I believe at the last forum, when this issue had already been mooted in the press, Trevor Barton stated that the club would not become a feeder club of Wigan, or anybody else. His view on that has not changed. If you look at this week's Journal, Paul Rowley is reported as saying we may take three D/C's from Wigan - so there could well be some aspects of our organisation that take advantage of linking up with Wigan. But that will only be done, in my opinion, where there is advantage to be gained by Leigh Centurions.

Reading between the lines all the Championship clubs that have "twinned" will have to play the "duals" before their own players, Paul Rowley does'nt want this so I cant see it happening, not saying we wont have three or four duals, but maybe we are looking to take up some Wigan players on season long loans instead, which would be much better.

Alan I appreciate the reply and I know I’m probably looking for issues which may or may not be there, as on one side you say Trevor said we are not being a feeder club and in the next say we may take advantage of a link up.

Are we going into Partnership with Wigan or not?

without wanting to sound like im in your face,as chairperson of lisa and a director of the club shouldnt you be looking into this a bit deeper than reading between the lines?

From the first tier of 25 players, SL sides will have a changing pool of 8 players that are not match tied. As I understand the (non RFL communicated) proposals, these 8 players will form the core of the agreement with the 'partnership' club. Up to 5 will be allowed to play in any given match, but obviously all 8 will need rotation to keep them match fit. So partnership clubs are essentially looking at a pool of 8 players. That is a lot to expect from clubs such as Leigh and Fev, but presumably acceptable for clubs like Rochdale and Hunslet who are not as well off.

Clearly if Leigh only took 2-3 players per week from Wigan (whether you called it D/R or partnership), it would leave them with a problem. I can not see how it would work, and furthermore the RFL, now matter how they presented it, could not claim it was a 'partnership'.

jOHN I ASKEDTHE QUESTION AND WAS TOLD WE WAS NOT BECOMING A FEEDER/twinned CLUB FOR WIGAN.
Since I asked things may have changed!!!

Just spoke with our coach and he told me we have a partnership with Wigan just like we had last year and we will be getting some "duals " from them,we will not become their feeder club the duals we have will be 3 or 4, although we will not be forced to play them.
The South Wales Club are their twinned club.

Because of our budget, we need duals to bolster our squad ,but we have 20/21 players of our own signed up, so the duals will just make up the squad and we will pick the best players each game, if a "dual" plays bad then he can be dropped as one of our players can.Wigan will not be forcing us to paly their players, this is from our coach, so you can all put the feeder club rumours to bed now. I know I feel better now...........

Also we wont be able to get players from Warrington as they have "twinned" with Swinton for next season.

So that sounds to me very similar to the last two years, so no excuses now to say we have finished with our club, or we are not buying a season ticket.

I now feel at ease, thanks Lynda.

Well what’s it matter what you call the Wigan Players D/C or Under 23s But you can bet this if a Wigan player is on D/C at Leigh their is only one Team he will be playing in guess what he wont be the under 23s regardless off what our coach says
Also ask yourselves this the partnership between Leigh & Wigan is for the benefit of who To Give Wigan 1st Teamers a game of Rugby at the expense of our own under 23 lads trying to make the 1st team
So please lets get real this partnership is about Wigan keeping their players fit and giving them match practise
Also Championship Rugby is a step below Super League why do you think Super League Clubs send their players out on dual contract
The way i see this going Leigh could have at any one time have anything between 1 and 10 players wearing a Leigh Shirt
in the 1st Team or in the under 23s

Is your point you don't think Leigh should have any DC players from any club or just Wigan ?

Last season I thought the DC players did well for us and I doubt many fans would object to having Tom Spencer on such a basis next season although I'd prefer a season long loan deal.

What is clear is that Leigh RLFC will remain an independant club.

Just to clarify;
If you partner with another SL club, then you only take their DR's. Leigh will not take any Wire or Cas players next year I understand.

SL clubs can partner with 2 clubs if they wish. However the second must be with a club outside the M62 corridor e.g. Lakes or South Wales, or more specifically in this case South Wales Scorpions. Saints have two partnerships; Rochdale and Whitehaven.

From the (25-17) 8 players that are not match tied by the SL club, I would guess 2 may be injured at any one time and a further 1-2 may be being rested. That would mean typically around 4-5 players would be looking for a game to keep them match fit. Presumably, this is how they arrived at the number 5 DR's.

Warrington, like other SL clubs have already released half of their 15 and 16 year olds, as there will only be a U16 age group next year. They are also in the process of releasing their U19' / U20s. So Brooke Broughton is going to Doncaster, Bradley Brennan to Barrow, Ryan Duffy to Leigh, Ben Hellewell to Fev., Bobby Goulding to Wakefield.

These changes as I understand it, were opposed by both Warrington and Saints. Until the very late announcement by the RFL, there has been no official notification of the changes. Neither is there any significant detail of how this new process will work.

Well I believe what our coach tells me and that is we will only be using the system like it was last year.
We will not be made to play any players.
We are not like Swinton who have twinned with Warrington, Wigan and Leigh arrangement is a partnership.
Wigan have an arrangement too with the South wales team also , so theres room for their other players aged between 19 and above to play that will not be ready for first team yet.
Wigan are running an under 19's and15/16s like us.

Where 3 or 4 of their fringe players get the benefit of first team rugby as they aren't having an under 23's and we benefit by having these 3 or 4 players extra to the 21 we have signed up, under a very tight budget.
It allows use of more players without having to spend more then we can afford.
This years budget is similar to last years, as we are runniing a reserves as well, which all comes out of the playing budget.

I know this because I asked.

Deffo not 1 and 10 Wigan players it will be 3 or 4 who are dual reg. You can have up to 8 we won't take that that many.

Well you Leigh supporters are probably the most fanatical of the lot, and I know you have done a huge amount to get the club back on its feet after the problems of last season. So I genuinely wish you well and hope it works out to your benefit. I am certainly not on this board 'stirring it', I am just hugely saddened by this move that the RFL have pushed through and the manner in which they have done it. The youth system is the lifeblood of RL, if it is damaged then we will feel the repurcussions for years to come.