Regarding your first question - maybe, though the table is a bit misleading. We're probably the best team in the division overall, but certainly not so far clear that we couldn't get upset in the play-offs like last year. We are certainly nothing like as dominant as you were by this time last year.

Agree 100% that they should try to feature Lancs v Lancs or Yorks v Yorks games on Thursday/Fridays. M62 is far more palatable on a Sunday (or even Saturday) going either way.

Hello Phantom. Good to see you gracing the forum on this side of the Pennines. I have missed the Leigh/Fev rivalry and fans' banter that we all enjoyed last season, of which you were undoubtedly a part.

From what I have seen of the Championship this season and from what I saw first hand of Fev last season - including that dark wet night on 2nd February - promotion is your likely reward this time.

I understand your caution, because we all appreciate the glorious uncertainty that is sport, but I cannot see a play-off cock-up coming for Fev as happened with Batley last season. What was it with Batley with you boys?

More to the point, Fev have since got rid of Big Mac, who was not the messiah that some thought he was, and who turned out to be something of a weight around the team's collective shoulders.

Fev for promotion for me this season. What should make that prospect even more delicious for you is that it is likely to be at the expense of one of your nearest and dearest local rivals, either Wakey (almost certainly) or Cas (poor but just a little better than Wakey).

Reading the comments of the Wakey fans the realisation that relegation is likely has not escaped them. What they do not seem to realise is that relegation for them, this season, could spell the end of Super League for them, full stop. They are likely to be excluded under the new IMG criteria and part-time Championship level rugby is likely to be their lot for eternity. This is not the season to be relegated.

It is however a very good season to be promoted. So, good luck to your boys for this season and I look forward to our teams' renewing their on-field rivalry next year

PH, nice to have you back. You are usually spot on with your facts, but on May 21st last year Fev nilled Whitehaven by 78pts to go 3 league points ahead of Leigh in The Champ table.

The 1895 Cup Final was one week later with the bookies and pundits going for a Fev win in a tight one - though Bongser seems to recall you getting a little antsy on TRL in fairness.

I'm an old codger and pay £18 for wire home games. My adult son pays £24. Leigh are charging us £27 and £24. I don't like having the **** took out of me so reluctantly decided to give it a miss. I know some will say I won't be missed, just giving some feedback. BTW pleased to see how your season is going.

When Leigh played Warrington at the HJ, I checked for the price of seats - preferring to sit and not behind the sticks.
The price of Warrington seats is £34. Warrington fans get a reasonable deal if they stand, but the seats are way more expensive than at the LSV.

As the old adage goes: There are three sides to every story!

Predictions
Fev will win the league and the playoffs. This time they have the right coaching team to do it. In my opinion (and I’m not know to be bright) they had the team to run us close last season, but the coach (not a coaching team) was all wrong. I don’t rate the guy who was in charge and never will.
Re Wakey, doomed and Cas can relax. I really respect how that have survived for so long in SL but the writing is on the wall. Cas are not great but will win a couple more games. Wakey may win one, full stop.
Prices,
I believe we are being affected by LSV in ways that are directly affecting our ticket prices and DB’s ability to give us fans what we want. I honestly believe that the ticket prices are at the lowest level they can be right now, and that the LSV is the reason they are not lower. The prices are not being affected by the pre-match entertainment (and neither is that affecting our signing of players). Derek is funding both independently to build the whole match day experience as a long term fan base goal. I honestly trust that DB has probably the best business plan to put is in the IMG SL long term future.

Don't you get your parking chucked in for free when you buy a ticket for leigh? Not the rip off everyone says when you factor that in. I won't be there next Friday, but its due to work and not the ticket prices. Bit gutted as my last trip there was very enjoyable when we walloped Wakefield in the CC semi.

Well said, Moe. Your Leigh ticket gets you good pre-match entertainment too and, for Wire fans, the travel costs are lower than those of attending away games in Yorkshire.

Well if you'd put T'pau on for our game I'd have thrown a sickie

You old dog!

Don't expect to take any food or drink in or you will have it taken,only ground i have ever been to that does that.

its not a picnic

Jack Gaskell and Bent & Bongser, sorry I missed your posts, I forgot to check back in this thread.

