Where does this over confidence come from Leigh supporters. crap team, crap fan base, crap chairman etc... Yet they believe they can attract any player. Unreal

i have to disagree. They're ambitious, with a determined and ambitious chairman who stood up to Salford over the Hock nonsense. They have a cracking little stadium, decent fan base and are a very entertaining team to watch who beat Salford, Wakefield and almost pipped Wire in their own backyard. They also have a great history.

Good luck to them.

The Leigh owner does spout some rubbish! like having spoken to a QC and he will break the salary cap, though that may have been before they just seem to tire out in all recent games!

Do not agree 3k vs Bradford for a do or die game is shocking. Especially when Bradford took quite a lot of support. There chairman constantly getting into arguments on twitter and admitting he will break the cap. All good and we'll winning a few games but they couldn't do it with the games that matterd. If saints win nothing this year do you look back and say well at least we won Wigan and Leeds in pointless games. The team itself is constantly playing with a certain attitude that's resulting in plenty of bans. Every time I watch them there's at least one punch up. The club needs to lose its billy big attitude and fast

Not over confidence from me! I heard a whisper that's all the lad is tremendous that's why I said I don't think it's likely

They got over 6k for the Challenge Cup game against Salford and took a load to Wakefield and Warrington which shows that they can and would pull a crowd in Super League.

It's all just fizzled out for them this season and they (team and fans) must have felt pretty deflated by the middle 8's. Hence the poor attendance.

And I don't blame the players, chairman or the fans to be honest. They should be allowed to break the salary cap. It's incredibly unfair that the Super League clubs get twice the salary cap than the Championship clubs, meaning that the likes of Wakefield can be turd through the regular season knowing they can pick up a few big signings like Locke (signing then specifically for the middle 8's to then let them go when the job is done) before the middle 8's thus making it almost impossible to compete with them.

It all needs sorting out. Leigh, Halifax, Bradford, Sheffield and even Fev could have easily mixed it with the bottom half SL clubs during the regular season.

The cap is 1m (plus benefits that the championship clubs can exploit) vs 1.65m for SL clubs(with benefits the lower teams probably can't exploit). The gap really isn't that big, especially considering the majority of the lower SL teams aren't spending up to the cap...

As for mid season signings - how is Leigh signing Higham and Hock any different to Wakefield signing Locke? It happened earlier in the season (whose to say Locke wouldn't of signed for Wakefield earlier if he were available?) but all mentioned signings were for 1 purpose ...

What makes you say that? Out of those clubs only Leigh made any headway in the cup.

FWIW I think Leigh have suffered from having the quality of personnel to allow them to play a reckless, cavalier style of rugby throughout the Championship season. They've been able to take undue risks all year because their opposition haven't been strong enough to punish them when those risks backfired. They then haven't been able to adapt their game to playing at a higher standard on a weekly basis, where a smarter approach to the game is required.

The difference between able to spend £650,000 or not is pretty big mate, especially for a team in the championship with ambitions. That could be the difference between have a quality pair of halfbacks and a fullback or even more than that. It's a lot of money.

But it's not 650k - iirc only Salford are spending up to the SL cap in the middle 8s and the others are 1.2m - 1.5m. Then consider the fact that Leigh's (for example) homegrown players (Higham and Ridyard jump out) only count for 40k on the cap your looking at a difference as low as 50k (if at all) for a 25 man squad.

Fev were incredibly unlucky against the Catalans in France. They were missing several players and got pipped by a few points (37-34) Batley 'almost' won against Widnes (26-22). Bradford got beat by the finalists 50-30. Sheffield got beat against Hull I think 30 odd 12. Halifax admittedly took a beating off Wakefield but my point is, they were competitive scorelines. They weren't 30,40+ margin tonkings.

That salary cap difference does make the difference.

Ok mate, you're clearly more clued up on this than me, however, it's still a difference isn't it? It's not the same...8 teams thrown together but 4 of them are allowed to spend over half a million more. That's not a level playing field.

Saints not being able to play Lomax this week is a bigger hamstring to the squad than the championship clubs COULD have. If SC were the sole factor, Oldham wouldn't have won promotion in the bottom 8s.

The championship clubs have 2 options, flood their team with unsuccessful SL players, and get found out against actual SL teams - or develop their own, and get handsome bonuses from it, and build promotion from the bottom up. The first option was the way of 1 up 1 down and created some of the least competitive teams SL has seen.

I'd suspect you could fit the Saints/ Wigan squads into a championship salary cap (maybe losing one).

It should be done like football! If Leigh can afford to we should be able to spend sl cap as we are expected too match the sl teams too get promoted! I love the new system I just think it needs a transfer window like football were it is a level playing field! I Think there is a buzz around rugby league. I'm not one of these for excuses if we were good enough we would go up!

Is promotion to SL the goal, or being competitive in SL when you enter the competition?