It’s definitely Leigh’s to lose next season. No other teams comes close. Leigh will replace Salford for 2023

If you had so much home grown talent, same as Leigh. Put it on the pitch and stop pitching tripe.

The problem is, loads of teams claim “home brown talent” when in reality what they mean is local amateur players they bring into the first team squad just to make up the numbers. Only St Helens, Leeds and Wigan have bona fide home grown talent

They have talent scouted ( I use the word scouted in a liberal way)..The product,the game comes from community clubs. Not these amazing academies.

Everyone starts off at a level. No academy caters for that.

Your absolutely right.

Leeds have done well scouting in the Oulton area which is just down the road from where Wakefield Trinity were promised a new ground. Some (already) top talent there of course chose to take Caddick's money and go off to North Leeds where there is not a lot of junior RL talent, and of course Michael Carter does not have such money to counter these "raids" on the Raiders.

Money and success is a great recruiting tool, top juniors are often happy to cross the Pennines to get to that, doesn't make such as Leeds brilliant at "young player development" you can buy success at all levels from the kids to seniors.....

That then is compounded by the quality talent that that does stay loyal to their local SL club eventually getting picked up by the top clubs who can offer the chance of trophies.

There's no even playing field here especially when Marquee signings allow overspending........

What a ludicrous comment, maybe think about cutting out the chippyness, eh? Somebody stated that Featherstone traditionally produced home-grown talent, and I was pointing out that that is still the case to a degree. And I mentioned three local lads who will all be playing regularly for us this year, as will Luke Cooper and Jack Bussey, who both came through the club's own junior system.

There are well-documented reasons why some Championship teams such as Fev and Leigh don't run academy/reserve teams any more, but in any case a chunk of the best youth talent in towns of Championship teams gets snapped up by the academies at Leeds/Wigan etc before they can sign for their local teams. Morgan Smith (grandson of former GB international and Featherstone legend Pete Smith), who is another local lad who will represent the club this season, was being watched by Warrington at the age of 12.

The post I was replying to was itself responding to someone posting about Fev's signings being "the most ambitious in their history", whether that's true or not, it's a fact that the club seems to be relatively prosperous in terms of finance/income, certainly compared with the glory days of the 1970s when despite winning Cups and Championships there was still a need to sell players to survive.

I'm not sure what your comment "same as Leigh" means btw - unfortunately that comment is ambiguous at best.

Not unless we sign another 6 or 7 & of sufficient quality. The current squad (in number) is way too small to get through a season.

How many players have Saints signed from Leigh East in the last 2 years, think it's 5. Think only one has made a matchday 18 squad, but hardly any players join the Centurions directly from Leigh Miners or East. There are players who from for amateur clubs in the area that is halfway from Leigh to Wigan (Hindley/Goborne) but guess what they get snapped up by Wigan, Oliver Gildart to mention at least one.

John Asiata signed for Leigh today

Dane Chisholm banned for 8 matches. Fev fans salty

This made me smile. How long have you been watching RL ?

Will there be automatic promotion to the all new Super, Super League at the end of next season, even if we go to the 2 x 10 nonsense that has been muted.
If so, it would be a good time to gain a spot in the top flight, albeit, even more difficult for ANY promoted club to survive in what would be a more competitive league.