My comment was actually tongue in cheek, but its reactions like yours that continue to perpetrate this urban myth about Pats. People love a good conspiracy theory, Wiganers even more, Wiganers when it comes to the RL team even more again.

I bet if someone did an analysis of where the lads who come through our youth system came from, it would show that while more lads are likely to come from Pats than anywhere else (why wouldn't they, they are a world famous breeding ground for RL talent) it would be nowhere near the bollox spouted by the chip on shoulder brigade.

In fairness it's common knowledge what's gone on this close season at Pat's and IRB at U14s level - and a lot of people are not happy about it.

Did Pats and IRB hold a gun to people's head? Are people really surprised that lads and their parent want to gravitate to the best clubs and youth set-up?

Even if this is true, and I've no reason to doubt it, I bet it's not to the extent being made out on here. If it is there must be only about 30 players at U14 level in the town as we don't seem to have players at other clubs now all of a sudden, or some of the best players in Wigan are happy not to get a game as two teams seem to have signed them all and they all can't play at the same time.

I'm only telling you what's happened. NWC have had several emergency meetings because the U14s premiership this coming season hasn't got enough teams to support a proper league.

Completley out of the blue, Shevington and St Judes suddenly lost something like 12 lads between them to St Pats and IRB - nearly all of their SA and Scholarship players (many of them newly promoted). Not all of them have been allowed to sign at the same time because of NWC rules, so the ones that haven't have deregistered - that means they're happy to sit out six months of the coming season rather than go back to their previous clubs.

Conspiracy theory?

You don't have to be a particularly suspicious person to wonder what might have caused this sudden exodus to the promised land. If you heard a rumour that someone who should know better had been putting it round that Scholarship lads stood a better chance of staying on Scholarship if they played for certain clubs, would you automatically dismiss it? I would have at one time, but I wouldn't now.

And to be honest, it's not as simple as saying the better clubs will always attract the better players. The net result of that attitude is that these 'better clubs' have now got no-one to play. So it seems everyone's lost.

You've completely missed the point. There are (or were) plenty of service area/regional camp players at other clubs but once they get involved at scholarship they all mysteriously want to leave and go to one or two clubs.

Pop quiz. Which Wigan team has tried poaching players from Blackpool, a development area where people are working damned hard to increase participation?

Urban myth or fact? If it's a fact I'm sure you'll be able to name them. If not it's just another example to prove my point.

I haven't missed the point at all I'm just pointing out the constant bellyaching that some on here have against Pats because they are successful and an extremely well run club. We've had various rumours, myths and handbag rattling perpetrated as fact simply to have a go.

It's quite amusing to see people whine on here about big bad St Pats in the same way the knownowts from clubs like Wakey, Cas, Dire and Stains do about our successful period in the 80s and 90s, as if we did something they couldn't - and we all know how little time we give them.

Yeah, the NWC hid behind that argument too.

"Can anyone provide proof that Service Area coaches or officials are linked in some way to these two clubs? If you can provide incontravertible proof, we can act on the matter."

Of course no-one can provide proof. Even if we named names - and they have been named, that's why they were spoken to - it wouldn't be proof on its own. Are there secret tape recordings of the conversations these guys had with the lads involved? Would that even be admissable? Are there videos of lads training with clubs who they're not registered to? Would that even be legal?

Of course there's no proof. In which case the NWC, Wigan SA, the RFL, (who have also been involved - yeah, this isn't just a fantasy, Andy, this really happened!), and folks llike you, who for some reason are unwilling to consider that there might be any truth at all in the complaints made by these clubs who've lost so many players, even though you don't appear to know much about it, will continue to sit back and write the whole thing off as paranoid ranting.

Hide behind the 'legality' if you want. But please, don't try and hide behind some tenuous analogy with Wigan in the 80s and 90s. In truth, there's no comparison. Players joined Wigan in those days because they were paid good money, and because Wigan were playing on a world stage and beating everyone. U14s RL in Wigan is an amateur competition, the main emphasis of which is, or should be, to create as competitive an arena as possible for all the young players in the town, so to funnel the very best of them to the top of the pile, where the pro clubs can then cherrypick them. But because of what's happened in the last few months - and St Pats and IRB are the main culprits - that won't happen any more. (Don't, by the way, be fooled into thinking that St Pats are some kind of 'Wigan' of the amateur game - at U14s level, they only got promoted to the Premier League at the end of last season).

