NickyKiss wrote:
I'm a huge fan of Ian Lenagan. Without him we wouldn't be sat here as a successful, trophy winning club. He turned us round and he deserves massive credit for that. He does however go about these transfer dealings in a very secretive way and whenever he had bad news to break he makes sure he offsets it with the some 'feel good' announcements. Due to Tomkins stature and importance to Wigan this one has taken longer to put together then the others but it all seems to be coming to a head now.
Where have I said Tomkins is going against his will? I haven't and he certainly isn't. He's going for the challenge of playing in a better league. Sure he'll get paid better but then he's getting paid extremely well here so I'm not having that as his main motivation.
All the above is a side issue anyway. My point was about Tomkins not being allowed to announce the fact he's leaving. People seem to want to hang him out to dry for this yet I'm convinced this had been out of his hands. When do players themselves ever announce their departures anyway? He isn't going to come out and put it on twitter or just announce it during some media work.
If people want to vent their frustrations at the delay then vent them towards the club. It is their responsibility to inform the public.
I don't have a problem with your view on the way the club is handling this. I think they've got it wrong. The Sam saga overshadowed the Wembley win and is now in danger of overshadowing the play-offs.
While, like you, I suspect it is to do with the club trying to get all deals tied up so they can announce them in one go, I'm not sure this is the worst reason in the world, though I do think it's becoming counterproductive. It could also be that Sam's departure is only one part of a much larger and more complex deal, which has taken time to set up. I simply don't know, and neither does anyone else on our side of the fence.
But all that, I think, is the sideline. A much bigger concern to me is that Sam has been allowed to leave at all. It's very, very disappointing, but I think there is a lot of hot air being spouted by certain fans who simply don't want the player to be at fault (I'm not accusing you of that, by the way). Past experience suggests this is often not the case. Even in the distant past, the likes of Hanley and Andy Gregory had periods of fall-out with the club, drew support from the fans, and then it turned out it was half a dozen of one and six of the other (Graham Lowe was ready to go home half way through the 87/88 season because fans were giving him so much crap over the Hanley affair - and how disastrous for Wigan would that would have been?). We've seen a recent plethora of players ducking out of their contracts. Okay, I think the club has sometimes been weak allowing this to happen - there comes a line when you have to call one of these guys' bluff, even if that means you have a disgruntled player on your hands. But the impetus has often come from the player or his agent.
I don't see why the Sam situation should be any different (when all the evidence suggests that the real money and challenge now lies in Aus, and that we are minnows in every sense of the word). This idea that it's all down to IL - because he wants to pocket a big transfer fee - makes no sense to me. Of course, until the club come out and say otherwise, we won't know one way or the other - though even then, I suspect, some people will continue to trot out the same line, and just accuse IL and co of lying.
As for Sam, I'll cheer him to the end. It's his career and his choice. Rightly or wrongly, there will always be people who'll feel betrayed, but they'd be better turning their fire on the RFL. They are the ones who have allowed the British game to dwindle to such insignificance that now no athlete with serious world-class ambitions would consider spending his entire career here.
