My concern is if new teams go straight in to a league, and take a beating week in week out, then come 10-12 games in, will they last a season? I think Latchford in Div 2 had serious problems last year due to the lack of numbers.

Also, should an 'A' team be denied the right to progress up the leagues? Our 2nds are now in Div 1 after starting in Div 6.

IMHO, the Hindley & Milnrow situation last season was wrong - they both should have been in a much higher league.

And just to clarify, and I can make the assumption that mmp was talking about us as we are the only club with a 3rd team, our firsts and seconds had matches both times we played you. If anything, we had a few 3rd team regulars out with injuries when we played at your place.

Good luck in Div 5, I hope you have a successful season and are able to continue the good work already started. Hopefully there will soon be a junior section at your club, as in the long run, thats where the biggest part of our squad come from - progression from Junior to Open Age.

sorry....i wasnt refering to anyone in particular just making a general point. (though simmies have three sides and mayfield will as well this year).

It's no problem - it can be a bit annoying when you turn up to play a team and end up playing their first team pack!

yup...especially when you consider members of our pack have never played until this year...

which is why its tough to have A teams mixed with 'development clubs'. having myself played the likes of newton, blackburn etc., and with us having beated eccleston and westhoughton, i'm looking forward to teh new season as it also gives us better scope to grow the club...

firts couple of games we had it advertised and a bout 100 showed up. but with the first two failures to show we decided to stop advertising as it was too much hassle...

Agree with that in principle - though I do feel it's more vital for a new side to get regular games - players can handle losing, but putting all that hard work in and being let down on match days, going months without a game, etc, is more disheartening imo.

The issue of 'A' teams is a tricky one. There has to be some form of guarantee they will turn out as much as single team clubs, but I agree they should get a fair shot. Some second/third teams seem to play as and when they feel like it, and some don't really seem to have enough players, and it's those that make life difficult for the rest, who do the league justice.

Who do you play for mate?

come on billy...! it's leigh east obviously...?!

Shut it Palin.

You're obviously feeling better after your dodgy turn at training last night!

simmies dont have three teams

one in the prem and their A team in div 6

I remember this when it happened as i played for Langworthy and was also on the committee. IIRC and not sure if the rules are the same these days but if you played in the premier or division 1, failing to fulfil a fixture caused automatic relegation, however as you moved down to div 2,3,4 you can miss 2 fixtures and then at the time was 5,6,7 was 3. This was the reason Woolston who won the league that year were told that they would not be promoted. Then Haresfinch appealed their relegation and won so it wouldn't be them that were relegated and Woolston would be wasn't it? I can see why Woolston were upset but they were the rules as outlined. I dont think Woolston were favourites with Barla at that time anyway were they after the Wizards joining the summer conf and we all know how Barla feel about progression in RL.

Spot on.
The challange cup was the reason we missed the game too. We had asked for a free so that Warrington Woolston (pre-Wizards!) could play in the challenge cup but the weather was bad and the game got postponed. The challenge cup gane was played the following week instead and we were refused a free date for it - hence not playing the fixture. Stupid thing was the game that we would have played would have been postponed!