My concern is if new teams go straight in to a league, and take a beating week in week out, then come 10-12 games in, will they last a season? I think Latchford in Div 2 had serious problems last year due to the lack of numbers.

Also, should an 'A' team be denied the right to progress up the leagues? Our 2nds are now in Div 1 after starting in Div 6.

IMHO, the Hindley & Milnrow situation last season was wrong - they both should have been in a much higher league.

And just to clarify, and I can make the assumption that mmp was talking about us as we are the only club with a 3rd team, our firsts and seconds had matches both times we played you. If anything, we had a few 3rd team regulars out with injuries when we played at your place.

Good luck in Div 5, I hope you have a successful season and are able to continue the good work already started. Hopefully there will soon be a junior section at your club, as in the long run, thats where the biggest part of our squad come from - progression from Junior to Open Age.

sorry....i wasnt refering to anyone in particular just making a general point. (though simmies have three sides and mayfield will as well this year).

It's no problem - it can be a bit annoying when you turn up to play a team and end up playing their first team pack!

yup...especially when you consider members of our pack have never played until this year...

which is why its tough to have A teams mixed with 'development clubs'. having myself played the likes of newton, blackburn etc., and with us having beated eccleston and westhoughton, i'm looking forward to teh new season as it also gives us better scope to grow the club...

firts couple of games we had it advertised and a bout 100 showed up. but with the first two failures to show we decided to stop advertising as it was too much hassle...

Agree with that in principle - though I do feel it's more vital for a new side to get regular games - players can handle losing, but putting all that hard work in and being let down on match days, going months without a game, etc, is more disheartening imo.

The issue of 'A' teams is a tricky one. There has to be some form of guarantee they will turn out as much as single team clubs, but I agree they should get a fair shot. Some second/third teams seem to play as and when they feel like it, and some don't really seem to have enough players, and it's those that make life difficult for the rest, who do the league justice.

Who do you play for mate?

come on billy...! it's leigh east obviously...?!

Shut it Palin.



You're obviously feeling better after your dodgy turn at training last night!

simmies dont have three teams

one in the prem and their A team in div 6

I remember this when it happened as i played for Langworthy and was also on the committee. IIRC and not sure if the rules are the same these days but if you played in the premier or division 1, failing to fulfil a fixture caused automatic relegation, however as you moved down to div 2,3,4 you can miss 2 fixtures and then at the time was 5,6,7 was 3. This was the reason Woolston who won the league that year were told that they would not be promoted. Then Haresfinch appealed their relegation and won so it wouldn't be them that were relegated and Woolston would be wasn't it? I can see why Woolston were upset but they were the rules as outlined. I dont think Woolston were favourites with Barla at that time anyway were they after the Wizards joining the summer conf and we all know how Barla feel about progression in RL.

Spot on.
The challange cup was the reason we missed the game too. We had asked for a free so that Warrington Woolston (pre-Wizards!) could play in the challenge cup but the weather was bad and the game got postponed. The challenge cup gane was played the following week instead and we were refused a free date for it - hence not playing the fixture. Stupid thing was the game that we would have played would have been postponed!

await great 'debate' about fixtures tonight at league meeting...

GB v Aus at Wigan is a mid afternoon kick off - I imagine many clubs will want a free weekend then

Ayy club taking up the RFL ticket offer will mena that they want a free weekend of the 4 National Final

and i imagine many clubs will wnat a free the weekend of the Grand Final...

I think they agreed there wouldn't be fixtures for the Grand Final, but I'm sure they said no free weekends.

yup...

but can clubs really not take the £1,000 option on going to internationals? I still want to take the two weekends of the internationals off...

Fixtures came out last night - each secretary got their division only:

Div 5 - 5th Sept

Blackburn v Bolton
Westhoughton V Saints Wild Boar
Chorley v Newton
Waterhead v Eccleston
Bury v Hindley
Wigan Bulldogs v Rochdale Cobras

Tough start for your lot, best of luck anyway!!

it gets worse...

Away at Cobras second game...

Worst pitch I have ever played on at cobras.

Nah, the worst is higginshaw by far, never had to climb so much just to get to a pitch, coming down was just dangerous

Bleedin hell



We start the valentine cup tonight against cadsihead, i'm not playing because my ankles buggered after doing a full pre season aswell

Don't even know if im going to be right for the start of the season, its so annoying!!!

The Cobras pitch was on the side of what felt like Ben Nevis. One wing was okay, the other wing was likened to no mans land in WW1, well over ankle deep in the brown stuff.

Cant wait to start the season - a shame about Milnrow tbh I was looking forward to playing them again.



I'm sure Bury will be a tough game - always harder to start your season away imo

Started off with a win in the valentine cup yesterday against Cadishead 28-12. Not bad for our first run out a bit rusty and lots of dropped ball, but all in all not bad considering we only kicked 2 goals and had 3 trys disallowed for forward passes.

Can't wait for the season now even our A teams looking fairly strong at the mo, just need everyone to keep at it!!!

Could be a few upsets this season in our league. Not much known about the newer teams so it will be hard to prepare. Looks like we will be going into the season with only one pre season game against a tough st judes side. Can't wait for next saturday!!!

we (I) know this lot pretty well...played weshoughton and eccleston as bury, and i've played before at newton. blackburn and bolton are our neighbours so to speak and the rest we played last year other than chorley

Full Provisianal Fixture list [urlhttp://nwcarl.leaguerepublic.com/gen/ListPublicFixture.do?selectedDivision=8293033&selectedTeam=&selectedDate=&selectedCompetition=&selectedFixtureStatus=&selectedFixtureDateStatus=1[/url

Use the drop down boxes to change divisions, filter dates etc.
Fixtures subject to cange, Cup comps etc.