They can only dream about the memorys we have.At the last count i have seen us in nearly 50 cup finals since i first went to a game in 1969.

You have to actually have youngsters in the first place, in order to use them ahead of dual-contract players. Barrow don’t have this, so have no right complaining about other clubs using the dual contract system. .

As far as our own youngsters are concerned; they’ll get their chance. Our youngsters know they are being superseded by players further down the line in their progress. As some of these players may be recalled to their SL clubs or sustain injury, I’m sure they’ll all get game time. SL clubs get the pick of local talent, so it’s no surprise that they will have the best young talent available. Warrington and Saints poach a lot of good up-and-coming Widnes lads from under our noses. The wire have Paul Hulme’s son and Saints have got Ben Karalius. Both are very promising young prospects. How many young Leythers go to Wigan’s academies rather than their home club? It’s a no-brainer, for any youngster given the opportunity to go to a SL academy rather than their local Ch/Ch1 club, to grasp it with both hands.

So, having young SL starlets in a Championship club is not a poor reflection on its own academy. As long as you are running an academy of your own, and have your own youngsters in your squad, you are not yet a feeder club. Once you scrap your own academies and use SL dual-contracts as your sole source of youngsters, that club effectively becomes a feeder club. This is what will happen imo after 2012, even to Widnes if we are still here.


Because the RFL don’t think the lower league clubs are worthy of being anything but feeder clubs, and we can do nothing about it.

Im actually not complaining about Widnes its more the system in general. It has to many flaws, gives unfair advantages and will undoubtedly result in the demise of Championship/ Champ 1 clubs youth setups. Why invest cash in potential when you can simply fill the gaps with ready made players who have gone through SL youth systems ? Eventually there will be no chance for promotion and SL will become a closed shop if the RFL have their way !

Why indeed , the RFL introduced rules that made it almost impossible for any non SL clubs [ apart from Widnes ] to run u 18's , they then complain [ in Leighs Franchise bid Mr Lewis criticised our junior set up and even stated on BBC North west that Celtic had a better junior set up than us despite them having one of our juniors in thier team ] to clubs that they dont produce quality juniors

There is already no chance of promotion for most of us , and it is already a closed shop

So go and tell your chums to stop hating us so much and direct their anger at the RFL. We're playing to the rules. The dual reg system benefits us in the short term, I just don't get the uproar that this has caused amongst some of your lot.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

If any club outside of SL has serious aspirations of getting to SL, then they have to put youth structures in place and make the club attractive to those players. Barrow have a massive catchment area as some of your fans have rightly pointed out given that their amateurs have apparently snotted our amateurs, it's full of 'real hard men' by all accounts.

So what is the Barrow club doing to develop these into semi-pro players with a view to taking them in to Super League? What is stopping Barrow putting scholarship schemes and academies in place? You may well crow on about them being snapped up by Super League, the same has happened to us, yet we still manage to retain a significant number of quality youngsters and have yet more in development. The point is to make the club attractive in the first place so that youngsters believe they have a long term future in the top flight should they wish to take it.

We are by no means guaranteed even though some of your more bitter fans think we believe differently, neither are we here just biding our time until the 'inevitable' call from Super League comes.. This league has been our home for 5 seasons now and the last 4 seasons have had some of the best highs since the early 90s. Don't any of you lot be under the illusion that we think we're some how bigger than this league, just because we have high ambitions with the backing to match, it's everyone else around us who are claiming we're nailed on for Super League, how can we take responsibility for that exactly?

That is out of order, no real need for that.

Can I request that people use a little more common sense in respect to posting accusations that could lead to the site shutting down. Thanks.

Any more and I'll have to close this thread, it's too big a risk.