Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Feb 25, 2014 2:35 pm  

No, I meant Peacock. He went over to Aus from Bradford when he was a young bloke. Don't know the club he played for, even if it wasn't first grade.

As for Watkins, IMO he's the best centre in SL with ball in hand, absolutely brilliant. His defence though seems all over the place at times. In the GF play offs he came flying out of the line and I think Green went behind him to put Faz over. Then there was the HKR try, he came out of the line again to get Dobson, missed him and HKR went through the gap to score. He does this a lot.
Admitted an NRL club could probably overcome this and he is very talented. Leeds do have him and Hall who would be in demand. As we all know though, Leeds are a far better team than the sum of their individual players.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Feb 25, 2014 3:05 pm  

It could be that our players fancy the challenge of going to play in Oz whereas the likes of Roby, Hall, Hardaker, Watkins etc want to stay in SL, for the time being at least. Leeds were lucky in the sense that when their 'golden generation' of youngsters came through: Sinfield, McGuire, Burrow, JJB etc. the NRL salary cap wasn't as high as it is now, they didn't have a massive TV deal and the £ was strong against the aussie dollar.

Wigan have got a crop of exciting youngsters coming through currently and the Aussies are in a position where they can cherry pick our best, and if the player fancies it there's not a lot the club can do. You can say the club should make them honour these long contracts but I'd argue that these 4/5 year deals wouldn't be signed by the player in the first place if they thought that they couldn't get out of it should a better deal come along, and it's actually nothing more than a buffer to ensure the club at least get a transfer fee out of it.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Feb 25, 2014 5:01 pm  

Leeds also lost two of their outstanding academy players Mason Tonks and Jordan Baldwinson to the NZ Warriors this year.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Feb 25, 2014 7:11 pm  

WARRIORCRAIG wrote:

It could be that our players fancy the challenge of going to play in Oz whereas the likes of Roby, Hall, Hardaker, Watkins etc want to stay in SL, for the time being at least. Leeds were lucky in the sense that when their 'golden generation' of youngsters came through: Sinfield, McGuire, Burrow, JJB etc. the NRL salary cap wasn't as high as it is now, they didn't have a massive TV deal and the £ was strong against the aussie dollar.

Wigan have got a crop of exciting youngsters coming through currently and the Aussies are in a position where they can cherry pick our best, and if the player fancies it there's not a lot the club can do. You can say the club should make them honour these long contracts but I'd argue that these 4/5 year deals wouldn't be signed by the player in the first place if they thought that they couldn't get out of it should a better deal come along, and it's actually nothing more than a buffer to ensure the club at least get a transfer fee out of it.

If that's the way of it, fine. Just let the club tell us that instead of all the cods wallop!

[DaveO]

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Feb 25, 2014 8:26 pm  

jinkin jimmy wrote:

If that's the way of it, fine. Just let the club tell us that instead of all the cods wallop!

Agreed. The club always makes great play of the fact players sign five year deals but if everyone knows they are unrealistic why persist with the sham? It's just annoying.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:36 pm  

DaveO wrote:

Agreed. The club always makes great play of the fact players sign five year deals but if everyone knows they are unrealistic why persist with the sham? It's just annoying.

When are we tying down Joe Burgess to a five year deal?

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Feb 25, 2014 9:40 pm  

DaveO wrote:

Agreed. The club always makes great play of the fact players sign five year deals but if everyone knows they are unrealistic why persist with the sham? It's just annoying.

Why persist with it? Maybe the fact it gives our players significantly more value on the market rather than allowing them to walk free of charge is a fairly good reason?

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:10 pm  

The long term deal always need to be there but this pretence that lads being cherry picked by the NRL/Union is some sort of shot in the arm for us and a pat on the back needs to be rid of. The same goes for the line we trot out when a lad moves to the NRL about them coming back to Wigan because that's been blown to pieces by Tomkins and Mossop within the last two weeks.

That's were my frustration lies. Us being a selling club and wanting to make profits is fine as long as we still have a good side but it's the spin that gets put on things that grates at me. There is no need to sugar coat it because people aren't clueless. It's the times we're in that means the club needs to be run this way but just be upfront.

As soon as we have a bad trot the club will get all sorts thrown at it from frustrated fans because of this spin.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:09 am  

Apparently Dr Kockrash is after Tuilagi

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Feb 26, 2014 10:13 am  

I hate the line 'It's good for our game when the league lads are picked for union'

Then comes some apologetic excuse. It does f all for league, in fact the press will blatantly not mention it UNLESS the story is negative.
The majority of RU writers, pundits see RL as a nuisance, a sport standing in their way of challenging football as a national sport.
Is Burgess going good for RL? No it isn't, we get 5 minutes of fame at the beginning and then we are cast aside.
If he succeeds RU will take all the credit and if he fails he'll be a failed league convert.
Tomkins won't come back to SL period forget just Wigan, he'll either see out his days in NRL or be the next big name union signing.