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.

Jack, yes I'd rather have one year in SL and flop than never make it, especially as that's what the club has been striving for for nearly 30 years (having been booted out from the top flight after finishing 11th of 16). And let's face it we can't do much worse than Wakefield have this year.

I would think we will be full time if we go up. We have a lot of players at the moment who don't have a job outside RL but quite a few who do (Lockwood, Hardcastle, Davies etc) and it would have been folly for the club to turn its back on those players whilst still in the Championship.

We will need to replace a number of players if we do go up (I think 3 of our forwards might retire), but unless you are in a financial position to provide guaranteed SL-level salaries it's very difficult to attract the right type of player until you know that you're promoted and will be getting £1.5 million (or whatever it is now) rather than £200k. The same will apply to every other club currently in the Championship.

That said, Mark Campbell is nobody's fool and I think he'll have a proper dig if Fev do go up.

No more promotion and relegation based on results alone. Finishing 12 is not a death sentence, there is a huge band of Category B clubs, and personally I think Fev are in a better position than Wakefield off the field. They may even increase Super League to 13 or 14 teams in the near future if ratings are close.
A large chunk of change from being in Super League will cover the wages for next year, but finding Super League calibre players is not easy.

Without trying to compare Rugby to Football, if we need to make our game stronger at club level and get fans excited we must look at the import ruling.
Premier League is awash with non English players as it’s all about the entertainment.
The standard down under in reserve grade is unbelievable and I firmly believe that we could have a strong 14 team super league if these rules were relaxed for say 5 years and give teams time to develop academies from 16 years old.
The bigger clubs at the top of the pyramid will of course use this to their advantage but it will mean quality talent used to playing at a high level is not lost completely and the lower teams would benefit.

I would like to see SL increased to 14 teams but what type of TV deal, if any, are we going to get from SKY. If there is one, it won't be good enough to support 14 teams.

As I've stated before both codes of Rugby are in a dire financial mess (London Irish are looking like the next club to be thrown out of the Premiership) so it makes sense to eventually bring them both back together as one code to make rugby a true National sport. It won't happen overnight but I can see it happening some years down the line. I don't know what format the hybrid game would take but I can see it happening. Union is getting faster with rule changes coming in to speed the game up and you can see the League influence with sliding defences and acrobatic tries scored by the wingers. The best 2 International Union teams are Ireland and France coached by legends of our game, Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards, and now Kevin Sinfield is part of the England coaching set up. Maybe with the League influence, the 2 codes will slowly evolve into 1 game.

Some people will probably say it will never happen but in 1895 they were probably saying a breakaway code would never happen.

8000+ tonight, seems we don't need a train station to get fans in.

Nor do we need a freight train to deliver tries and wins.

Best win of the year for Bongser who is also delighted for Powell's rejects, tries aside. Full marks to Adrian Lam.

Agreed, even bigger than Saints

I respect everyones opinions, especially those who have spent so many years supporting our club but,
As long as Derek is in charge, I am 100% certain we will always play in Leigh. Our next move, if there is one, will be when we are filling the LSV every week and losing revenue because it simply isn’t big enough. Will that happen, likely not, but it for me is more likely than Leigh playing regular home games outside of our town.
I also don’t see a merged code game as the way forward or likely at all. The only way that happens is if the rugby world stage goes that route, and that is never going to happen.
As for a brand, it is all about instant recognition based on a visual and, or, a single word/phrase. With that instant recognition comes more fans and a greater revenue from all the various sources. Can a brand be successfully moved, yes, but ours is intrinsically linked to the loyalty of our town/fans, and the most passionate of those fans is our owner.

VL it will happen eventually. The financial situation and TV deals will demand it but as I say, the influence of our RL legends, who have regrettably been lost to our game, is already speeding Union up and over time as more tweaks are made Union will have evolved to the point where there won't be much difference between the 2 codes and the natural progression will be to merge back to one code of Rugby. It isn't going to happen overnight, maybe 10 or 15 years, but it will happen. Both codes are suffering financially and if SKY drop League or cut our funds drastically many League clubs will struggle to survive. And, as I've said, nearly all of the Union clubs are millions of pounds in debt. They've only got 10 clubs in the Premiership next season once London Irish go under.

We will have to agree to disagree on the merge of codes I’m afraid. And no issue with that. If we all had the same opinions the world would be a boring place