Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:30 am  

Possibly Tom Briscoe maybe?

Briscoe and Bowen would ease the pain of losing Sam.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:34 am  

Can see today just being the standard announcement of stuff that everyone has known for ages, i.e. Sam going, Bowen, Sarginson and Clubb coming in. Hopefully there will be one or two surprise bits of good news but I'm not very optimistic of that!

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 8:50 am  

WARRIORCRAIG wrote:

Can see today just being the standard announcement of stuff that everyone has known for ages, i.e. Sam going, Bowen, Sarginson and Clubb coming in. Hopefully there will be one or two surprise bits of good news but I'm not very optimistic of that!

Perhaps new contracts for Goulding, Flower and Dudson? Bilko seems to have removed the contract status bit from his site but I'm pretty sure those three are off contract.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:01 am  

Tricky Dicky wrote:

The quality in our squad is dwindling away. The last time we saw this Jack robinson was chairman.

Next seasons departures will be hansen and josh replaced by players from which ever team are relegated.

Is this your new approach to trying to elicit good news, Tricky ... posting nothing but doom and gloom?

Did spinning out every rumour you ever heard, no matter how foolish, as if it was a done-deal, not work for you then?

There are two big differences between now and then - under IL we aren't facing imminent bankruptcy, and we have a whole generation of star youngsters (many on a par with those of the Mike Gregory / Joe Lydon / Andy Platt generation) about to break through.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:12 am  

dubairl wrote:

not the most reliable source as bowen plays for cowboys and not titans haha, also the same poster said the presser was yesterday.

usually we get a half decent announcement that there will be more announcements to follow so surely somebody has the correct information or a twitter feed to follow the conference.

Sorry about the mix up with the Titans and the Cowboys, memory playing tricks.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 9:41 am  

Cruncher wrote:

Is this your new approach to trying to elicit good news, Tricky ... posting nothing but doom and gloom?

Did spinning out every rumour you ever heard, no matter how foolish, as if it was a done-deal, not work for you then?

There are two big differences between now and then - under IL we aren't facing imminent bankruptcy, and we have a whole generation of star youngsters (many on a par with those of the Mike Gregory / Joe Lydon / Andy Platt generation) about to break through.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:05 am  

Cruncher wrote:

Is this your new approach to trying to elicit good news, Tricky ... posting nothing but doom and gloom?

Did spinning out every rumour you ever heard, no matter how foolish, as if it was a done-deal, not work for you then?

There are two big differences between now and then - under IL we aren't facing imminent bankruptcy, and we have a whole generation of star youngsters (many on a par with those of the Mike Gregory / Joe Lydon / Andy Platt generation) about to break through.

And boy are we relying on them.

Sam will go next year. Josh Charnley will be mad if he doesn't go to RU. There must be clubs knocking on the door and as a winger, with his style of play, he will fit perfectly into RU (ironically easier than Sam would imo).

It's a very short career. Go to RU, play in front of enormous crowds and become a multi-millionaire (which he would), or stay in Wigan and........... hmm

I have absolutely no problem with the youth coming in and claiming a Wigan shirt. However, as a "selling club", it looks like Wigan are relying on them, rather than using them to supplement the team.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:33 am  

XBrettKennyX wrote:

And boy are we relying on them.

Sam will go next year. Josh Charnley will be mad if he doesn't go to RU. There must be clubs knocking on the door and as a winger, with his style of play, he will fit perfectly into RU (ironically easier than Sam would imo).

It's a very short career. Go to RU, play in front of enormous crowds and become a multi-millionaire (which he would), or stay in Wigan and........... hmm

I have absolutely no problem with the youth coming in and claiming a Wigan shirt. However, as a "selling club", it looks like Wigan are relying on them, rather than using them to supplement the team.

I don't dispute this. But I think the problem is a lot more complex than Wigan having an evil chairman who is out to trouser as much cash from the club as he can get away with.

More likely, at least to me - and I suspect to you, if you're honest - it is at least partly down to the overall state of the game. Frankly, it's on a downer. There is not enough money and there is even less will at Red Hall, to raise or even moderate the cap to a point where it will make a significant difference to our top players' earnings. The people running British RL have no marketing acumen at all - they have a great product and can't sell it. The next World Cup may be different from previous ones, but at present there is no glamorous international dimension to RL. Not only does RU have regular meaningful international tournaments, they also do tours. They are 100% better organised than we are in that respect. And on top of all that, we now have the Aussies cherry-picking as well. Let's not forget, the last time the Aussies were interested in our players, we were in our absolute pomp, we won everything, we were splashing the cash etc, and yet we still lost three of our best players - Betts, Clark and Platt in one fell swoop.

Perhaps we shouldn't be such a high profile club? Maybe if we were unimportant and no-one cared about us, we wouldn't be up against such irresistible forces? Being the biggest fish in a very small pond is no easy thing.

All that said, I agree with you. After Sam, it should be time to draw the line and from then on hold players to their contracts, even if it pees them off. Because the alternative is peeing off those who are even more important - the fans.

