The first bit is simply not true - Bradford continued to re-sign the likes of Oledzki, Cam Smith etc late into the season whenever they became available again after being recalled by Leeds. Bradford were perfectly capable of fielding a starting 17 without Leeds players - you did it twice against us, once in the Cup, once in the League over Easter - but generally chose not to because the Leeds players were better than some of your existing ones. It's just comical when fans of some teams claim that their use of DR/loans is somehow "different". Most Fev fans are actually against the concept of DR - like most fans overall - but it's amusing when fans of other teams who have also used it get on their high horse about it.

Your comemnt about effectively acting as Leeds' reserve grade is also far from the truth. If that were the case, the likes of Alex Sutcliffe, who has nowhere to play at Leeds, would be with us every week. He has played once for us so far (at Leigh, when he was drafted in at the last minute following a late withdrawal), and he'll play for us tomorrow. If Teteh and Carey were fit (Whylie is a long-term absentee), I'm pretty certain that neither Sutcliffe or Broadbent would be playing.

How does that relate to Golding, Briscoe and Newman all playing for you last week?

As for us keeping the Leeds lads in 2017, of course they were better than the other players we were able to sign. We didn't even have a club two weeks before the start of the season, so we had to sign either players from our previous incarnation that literally nobody else wanted, or make up the squad with loans or short-term deals.

Because you were trying to suggest that we are "effectively acting as their reserve grade". If that were the case, we would be fielding the maximum five Leeds players on DR each week regardless of whether we wanted to select them or not, and that's manifestly not the case.

And yes, we have regularly chosen to go with Briscoe and Golding over some of our younger/more inexperienced players, just as you did in 2017. There's no difference between what we are doing and what you did.

And we had to let about 20 players go because of our financial situation at the end of last season, and if you look at the teams we fielded in our pre-season friendlies, they were filled with very recent signings from local amateur clubs. Presumably you are saying we should have played these recently-signed young lads in our early-season games rather than the DR guys, yet it was ok for you to play the Leeds (and Widnes) guys in 2017?

Let me explain the diffrence.

without borrowing players in 2017 there would have been some weeks where we wouldnt have been even able to field 17 players. (You will know all about that after last years embarrasment) This year you have enough players to run a reserve grade yet you still CHOOSE to play the lads from leeds rather than play your own players

Is that clear enough for you?

This is laughable. You didn't just play them when you couldn't raise a team. You chose to play them pretty much whenever they were available.

Towards the end of last season there were a couple of occasions when Fev only named a 14-man squad, because we literally had no other players available. If what you are saying about not being able to field 17 players was true, that would have happened with Bradford in 2017 when the loan/DR players were unavailable, but it didn't. In fact, the week after you played Fev in the Challenge Cup with no loan/DR players, you played Dewsbury and immediately slotted five loan guys back into your team.

Is THAT clear enough for you?

Why you arguing over something two years a go?. We didn't even D/R with Leeds.

D/Rs a a farce. Bringing one player like Brad Singleton for one game not to be seen again all year is a farce. Its hinders player development as with Jordan Lilley.

I personally don't think it helps teams like Fev either.

Because it's annoying when fans of teams who have used DR themselves ( or widespread loans) somehow try to defend their own usage whilst attacking another teams' usage.

I don't especially disagree with anyone saying DR is a farce btw, or with your comments about Singleton. If DR gets voted out, that's fine by me. I just don't like the comments about one team's use somehow being more innocent or acceptable than another's.

Not sure anyone said that but you - then again, I am tired...

I don't think The Phantom Horsemen is making a bad point here. There's not a lot of difference between Fev this year especially (after cutting costs massively) and Bradford last year. The comment about running a reserve grade but playing DR players is redundant too, as Bradford last year ran a reserve grade, but in the first team saw the likes of Egodo, Hitchcox, Green, Lilley, Laithwaite & Butler-Fleming picked above those reserves.
Loads of clubs do it. I don't think any club who has used the loan/DR systems can claim to be holier than thou. Personally I agree DR is awful, but equally don't blame clubs like Fev, Sheffield & Leigh for exploiting it if it's there and they can get some quality in their side that they'd otherwise be lacking.

I take more issue with people like Lee Greenwood at Dewsbury. Outspoken about how he doesn't like DR, but then massively overuses the loan market meaning their team regularly has 3, 4 or 5 loan players in the side. He's using semantics of the differences between DR and loans to be a massive hypocrite.