Wanderer wrote:
As a club recently in SL, you must find that extremely disappointing.
I do find it disappointing.
I accept that our priority was to get into SL, and our owner put all his eggs in that basket - and I was delighted with the way things panned out. However, last season we suffered a number of bad injuries, as did all the other clubs, but we had no reserves to fall back on. We were forced to go for short term loans, which don't tend to engender loyalty or commitment from the loanees. I believe this was one of the major reasons we were relegated. We now have a very young 'academy' side, in conjunction with Wigan & Leigh College, but no reserve side, as yet. The future for a reserve team doesn't currently look good, with only a handful of clubs being able to run a team. We had talked about a joint reserve side with Salford, but it looks like the departure of their owner, and the resultant cost cutting, have put paid to that. In order to flourish, we need to build a firm base.
I am disappointed that we have had to back out of this fixture and let Doncaster down - especially after the initial talk, of how we wanted to help a Championship One club. If we didn't intend playing the game, we should never have made the commitment.
