Dbvada wrote:
our supporters club do a great job in raising funds for the reserve team and have kept them going.
This and fact most other clubs don't bother shows the lack of money in game as they all regard it main task to focus on first team and spend what they can there. Short sighted move as need to develop players. Dual registration was meant to help clubs get players experience but has never worked. Reserve league now looks doomed.
They will all think "if we took all we spend in reserves we could have another decent player or two and help win the main games". Perhaps we are just out of step by spending money this way.
Money isn't the issue. Or at least it wasn't the main issue for Leigh. The problem was lack of regular and competitive fixtures.
I think Leigh reserves managed about 10 games in total last year and would have been less if they hadn't made the GF. At least half of those got moved/cancelled/rearranged at least once.
A large number of matches were also absolute blow outs. Did the Leigh kids learn anything by travelling over to Keighley on a Wednesday night and winning by 70 pts? Did that really do anything to help their development, or Keighleys?
By the end of the year we had our 8 'best' kids out on loan in Champ 1 because the standard of the reserve comp was doing nothing for their development.
This season things seem even worse and fixtures even more scarce. I am not happy that Leigh are not running a reserves side but can understand why we aren't bothering under the current system and now it seems Fev, Sheffield and Dewsbury are in agreement.
A real shame and a proper reserves structure needs to be put in place before things get even worse.