Feel free to completely dismiss this if that's what suits you. You aren't the only one. But when the season gets going, and what was once a superbly balanced league of eight teams, four of which were from Wigan, is now revealed to a be a farce, with only three teams who can match each other, and the rest, if they bother to show at all, making up the numbers, I wonder what you'll say then. Most likely I suspect you'll say nothing.

Sorry Andy. I normally have time for your posts, but you're preaching from a position of complete ignorance on this one.

I have family links with Pats at committee level so I may be accused of impartiality, however it also means I know how the club operates a lot more than most on here. I've lost count of the number of times the club have been accused of all manner of things from disgruntled people of other clubs, none of which have ever been proved, probably because they didn't happen, or were spun so much which is what happens with these rumours.

You've said yourself there's no proof, lets face it if there was it would be relatively easy to get. I'm sorry but until there is, it just goes down as yet another episode of bollox we've heard before, and I've heard a lot of them.

You really are a funny guy.

The scouting system is being looked at as IL said.
They are now to look around in other areas more than they have done in the past. The club is also to look at Rugby Union. Whether this is at a junior/schools level or semi pro or pro clubs I don't know.
The fact that they are now aware that there is so much talent around they hopefully will get out there, scout and discover the best talent about.

As an aside, here on the Wirral with around the same population as Wigan 170-180k there are two semi pro clubs and 15 amatuer clubs. Most with four teams. That is a lot of people playing rugby union to have a look at.
I'm sure there are plenty areas just as big or larger with a great potential for finding talent. Wigan, I heard on Wednesday, has 13 amatuer rugby league clubs.

At least the club now are seeing there is need for improvement in that area and going to do something about it.

Now I understand why you're taking this stand, and I respect that - it's loyalty to the club you're affiliated with. But I promise you I'm not trying to sully the name of St Pats (hopefully you'll know from my previous posts that I'm not that petty). I'm not interested in disgruntled people in the past. I can't comment on any of that because I had no involvement with any former incidents. But I'm not making things up re. this latest scandal.

How do you go about gettng proof when there are kids involved? As I say, you can hardly video them training at Pats or IRB when they should be training with the clubs they're registered to, or secretly tape-record conversations with them. There's no documentation detailing these secret deals that you can requisition and produce as evidence.

How on Earth do you prove it, let alone prove it 'relatively easily'?

In actual fact, written and verbal statements were presented to NWC from people who were prepared to go on record about things they'd seen, been told or had overheard. Some of the parents of the kids who were leaving openly admitted that they'd been told their sons had a much better chance of 'being noticed' at either Pats or IRB. At least one coach from the Wigan and Leigh SA was named in this. None of this would be sufficient to gain a conviction in a court of law, but it was sufficient to worry NWC, who held at least two emergency meetings at Golborne ARLFC during June and July, in order to discuss the crisis. People named were summoned to explain themselves, but not surprisingly produced a blanket denial. This was apparently so unconvincing that it wasn't believed, and some of them supposedly received warnings.

I'm not going to keep chunnering on about this because it's boring for those who aren't affected, plus it's semi-final day and we'll soon have bigger fish to fry. But here's a last thought. I understand why you take the St Pats side. It's fair enough. You don't want to hear bad stuff about them, because there's been loads of that in past and it's nearly always been bollox. But take Shevington Sharks as an example. For several years their team had been holding their own at the very top of junior rugby in NWC - at the same time St Pats were in a lower division. Then, at the end of last season, just as the story was breaking about the St Jude's Scholarship players announcing they wanted to to to IRB and the first allegations were being made that soneone in the Wigan youth development programme was behind it, three of Shevington's four Scholarship players suddenly announced that they all wanted to leave to go to newly promoted St Pats - when they'd shown no interest in that before (and could offer no real explanation for it). For the record, the other Scholarship player suddenly decided that he wanted to go to IRB!!!

There's perhaps a one in fifty chance that this is smoke without fire, but you can hardly blame people for thinking that it isn't.

Either way, it's destroyed the best junior competition Wigan had had for years and years.

And you really need to get rid of that huge chip on your shoulder about St Pats.

It would be quite easy to get some evidence, ask the parents - has nobody thought of that? I'm sure there' be at least one who could verify the rumours if they are true.

In terms of my loyalty affecting what I think, I'm pretty sure you'll agree that I certainly don't let that cloud my judgement on anything, and I call things as I see them. I know people at Pats are sick to death of the sh[ii[/ite that gets thrown at them on a regular basis because they are successful at what they do, and therefore people are only too ready to have a dig because there is an assumption that they must have done something underhand to get there.