I penned a fairly lengthy piece the other week about the new Dual Registration / Contract system that has been brought in. I spoke about the pluses and minuses of such a system and the topic has raised its head again.
I watched with interest the situation unfolding at Widnes where winger Shaun Ainscough has been doing an excellent job since joining the Vikings from Wigan on dual terms. His strike rate of four tries in three games is impressive and he was recalled to Wigan early in the week.
Okay, I thought perhaps in the win over Warrington Pat Richards or Darrell Goulding strained something and the form of Ainscough pointed to the fact he was ready to grace a shirt in which he scored 17 tries in 12 outings last season.
Little did I expect the news 24 hours later that Ainscough had joined Castleford ON LOAN for a full month. So it now appears these dual contracts can be moved about at will in the old loan system so really it's potentially a three way agreement between a player, his club, his dual contract club and any other Super League club that has space on their salary cap.
Who knows what lies around the corner? Kyle Amor (Leeds-Whitehaven) onto Wakefield? Lee Mitchell (Warrington-Leigh) onto Salford?
The mind boggles. This is something that hadn't crossed my mind until the story the other day. Once again it is great for the player involved but the system is heavily weighted in favour of the Super League clubs. The message clearly being sent out is if you have a Dual Reg player on your books and you are a Championship or Championship One club, don't get too used or reliant to having that player available.
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