Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 9:54 am  

[quote="MadDogg"]Kearney and Ratchford are not two signings Super League Champions should make.[/quote]


I'm old enough to remember people saying the same thing about Neil Cowie, Billy McGinty and Martin Hall to name three. Not every player in the squad has to be world class or dipped into the River Douggy by his ankles at birth, great teams have great players but also have a large squad where decent but not box office players are happy to bide their time and come in and do a good job when required

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 11:44 am  

Dai Jones wrote:

I'm old enough to remember people saying the same thing about Neil Cowie, Billy McGinty and Martin Hall to name three. Not every player in the squad has to be world class or dipped into the River Douggy by his ankles at birth, great teams have great players but also have a large squad where decent but not box office players are happy to bide their time and come in and do a good job when required

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 1:32 pm  

Dai Jones wrote:

I'm old enough to remember people saying the same thing about Neil Cowie, Billy McGinty and Martin Hall to name three. Not every player in the squad has to be world class or dipped into the River Douggy by his ankles at birth, great teams have great players but also have a large squad where decent but not box office players are happy to bide their time and come in and do a good job when required

Correct. Not every signing can be a superstar. Kearney would be a bit of a gamble given his form post-injury but he's relatively young

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 1:41 pm  

Would rather us use our own kids than sign another aussie (unless of course its Billy Slater)

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 5:22 pm  

Dai Jones wrote:

I'm old enough to remember people saying the same thing about Neil Cowie, Billy McGinty and Martin Hall to name three. Not every player in the squad has to be world class or dipped into the River Douggy by his ankles at birth, great teams have great players but also have a large squad where decent but not box office players are happy to bide their time and come in and do a good job when required

Yeah, but let's be fair. Ratchford won't be playing in a threequarter line with Jason Robinson and Martin Offiah on the wings. Nor will he have Henry Paul at full-back and Shaun Edwards and Frano Botica in the halves.

I'd be interested in Kearney, but I haven't seen much n Ratchford's armoury that would excite me if he took one of the Wigan first-team shirts.

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 6:01 pm  

Cruncher wrote:

I'd be interested in Kearney, but I haven't seen much n Ratchford's armoury that would excite me if he took one of the Wigan first-team shirts.

Nobody is saying that he's going to walk straight into the team should we sign him. He would give us useful cover in several positions along the backline though. If you look at our current squad as a whole I think it would look stronger on paper if Ratchford was in there. It's hard to speculate too much on next season's squad because we don't know who will be here and who won't

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 6:11 pm  

Only sign a player when you know he's 100% right. Got to be savvy in the SC era. I personally have faith in IL

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 6:49 pm  

Cruncher wrote:

Yeah, but let's be fair. Ratchford won't be playing in a threequarter line with Jason Robinson and Martin Offiah on the wings. Nor will he have Henry Paul at full-back and Shaun Edwards and Frano Botica in the halves.

I'd be interested in Kearney, but I haven't seen much n Ratchford's armoury that would excite me if he took one of the Wigan first-team shirts.

As you rightly allude to Wigan have always had a sprinking of fairly average players, even in their most successful teams but they were surrounded by very good players. Players such as Neil Cowie, Terry O'Connor, Billy McGinty, Martin Hall, David Myers, Sam Panapa etc all did a very good job but they didnt exactly stand out at the clubs they came from, or indeed the clubs they went to after. They came into a successful team with some great players and some great leaders and stepped up another level. The same can be said of the current Wigan team or the Leeds, Saints and Bradford teams of the last few years. No top RL team has ever had a team of 17 superstars.

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 7:00 pm  

Famous wrote:

No top RL team has ever had a team of 17 superstars.

Some of Aussie national squads, along with some of the more recent Queensland ones have certainly been.

Re: Rumours and signings v6 (inc Maguire Rumours) : Thu May 26, 2011 7:11 pm  

Boris wrote:

Some of Aussie national squads, along with some of the more recent Queensland ones have certainly been.

I disagree. Even coaches of representative teams havent always picked what most people would consider the best players. Australia have often picked a lesser player for the balance of the team, because they compliment another player or because they are grafters rather than just picking the best 17 players. Some players also dont fit with a coaches style of play so have also not been picked.