I am more hopeful than confident about promotion this year, in my opinion we have been playing at a similar level to last year (amybe a bit better defensively but not on attack so far), we just don't have a Leigh to deal with this time! It's quite pleasing to see Leigh doing so well this year because you were so far ahead of us in the 2nd half of the year it would have been worrying for us if you had struggled in SL. BTW you're right B and B it was only at the 1895 Final where Leigh's superiority was really established but to be honest I did think the writing was on the wall before then.

A lot of people are looking at the league table and thinking it's a formality for Fev to get promoted but it will come down to 2 games at the end of the year (wrongly in my view but them's the rules). Halifax beat us and deservedly so in the Cup, Sheffield looked like beating us with 20 minutes to go at our place too, and if we catch them, or Toulouse, or Batley, or someone else on a good day for them in the play-offs we are far from certain to win - we don't have the same physical dominance over our rivals that Leigh did in the 2nd half of last year.

Then of course whoever does go up will have the same problem Leigh did a couple of years ago ie trying to recruit towards the end of the year after all the best players have gone. Unless you're in a position to offer SL-value contracts now, which no current Championship team is able to do, that's a really tough thing to do. But then we're into IMG's points-mean-prizes territory the year after, so who knows who that will favour!

Hi Phantom. Good to see you back again. Yes, winning promotion and then recruiting a side good enough to stay up is that eternal conundrum for all championship sides.

How to do it? Well it looks like Leigh have finally cracked it this season but has it provided a necessary blueprint for other Championship sides such as Fev?

As you have alluded, it has obviously been based on a much derided (sometimes quite rightly - even on this forum) lunatic fan of an owner who has the financial wherewithal to fund a Super League quality squad whilst in the Championship and then back it even further by recruiting Super League standard players mid Championship season for the forthcoming season all on the basis that the club would be a division higher. All of this with the knowledge that Leigh were just 80 minutes away from just one defeat in the play-offs that would have seen the plan and the dream die a complete death. What a gamble! A gamble indeed but one that seems to have come off - at last

Without a similar monied owner or owners who are prepared to splash the cash and gamble this season on success and to be planning and recruiting the right level of player now for next season, for it being a Super League season, then what are Fev to do? It is a tricky one.

Assuming for one moment Fev get promoted then leaving recruitment late will be fatal. I don't know how many of the current squad you think are good enough to step-up for a SL season but I am guessing you may well consider that quite a few of the current first team squad will need to be replaced with upgrades.

Fev certainly do not want to be gambling at the end of year having won promotion on NRL flotsam or voided contract Wakey players (they are a desperately poor quality bunch - there is not much meat on the bones there).

There is also the issue for you of going full time. Surely Fev cannot hope to survive in SL with a part-time squad. On this point perhaps you can shed some light. Last season there was much sympathy in the rugby press, albeit a predominantly Yorkshire based rugby press, that played to a narrative that it was plucky little part-time Fev who were taking it to the full time juggernaut funded by Derek's millions. This did not sit well with some of us here who suspected that a good part of Fev's team last year were to all intents and purposes full time professionals with the remainder part-time - in effect a hybrid squad.

I am guessing that something similar is happening this year but again, stepping up to a full time squad surely cannot wait for the pre-season to next season.

It's not easy, Leigh have failed miserably and worn the tee shirt - several times. The odds are just stacked against the newly promoted team staying up and the majority of SL team owners give the distinct impression that they just do not care a jot about changing the 'club' rules - so long as the team threatened to go down is not their team.

From your post you indicate that the money is just not there at Fev to recruit SL quality players now but surely at some point some money will need to be found and the cheque book is going to have to come out.

Maybe you can unearth another Jackson Hastings or a Brodie Croft, a star player in a key position who can just add gold dust to lesser standard players and where that star player just ignites the team to be better than the sum of its parts and Fev just have a brilliant season on the back of it and stay up.

Maybe, just maybe....... but I do not envy you the poison chalice that is otherwise the prize for promotion. It certainly will not be easy but as a fan is it not better to live the dream with the team struggling in SL than having (yet) another year running away with the Championship.