I don't disagree with most of that. I certainly agree the car he drives and what he does with his money is irrelevant. It's his money, he should spend it how he likes.

I think for me it's more the manner he does things. It's perhaps a small distinction, but fans could have been told that they can't sign extra players unless more income is generated, without effectively saying "we want this player, could you chuck us some money into a bucket to pay for him?". It's the same result, but just the way it's handled that can be better. I don't know how to best explain what I mean if I'm honest.

You're right he doesn't owe Leigh anything, but the club are in a hole right now - in part due to his poor decision making - and they need players as a matter of urgency. I referenced his car to demonstrate that he can clearly afford the £15k.
However some Leigh fans seem to think that Gregg was signed a while ago and the extra money will actually be used to sign further players so I have no idea what's going on.

Neither do we! Our owner says he has taken a back seat, but we aren't sure if he is capable of doing that.

I find the plea for cash from fans highly embarrassing, especially as we have basically been treated like mushrooms recently, and LISA has been virtually ignored, while the owner 'didn't need their cash'. I think it would be far more reasonable to ask sponsors to come up with the extra cash to pay Gregg. (and I believe it is extra, as in extra to our agreed contract limits) Goodness knows who wrote that plea - it certainly can't have been our Communications Director, who is a highly respected former author, sports columnist and broadcaster, and the English is bad, even by our owner's standards!

And finally, if Gregg is being used as a subterfuge to raise more 'readies', then that would be disgraceful, given the lad's family circumstances, and his strong affinity to Leigh and it's fans.

More than that, Alan, there must be a question mark over whether it is legal.

IF it is true - as some are claiming - that McNally has actually already signed, you can't really be going public on the club website and saying...



I just hope, for the fans sake, this doesn't back to bite you

LISA secretary Lynda Pike has confirmed on Facebook that Greg has signed for us. They will sponsor his shirt, and part fund his contract. This despite raising just 4k, of the 15K that was allegedly needed to sign McNally

Are you sure of this ? , I think you'll find she has suggested that with the uptake so far , which is currently over half of the amount requested we should be ale to sign him

With regards Derek's choice of transport , holiday and his actual spending preferences then , they are his to do however he wants , bearing in mind he essentially subsidised our match tickets by 100-200% to get us into SL he has every right to this year ask the fans to finance the club by purchasing tickets , any extra like supporting LISA is purely voluntary , and no matter how badly it has been termed everybody has a choice to either support or not

Unfortunately I think you are right. He will also see it as what he did last year saved the club. He obviously saw last years performances coupled with no middle 8s, with at the very least Toronto still in the League and decided to keep his money in his pocket regardless of player welfare.

I agree on the Leigh fans even when Beaumont created the big rivalry always good people to come across and that first game at LSV was fantastic the atmosphere was brilliant

Not a bad assumption on 2018, we had too many new faces with the wrong attitude signed by a bloke with no affinity to the club who was given free reign to do so by the bloke providing the cash.
A number of the squad had no respect for the badge or the comp and their lifestyles showed that personally I would have fekked them all off in Feb.
I also believe he is taking a sabbatical this year but I have also heard we have an owner in waiting looking on as to how we perform as a club this season - we host MUFC Women and under 23's at the ground - its amazing the money that now walks into the stadium - the joys of being a RL fan eh

Indeed! On the face of it the squad was good enough in my opinion to better Toronto and London. He obviously had loyalty to Jukes and maybe wanted to save face by not getting rid of Cunningham early as it would show he made a mistake employing him to start with.

Its really good to see your team assembled this year with a heartbeat of Leigh in it. Also depending if you do dual reg with Saints and what players you may get you could be a dark horse for that 5th spot too in my opinion

Hard to disagree with any of that. People shoot me down when I say I think Leigh have recruited quality. They’ve done a Bradford in terms of recruiting players from the area or at least ones who have Leigh in their hearts (Ridyard, McNally, Pownall etc). They will be a tough team to beat. Really looking forward to the Bradford v Leigh games again!

They still need a lot more players imo. That squad is nowhere near big enough and dual reg can only help so much. It's also risky to rely on dr players because there's no guarantee that they'll be available week in week out.
It's a long season and this is a very tough league, I don't think Leigh will make the top 5. I think it's a building process for them now, just like it is for us really. Aim to finish as high as possible and just go from there. Boom and bust is a fool's game.

Their backs look decent but their forwards look mid championship level at very best and a 20 man squad is not going to cut it. They are probably at least 7 players away from even thinking about top 5.

As we all know dual reg and loans are all very well until they’re recalled. We had a slim possibility of staying up in 2017 but that was utterly scuppered at Easter when we had all our dual reg and loanees recalled. We never recovered.

I think Leigh will surprise a few early on in the season but the lack of depth will be their undoing. Mid table at best I think but given how bleak things looked a couple of months back that isn’t bad at all.

Signing announced by Leigh today. A lot of good things said about Andrew Chalmers, John Kear & Stuart Duffy, by Gregg and John Duffy. https://leighrl.co.uk/wp/blog/2019/01/1 ... g-mcnally/

Signing announced by Leigh today. A lot of good things said about Andrew Chalmers, John Kear & Stuart Duffy, by Gregg and John Duffy. https://leighrl.co.uk/wp/blog/2019/01/1 ... g-mcnally/

If we (leigh)finish in the top half of the league then that is a very good season considering were we were a couple of months ago and if we're very lucky with injuries we could finish in the top 5 but I would be surprised,but u never know just like who thought London would go Toronto in million pound game and win..its sport and anything's possible
P.S good luck to yourselves this year because a strong Bradford is good for rugby and ur supporters deserve to be at the top table the way u've backed the team these last couple of years