I said this on the wigan forum but will repeat it here, who doesn't live a team of plucky lovable underdogs like Zak Hardaker?

Fair play to Leigh on their success. But you have to wonder how sustainable it is without a youth system. When are they allowed to get one? They could end up winning the double, but aren't allowed an academy system? That has to be rectified surely? Otherwise when they come to renew contracts and sign new players, they'll never be able to afford their stars if they're not allowed to top up the squad with young players like the big clubs are allowed to.

They can still have an academy can't they it just isn't deemed to be "elite" or whatever the word was that they used.

But that makes it entirely pointless. I was speaking to Adrian Morley and a few others at Salford last year about their academy work. They are desperate for an elite academy. If you don't have that status everything is limited. The number of sessions you can have is restricted, the number of players they can deal with is, the number of matches they can play is limited to four or so. Salford try to get around it by attracting players through a college system, but because they can't sign players at scholarship age, all the best players are already taken. Even when they do get players into the college program, anyone who shows potential is snapped up by one of the elite academies. It makes it impossible to attract and sign any of the better players and there are a lot of high potential players in Leigh and Salford.

There should be a framework for what a club has to provide and the standards it needs to maintain for an elite academy, but no club should be barred from having one if they can meet those.

Didn't know about that with the number of games etc. I just presumed it was related to funding.

Hopefully with the IMG system academies and reserves become the norm again.