Only after the RFL ignored Wigan's request. The RFL could have decided on a fixture for Wigan away from home this weekend or at home against another club who wouldn't have been in the Salford situation. They didn't, when it would have been easy not to have this mess occur in the first place.

Mr Lennigan contradicted himself that many times that even he became confused .
He clearly believes that the corporate world he lives in matters more than the clubs live blood THE FANS. Moving game to London clearly mean more to him than ensuring that the home fans get a fair deal .
A simple statement a few weeks ago could have avoided all the bad feeling between the club and the fans. Has the lesson been learned , not a chance. He admitted there was a problem on Easter Monday and then never mentioned it again . No solution , No warning the the game may have to be moved to another date nothing . Rumour has it that it will be two games on THAT pitch (the one that cant take two matches in 24 hours) the same day with us starting at 8pm. If that is the case a lot of out of town fans are going to miss out again unless they drive which is not a great idea on a Bank Holiday
I know for a fact that if it wasn’t for the fact that they have season tickets a few far travelled fans would tell the club to shove it as they are so hacked off with the whole situation . Some of us have the dearest season ticket seats per game in the stadium as we can get to so few games at home these days .

Just noticed the the fixture list on the Warriors website confirms the Easter Monday game is confirmed as an 8pm Kick Off (screwed again)

Wigan Athletic's game listed on their website as 3pm

Regards , EW

We should know by now owners care very little for fans.

How will they cater for the hospitality?

The initial part of the regular season covers a 25 week period. Deduct one for the WCC, two for Challenge Cup rounds and one for Easter where Wigan were due a home fixture on the Monday this year. That leaves 21 weeks for SL games. Wigan advised the RFL that they wanted to be away from the DW stadium on no less than 11 weekends in that period due to:

a) Wigan Athletic playing on the Saturday
b) The DW not being available for a prolonged period in May, June and July.

That the RFL accommodated almost all of this except for one game is actually quite an achievement - it is certainly not a simple case that the RFL could simply have slotted Wigan in away in the weekend in question. Firstly the Wigan fixture list is already unbalanced enough but moreover the DW is already being used almost every time Wigan said it was free. Bear in mind that other clubs also have requirements (albeit none anywhere near so demanding) when they cannot use their home grounds that have to be accommodated - hence the Salford games couldn't be inverted. Plus the unwritten rule that they try and avoid four day turnarounds without the consent of both clubs involved and the whole fixture-setting process becomes almost impossible when you add a club with such onerous demands as Wigan.

In summary, the RFL went well out of its way to accommodate Wigan on the few weeks the DW has been declared available in 2016. For Lenagan to try and blame them for one game that couldn't be fitted in is, at best, disingenuous. The problem quite clearly lies in the club's position as secondary tenants at their home ground.

Maybe one way to ease the fixture congestion at the DW could be to have one home match scheduled during the time the pitch is being resurfaced and use this for the London game.

I wonder if "ghost of 99" works for the RFL.
Quite a statement is that!

Yeah, he sounds unusually well informed for one of the usual thickos who come galloping onto this site from elsewhere.

Given the following written by "ghost" on the Salford forum the other day I wouldn't waste too much time thinking he/she has much credibility or inside informationNothing to do with the RFL. Fixture lists are arranged around stadium availability - the majority of stadia in the league have other claims on their time than just Super League games. The fixture list preparation process gives clubs plenty of opportunities to flag up such problems - [iif Wigan had told the RFL the DW wasn't available this Friday then the fixture wouldn't have been scheduled[/i. Unfortunately Wigan's embarrassingly weak position at the ground they play in means they get bullied by their landlords on when they can play, even on fixtures which have already been scheduled.'"

First time poster.

I don’t live in Wigan and haven’t done so for many years and yet still travel to watch most home matches despite the difficulties of a long drive but changes like this just don’t work for me. I like Ian Lenagan very much and I like what he has done for the club but having just watched the ‘interview’ regarding the Salford switch I feel compelled to write and share my frustration about his poor decision making in this matter.

IL’s justification for moving the fixture looks to me like some wishy washy politico trying to polish a dog turd when we all know what the real reason is. He blames that old bogey man the RFL and fixture congestion, in fact, anything but the real reason and that is our ground share with Latics.

So what does our contract with Latics say – Many would love to know! As we are carrying the stadium attendance wise has IL insisted that they honour their part of the contract to the full? I’m totally indifferent to the destiny of Latics and their 5000 fans and couldn’t care a toss about what the state of the pitch would be post Wigan V Salford on Friday. As far as I’m concerned that is none of our worry and why should it when we don’t own the ground and we are mere tenants asking for what we are entitled to by law unless it states we can be bullied by Latics...... This situation is like Groundhog Day so it is about time that IL grew a pair and played hard ball with Latics by insisting that the contract is honoured in full where possible or take legal action where necessary and tell Whelan and that chippy bankrupting grandson of his that we will not be pushed around.

Like many others I am now questioning whether I should buy a season ticket and may try match by match next year which will probably mean fewer home attendances. I don’t see any good reason why we need to 'get close to Latics' (his words) so come on Mr Lenagan put the needs of Wigan RL and its army of loyal fans first and make Latics have it for once!

In my book not telling the whole truth makes you a liar. That was the impression I was left with after speaking to people at the Brisbane match. IL is losing the trust of the fans.



IL obviously couldn't care less what state the pitch is in when we play on it a few hours after them men on Easter Monday. He needs to start prioritising the rugby over the tics.

The RFL didn't ignore Wigan's request. They looked at it and said "no" due to the four day turnaround moving it to Thursday or Sunday would entail. Wigan knew this months ago. They then suggested we moved the game to various venues some of which were available and some not. As IL explained they couldn't switch the alternate fixture because that is in June when the pitch is up (again) and if you tried to switch it with another team that is a non-starter as that has the knock on effect to their fixtures. Postponement doesn't work either as he also explained.

As to not scheduling it on Friday in the first place we do have to have a game this week and play someone. Friday is our designated home game day so suggesting they should automatically have not scheduled it originally for Friday looking at Latics fixtures is a bit rich. We play Friday. Latics are not playing that day and there is no four day turnaround for a Friday game. Wigan RL asked for this to be moved when in my view there is no need to move it. When the answer was "no" anyway, we should have just stuck with Friday. If we can play hours after they on Easter Monday, they can cope with playing a day after us.

They did ignore the request, as I've already said but which you seem to have not read, is that Wigan flagged up this Friday as a problem BEFORE the fixtures were even decided. They could have had us playing away at anyone this weekend because they hadn't decided anything. The RFL made the decision for us to play Salford this weekend on a Friday despite the fact:

1. Wigan flagged it up as a problem.
2. If the game had to be moved to another day then Salford would be playing with a four day turnaround. They could have chosen plenty of other teams for Wigan to play at home this Thursday or Sunday if they had to have us playing at home - which they didn't.

Wigan have played plenty of home games not a on Friday so it's hardly a precedent for it to be played Thursday or Sunday. But again they didn't have to play at home this weekend, so it wouldn't have been a problem.

I have lost the the will to live on this subject and being a bit lazy but can someone explain why we couldn't play Friday night and Latics play on Saturday? We are now playing on the same day now on Easter Monday so I just cannot get my head around this one.
Thanks in advance

In a nutshell it's because latics wanted the pitch in tip top condition for when they play their game on Saturday as its a promotion rival they are playing. If leneghan had have said this instead of coming up with his usual drivel then we would have confirmation for what we already know anyway. This is the same reason why sharp and leneghan have published articles stating that both clubs have a good relationship together, when the truth is latics call the shots and leneghan sits there like the Churchill dog.