If we win everything this year, it will be an amazing achievement and a vindication of Shaun Wane. It will also be a good reason to pour scorn on the kind of ridiculous OTT posting that we saw earlier today from Tricky Dicky. But, and I don't deny this, it won't remove the wider concerns - which everyone ought to share, not just those at Wigan RL.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 10:57 am  

Cruncher wrote:

I don't dispute this. But I think the problem is a lot more complex than Wigan having an evil chairman who is out to trouser as much cash from the club as he can get away with.

More likely, at least to me - and I suspect to you, if you're honest - it is at least partly down to the overall state of the game. Frankly, it's on a downer. There is not enough money and there is even less will at Red Hall, to raise or even moderate the cap to a point where it will make a significant difference to our top players' earnings. The people running British RL have no marketing acumen at all - they have a great product and can't sell it. The next World Cup may be different from previous ones, but at present there is no glamorous international dimension to RL. Not only does RU have regular meaningful international tournaments, they also do tours. They are 100% better organised than we are in that respect. And on top of all that, we now have the Aussies cherry-picking as well. Let's not forget, the last time the Aussies were interested in our players, we were in our absolute pomp, we won everything, we were splashing the cash etc, and yet we still lost three of our best players - Betts, Clark and Platt in one fell swoop.

Perhaps we shouldn't be such a high profile club? Maybe if we were unimportant and no-one cared about us, we wouldn't be up against such irresistible forces? Being the biggest fish in a very small pond is no easy thing.

All that said, I agree with you. After Sam, it should be time to draw the line and from then on hold players to their contracts, even if it pees them off. Because the alternative is peeing off those who are even more important - the fans.

If we win everything this year, it will be an amazing achievement and a vindication of Shaun Wane. It will also be a good reason to pour scorn on the kind of ridiculous OTT posting that we saw earlier today from Tricky Dicky. But, and I don't deny this, it won't remove the wider concerns - which everyone ought to share, not just those at Wigan RL.

I don't think IL is "evil", nor do I believe that he instigated Sams sale (I may be wrong on this, but atm I don't see any evidence implicating him). I do blame the RFL for their managment of the game, the CC especially. They really do think they live in a bubble.

That said, I don't buy this "using transfer money for investing in the future", or investing in infrastructure nonsense. We should be doing this irrespective of "one off" windfalls that come from the sale of star players.

Tomorrow never comes, and Wigan needs star players, not "promising" players. I do blame IL for going down this road.

If we win the GF this year, and let's be honest, that's what we all want more than anything, then I agree we have to give credit to Shaun Wane. Through luck, skill, fortune, motivation, whatever, he would have done all that could have been asked of him. Not in the "future" not "building for this or that" but right here, right now. Personally I like him as a person, he comes accross as a really genuine guy. There are question marks over some of his tactics, but then we are not privy to all the information that he has, so it's difficult.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Sep 23, 2013 12:07 pm  

Cruncher wrote:

I don't dispute this. But I think the problem is a lot more complex than Wigan having an evil chairman who is out to trouser as much cash from the club as he can get away with.

More likely, at least to me - and I suspect to you, if you're honest - it is at least partly down to the overall state of the game. Frankly, it's on a downer. There is not enough money and there is even less will at Red Hall, to raise or even moderate the cap to a point where it will make a significant difference to our top players' earnings. The people running British RL have no marketing acumen at all - they have a great product and can't sell it. The next World Cup may be different from previous ones, but at present there is no glamorous international dimension to RL. Not only does RU have regular meaningful international tournaments, they also do tours. They are 100% better organised than we are in that respect. And on top of all that, we now have the Aussies cherry-picking as well. Let's not forget, the last time the Aussies were interested in our players, we were in our absolute pomp, we won everything, we were splashing the cash etc, and yet we still lost three of our best players - Betts, Clark and Platt in one fell swoop.

Perhaps we shouldn't be such a high profile club? Maybe if we were unimportant and no-one cared about us, we wouldn't be up against such irresistible forces? Being the biggest fish in a very small pond is no easy thing.

All that said, I agree with you. After Sam, it should be time to draw the line and from then on hold players to their contracts, even if it pees them off. Because the alternative is peeing off those who are even more important - the fans.

If we win everything this year, it will be an amazing achievement and a vindication of Shaun Wane. It will also be a good reason to pour scorn on the kind of ridiculous OTT posting that we saw earlier today from Tricky Dicky. But, and I don't deny this, it won't remove the wider concerns - which everyone ought to share, not just those at Wigan RL.

That makes quite depressing reading, as Wigan fan and as a RL fan, but it is spot on. We can't compete with RU and the NRL for wages because we are being held back by the poor state of the game. It has been in decline for years. Most clubs are struggling for money as we arent attracting enough big name sponsors. We can't even attract a main sponsor for Super League! The game as a whole needs a clear strategy for how it will increase it's profile and improve it's image. The idea that RL is followed by old Northerners in flat caps probably doesn't help to sell much advertising space