of corroborating your story!

Great post.

I get all you have said there, but there is nothing new. Superleague teams (including Wakefield) have a larger cap than Championship teams. That has always been the case. Your argument seems to be how and when Wakefield spend that money and the fact is that our current wage bill is probably lower now than it was earlier in the season.

Were not looking for any, it would be helpful though, if you persist in sticking your nose into our clubs business that you got your facts right instead of making it up as you go along to suit your agenda, trying to explain owt to you is like trying to hammer a nail into a knot in a plank of wood.

If I paid all my staff three months money up front, next months wage bill will be low also

oooooh, controversial Mo

I would disagree with the "there is nothing new" statement. There is something new. Previously in order to gain promotion Championship sides only had to compete with other Championship sides and be the best of that competition. Now to gain promotion we have to face off in a league against Super League opposition with the SL salary cap, SL overseas quota etc etc. The increased salary cap for the Championship has helped and has let a few teams go Full Time. But I think this middle 8's is already showing that the gap is bigger than some expected. I will admit that the past 2 weeks have been a bit of a wake up call to me after we swept all before us for the past 2 years.

I think more needs to be done to rearrange funding in order to make this new format work properly. By that I mean more to close the gap between bottom of SL (£1.8m funding with 1.8m cap) and top of Championship (£750k-£500k with 1m cap) and also to close the gap between the top of the Champ (£750k) to bottom of the Champ (I think about £200k?) otherwise I think there will be little to no change to the status quo under the new format.

Agreed once again. For me the salary cap for clubs outside of SL should be something like £1.3m or £1.4m to give the clubs, outside of SL a realistic chance of achieving SL. I also think that a deadline of 4 weeks should be implemented before the super 8s.

Isn't this common practice in the Borough of Wigan

Kevin Locke's salary is minimal and the other wages sit on the Salford salary cap and are the subject of legal actions being pursued by both parties.

Wakefield fans aren't looking for anything here other than to defend the club against scurrilous insinuations by Eddie Hemmings and Paul Rowley.

He's not on loan!

I know, realised as soon as I posted it



Deleted the post, not quite quick enough

Not sure about that, without checking the RFL rules though I am pretty certain that Kevin Lockes salary sits on Wakefield's cap regardless of whether they pay him that or not.

Well I think Leythers (including Paul Rowley) should stop moaning and get on with it.

We knew the rules before the season started. AFAIK no rules have been broken and Wakey have only done what anybody else in their position would have done. We ourselves have done it, even including paying a 50k transfer fee for a player which is virtually unheard of these days. Sure there is an imbalance in funding, but we have had the benefit of an imbalance all season long in the Championship.

It seems to me to a lot of Leythers these last 2 matches have been a rude awakening and now all sorts of excuses are coming out of the woodwork which there have been no mention of before. We even had Leythers embarrassing us on other forums blaming the referee for our result at Salford.

If we don't make SL it will be because we weren't good enough. Then we'll have to wait and see what happens next year.

(Blue touch paper lit, stands well back)

That's fair enough.But unless the salary cap increases for clubs outside of SL, I'm afraid we might just be flogging a dead horse.

Well I agree with that. Whatever happens I'll still be watching the Leythers.

I think you are right and to a certain extent I do sympathise as it is a massive task to be expected to compete with the discrepancy between the two caps. This raises then then question of whether a team in the Championship should be allowed to spend more if they can afford it. However, Leigh would still be in a similar situation where they were hammering the opposition all year, then having to cope with the increased intensity for the middle 8s.

Well this would give a slightly better chance if that was the case.

The intensity of the league around us is the problem, I think the difference in finances can be overcome.

The only potentially practical solution I've come up with would be to reduce SL to 10 teams, which would introduce another 2 full-time teams to the Championship whilst also freeing £2m/season to fund other clubs in the Championship. This could result in a Championship league with as many as 5-8 full-time squads. That should raise the playing bar significantly.

Obviously the middle 8 format would then need to be adapted.

You would then have a bigger 'have' and 'have not' situation. I find it somewhat tiresome that fans who were gloating when their cash advantaged team was battering the poorer Championship teams and now they are bleating because they are losing to teams with more cash than them.

BTW, good post Pat.

I think that this subject has kind of run it's course now, but I wish to throw out a slightly different question.

Next season, SL clubs get a Marquee signing outside of the cap, obviously within it's own cap, how much is this Marquee signing amount & if Championship Clubs are not allowed a Marquee signing as I believe they are not, will this just make the gap & therefore task of gaining promotion even greater.

As far as tomorrows match is concerned, I expect Leigh will put in a much stronger performance, but ultimately I fear a narrow-ish loss, maybe 6 to 10 point margin.

For next season, I expect the RFL will impose a recruitment cut off period on all teams to avoid this seasons debacle, personally I feel 4 to 6 weeks to be fair, then it wouldn't be so much of an issue.

Hope both sets of fans enjoy the match, but Leigh fans more so than Wakey obviously.

See you all in the North Stand.

That's being negative. What would you like then? Let's leave it as it is, and then the 4 SL clubs go back up, and then the same happens next year, and then they say THIS ISN'T WORKING, then go back to franchise,and then will we be satisfied then. FWIW we are discussing the issues that are unfolding,and giving opinions on how we can improve the chances of clubs outside of SL a realistic chance to get into SL. IMO it as unfolded to be a bit of a farce, but it is what it is and we have to get on with it. there are 5 games to go and i sincerely hope we can get promoted. COYL

"It has unfolded to be a bit of a farce", possibly but that is based on two poor performances when some of the 'stars' were found out to be poor against good opposition. A few weeks ago this new set up was the best thing since sliced bread and we were charging up to the Super League.

The Qualifiers can't be judged so early by anyone. Yeah, it gives the likes of Wakefield a second chance at staving off relegation; but that apart, it's a chance for a Leigh to maybe get into the big time again. And when was the last time we had that opportunity?

If we beat Wakey tomorrow things will look differently again.

All this talk of superior salary caps, etc, isn't going to change anything.

At the very worst, Leigh can easily finish 5th in this mini league. And who in the whole of rugby league wouldn't fancy us in a one-off match?

All to play for, people! ALL to play for.

BeLEIGHve.

I don't think the farce as been based on our two recent poor performances.

FWIW. I think we are better than those last two games, and PR & Co have done a magnificent job with the resources available, and i don't think we are that far off.

At the end of the day, it's given us (and Bradford, Halifax, and Sheffield) something to aim at. That's more than we had under franchising. At the moment, all four Championship teams are 'off the pace', plus the bottom four SL teams have woken up to what awaits them if they mess up these qualifiers.

However, if any of the four Championship teams can up their game, we could still have an embarrassed SL team or two, in there.

As for the 'uneven playing field' and lack of a signing deadline, hopefully these are issues that can/will be addressed before next season. However, whilst they do seem to be issues at the moment. the whole set of qualifiers has to be played out, before tweaks to the system can be discussed.