The Salford fire-sale has come at completely the wrong time, both for Salford and the rest of the competition with most quotas now filled. But despite that, I've seen a remarkable lack of interest among the Wigan fans, which seems to stem from the belief that no one at Salford could possibly unseat any of our current first team. There is some minor interest around Brierley as a potential back-up man, but opinions on that are mostly divided.

It got me thinking about whether there's anyone currently plying his trade in the UK who might be a decent acquisition. Off the top of my head, and at the risk of sounding arrogant and inviting 'second season syndrome,' I can only think of one: Tom Johnstone. But that's an attitude for the immediate here and now. Being realistic, as we approach the end of this coming season, we'll be losing players (and not necessarily guys who are finished) and so team rebuilding should already be on the club's mind, even if it's not on ours.

The invincible Wigan team of the mid 90s was not the same team that started it all in the late 80s. Careful and selective replacement of supposedly irreplaceable star names (Hanley, Gregory, Lydon etc) created a winning formula that went on for nearly a decade. We have different pressures these days - not least the salary cap - but the same rule holds. No one lasts forever, and new talent must be found.

I guess the questions I'm posing therefore are: Who do we want? And who can we get?

Major hitters in the NRL are nearly always out of reach, but are there some lesser names knocking around down there who could do a job for us? And what of SL? There must be more than one or two players on British soil who would take our fancy?

This probably sounds like a pompous post, a Wigan fan like me naming names as if it would be that easy. But all we're doing is talking.

We'll have to start rebuilding at some point fairly soon. Which realistic targets could do that job for us?