This signing and the Hastings signing are top class signings. The Burgess one is the most high profile one since Barrett in my opinion.
It also puts the other three signings in perspective. They are what I would call all now "bonus" signings that add depth to the squad. When Clarke and Bibby were signed they were greeted with not a great deal of enthusiasm as they were signings of players who were considered middle of the road standard who were not even first choice picks for their current sides. The standard of player we have become too used to seeing recruited at Wigan and this was not helped by Rads going completely over the top with his description of Clarke as one of the most destructive forwards in the league or whatever it was he said along those lines which did not go down well.
Now we have Burgess, Flower and Clarke as our main prop forwards in 2010 which reads so much better then Clubb, FLower and Clarke. It does make the two year deal for Clubb look odd especially as some of the younger props look to be developing well. I am even more convinced we should have let Clubb go with the arrival of Burgess and the young players coming through.
I also put French in the "bonus" category. The rumour of his signing was greeted with a great deal of enthusiasm possibly because we have forgotten what it is like to recruit anyone from the NRL but it was also over the top in my opinion and put too much expectation on the player to be the second coming of Trent Barrett with lot of people saying he's a 6 when he has not played there much at all. Now perhaps he can be seen as an exciting prospect and Lam can decide best where to use him.
All in all our recruitment has gone from considered rubbish and cheapskate with class players like S Tomkins and Bateman not replaced to on a par with or better than anyone else in SL. I had totally lost faith in IL and Rads to recruit anyone any good and the Edwards fiasco was a low point for the pair of them but they have certainly turned that around.
I was seriously considering cancelling the auto-renew of the season ticket this time but it will be going through now. I bet I am not the only one doing the same so if IL wants proof it's class players that put bums on seats I reckon he is going to have the evidence soon enough.
