Looks like Burgess will be going to Wigan..

Why?

If George Burgess goes to Wigan, and we can't be in for him because we've tied up our cap on other players, you have to wonder whether we are getting value for money from our elite earners. With Widdop lined up for next year I would happily swap Austin for Burgess, even if that meant we stuck with Patton alongside Widdop. The team would be stronger.

I think when we announced the signing of Widdop I was expecting him to be the cherry on the cake. That we would be close (hopefully even closer than last year) to being Super League champions in 2019, and Widdop would be the player that separated us from the pack. I expect other Wire fans thought the same.

Now I fear that next year, we will have Widdop, but we'll be further behind Saints than this year and potentially Wigan will have overtaken us, and we'll spend the season saying stuff like "doesn't matter how good your halfbacks are when your pack is going backwards".

At the current rate we must sign a prop or props to help ease the load on Hill and Cooper all we are doing or will do is burn these guys out and as Sally says be behind Saints again and if rumour has be behind a resurgent Wigan.

The club have to up the ante and with some urgency given the status quo

But , is a Widdop with a shoulder injury waiting to happen better than Austin ?

I thought that. Having said that if we can get another good prop and have centres that can pass to wingers and a game plan which means centres get the ball in space I think not all is lost. We should have decent cap available with Brown, Westwood, Adkins, Tasi, Sitaleki, Goodwyn all moving on

I disagree. Whilst Burgess is a very good player you could easily sign another player for nowhere near the marquee money Burgess will be commanding. For example, if you compare Burgess to Liam Watts say, I'd be interested to know the stats and the comparisons between the two with Watts not commanding marquee money or anywhere near it. You take Widdop and he is world class in his position, hes a game changer and a leader who is respected around the world having won everything in the NRL. I'd say he's top 10 in his position in the world. I'm not sure if George Burgess is.

Bang on LTS.
George Burgess isn't worth money...Sam is
I'm with you, I'd have Warmsley Watts and Taylor ahead of George B.

Me too RD, if only we could make it happen to sign any of those four, we could forget about George Burgess.

Having said that, George Burgess would improve our squad.

Sure, but George Burgess is available. I don't know who else is available and don't have massive confidence in our recruitment that we will sign upgrades to our pack, which will put us back in the same situation. Also my idea of getting Burgess was based on the hypothetical that Austin looks for an early release, if he doesn't, then a lot of our cap space will be invested in him. The hope then will be that when we are playing badly, Austin will step up (literally!) and pull off some gamebreaking moments. Nat Wood, who was a similar type of player to Austin, used to do that, and Austin is probably more talented than NW. At the moment the problem is that Austin is being less effective. Perhaps it's because other teams have worked out how to limit him, and there isn't enough firepower elsewhere to give them trouble.

Our season has gone a bit like Chelsea in football, where teams worked out how to contain Jorginho and then they became ineffective. By the end of the season though, both Chelsea and Jorginho seemed to have countered these defensive efforts, and they improved again, so hopefully it will be the same with Blake.

Don’t get too upset about Burgess. He hasn’t had a good game for years and he’s good for at least 4 errors and 4 penalties a game.

He's OK GB when playing but he's a liability like Sita is.
I can't see either getting an extension of contract....Lineham is also getting close. Another repeat of KR and I'd be looking at a replacement. We can't afford to carry these loose cannons.