Sadly, the club had no choice if it wasn't going to breach the RFL's Operational Rules, which require that players whose contracts are expiring should be notified of the club's intentions by the Friday following the last match of the regular season.

As we can all see, this takes no account of the play-offs and may therefore have affected the result. In years gone by, it may not have made any difference since, you would imagine, that if they were good enough to come second, they would be good enough to be retained, on the whole. The issue is this restructure which has abolished U20s and not replaced it, implying, in my opinion, that if a lad hasn't achieved SL status by the time he's 19, he is discarded. And that's exactly what has happened.

I'm still waiting for an explanation from the RFL as to how they believe this is going to encourage the expansion of home grown talent.

HOME GROWN PLAYER RULES.

How will SL clubs go on with this rule with the new academy changes?

2011 At least 8 home grown players.

Home grown players - any player still under 21 and/or has completed 3 years service with the same clubs academy set up.

I can only imagine that the clubs that finished below the top 8 will not be able to fulfil this criteria in 2012 and beyond!!

As far as I am aware Warringtons tie up with Swinton means it is only Swinton they can dual register players with.I also believe that we can register up to ten players, absolute madness as far as I am concerned a maximum of six with only four allowed to play would be about right.
In effect we can take any of Warringtons squad of players so if they had the likes of Morley returning from injury he could get match fitness with us along with any others.
Can't blame Swinton in getting that tie up since we can't operate an A team.
I do feel sorry for your youth team since they have had a half decent season and now face being broken up since your chances of getting a similar agreement with a Championship club with now have to be either in Yorkshire or Cumbria, Leigh are linked to Wigan I believe.
Slowly but surely the RL and SLE are killing the game with this kind of instruction.

How do you, as a fan, feel about it? Powell and Aston were vocal, and quite prickly, about the prospect of Super League clubs coming in and dictating coaching policy.

No culpabilty intended to Swinton in accepting Warrington's Dual Reg offer.
however if this replicated Championship sides could be fielding 50 -60 SL players and risking losing there own identity and becoming more like Toyota Cup teams in the NRL ,

I can't disagree with either comment. Of course this could easily dilute our team and in effect make us little better than Warrington's A Team.You would however like to think that the powers that be use this as it is intended to be used and restrict the numbers used.
Will Warrington dictate training etc well that remains to be seen, however knowing and respecting Steve McCormick I doubt he would remain as head coach if he thought the teams identity was being taken.

what ever happens all Championship clubs have been backed into a corner to a degree apart from those like Featherstone and Sheffield who have a strong backing anyway.