Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:00 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

OM, whilst not disagreeing with you entirely I would add Ian Thornley to that list. Ian is a 6ft 2" centre weighing in at almost 16 stone at 18 years of age. He is also very fast, something we are crying out for at International and indeed Superleague level. He had been at Wigan from being about 12 years of age.

Wigan couldn't match Sales offer under the current salary cap rules. I've always maintained that a player (particularly if it is from a clubs own service area) who has come through a clubs academy system should have a percentage of his salary not counted against the cap.
Also I am led to believe that Sale "sorted" a uni placement for Thornley.

If we use 50% as a figure then Wigan could have paid Thornley say £60K but only £30K counted against the cap.


The same rule could be applied to Roby and Graham.

Like I mentioned above, why should Wigan be allowed to spend MORE when they don't make a profit?

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:13 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

Wigan couldn't match Sales offer under the current salary cap rules.

Yes they could - they just had to not sign one of Finch/Lima/Hoffman/Carmont (notice the theme with those signings?) or Hock (presumably, since IL has stated he has cash in reserve for him) and Wigan would have had more than enough cash to top up a young British prospect's contract, especially if he's as good as you say he is.

Same goes for Ashton - I think you went and signed Carmont then Tim Smith mid season after you couldn't "afford" to sign him on.

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:15 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

Like I mentioned above, why should Wigan be allowed to spend MORE when they don't make a profit?

Because it is a business, and THEY would decide if THEY wanted to take the RISK for the future.
I also said that Saints could use the same agreement for Graham and Roby they chose to.

Sky has lost millions over the years, but it hasn't stopped their investment.

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:22 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

Because it is a business,

Yup, and businesses can go bust.

The salary cap is good for he game.

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:27 pm  

Offside Monkey wrote:

Yup, and businesses can go bust.

The salary cap is good for he game.

I agree.
But businesses should be allowed to make decisions for the long term good of that business even if it means running at a supportable loss.

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:33 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

I agree.
But businesses should be allowed to make decisions for the long term good of that business even if it means running at a supportable loss.

Yeah Wigan RLFC know what supportable means. Does being bought for a fiver purely to bolt onto a planning application quite cover it?

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:37 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

I agree.
But businesses should be allowed to make decisions for the long term good of that business even if it means running at a supportable loss.

Mmm, whilst I'd begrudge anyone telling me how to run my business (although to a degree the government does, and if I had long term liabiliies, I'm sure the bank would want a say), sports clubs seem especially prone to failure. Rugby League does not have enough depth in potential top flight clubs to risk losing anyof them.

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 5:14 pm  

Offside Monkey wrote:

What player drain is that? Ellis, Burgess and Chris Ashton?
I'd suggest that the lads like Sam, Gaz and now James are not being motivated entirley by money. That leaves you with Chris Ashton, who went the length of the field in an England Jersey against Australia infront of a packed Twikenham.

The salary cap isn't the problem. If James leaves, we'll replace him, maybe not with one equal individual, but where there's a will there's a way. Besides, the more lads who leave for Austrailia mean more places available for english youngsters in SL, increasing our player pool

If we raise the salary cap, clubs will just have more finacially problems. Lets concentrate on getting bigger crowds and better sponsership (maybe even a better deal from sky, eventually), and then talk about spending more money.

There's been plenty of stories coming out of Rugby Union about the clubs struggling financially because of the strains of maintaining a bigger squad.

on the financial side i agree completely we need to get teams houses in order before we can raise any cap, but it is still a reason we are being hindered, saints haven't been affected yet but could easily lose 3 players that we'd have built the team around for years as we can't match their offers.

As for the player drain i wasn't just speaking about established players but super league off the top of my head rugby league in general has lost robinson, farrell, ashton, hape, vainikolo, tiquiri, folau, gasnier, tahu, sonny bill, ellis, flanagan, burgess catalans have lost pelo and at least one other to french ru, Thornley has gone from wigan before even getting a game, that doesn't cover juniors coming into sport opting for ru over rl, if they get offered £20000 in rl or £40000 in ru, at 18 and with a short career ahead they'd be mental to turn it down. We won't really know how many good players we are missing out on as a sport because clubs can't keep them all.

Australia sorted their deal out and are now a realistic place for players financially as well as skillfully and we could see a few more go in the next 18 months

Not sure about giving more uk players chances as not enough teams are producing them and to replace the quality of a graham or roby you have to look overseas.

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 6:27 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

:lol: Yeah Wigan RLFC know what supportable means. Does being bought for a fiver purely to bolt onto a planning application quite cover it?

and where would saints be if mcmanus hadn`t put his money into saints? the debt was over £4 million at one point and your old board had to remortgage the stand. most of that debt is still thre ,its just classed as director loans.

Re: James Graham (Transfer Watch) : Fri Nov 19, 2010 7:08 pm  

roo67 wrote:

and where would saints be if mcmanus hadn`t put his money into saints? the debt was over £4 million at one point and your old board had to remortgage the stand. most of that debt is still thre ,its just classed as director loans.

Screwed.

Hence the reason you'll find most Saints fans are firmly in favour of a cap which prevents this reoccuring.

I'd much rather have a club to watch, albeit one which loses the odd star player every so often, rather than a a couple of Harlem Globetrotter seasons before crashing and burning into debt ridden oblivion.