Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Wed Oct 26, 2011 9:28 pm  

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/sport/rugby-league/5860190/Leuluai-linked-to-Rabbitohs

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/sport/rugby-league/5860190/Leuluai-linked-to-Rabbitohs

Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Wed Oct 26, 2011 9:46 pm  

If Wigan are resigned to losing Joel Tomkins (which let's face it, is near certain) then we'll get a fee around £200K-£250K tops IMO.
In addition to Joel Tomkins we'll have Ryan Hoffman, Andy Coley, Paul Deacon, Eamon O'carroll, Ben Davies, (Martin Gleeson), Ben Cross and Karl Pryce all leaving and with only a couple of Crusaders youngsters and Lauaki coming in then we should have a significant amount of salary cap space available.
We have money and salary cap space.

I think Wigan should start getting aggressive in the market.
Target the most promising youngsters in the game and start offering transfer fees for those players that clubs - who owe money to HMRC - will probably need.
We poached Mark Flanagan from Bradford IIRC.
Leeds have poached that Briscoe lad from Hull, so other clubs are doing it too.

Established stars like Tom Briscoe/BJB etc are probably less likely to leave/be available. But the best 17/18/19-year-old lads in this country that are yet to sign professional terms we could snare. I'd raid academies all over this country. We have an excellent academy here, but you can never have too many talented youngsters. I know our academy is not producing centres at the moment and the last prop forward we produced of any note was Lee Mossop.

With the NRL market 'largely dead' (Ian Lenagan's words, not mine) and the SL OOC list absolutely abysmal I see little alternative (or anything better). Stick to our guns this year. Snare the best talent in this country, integrate them with our own, develop them, get a few years out of them and reside ourselves to losing most of them when Union/NRL start poaching, but at least we'll have won a few trophies.

Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Wed Oct 26, 2011 10:54 pm  

cadoo wrote:

If Wigan are resigned to losing Joel Tomkins (which let's face it, is near certain) then we'll get a fee around £200K-£250K tops IMO.
In addition to Joel Tomkins we'll have Ryan Hoffman, Andy Coley, Paul Deacon, Eamon O'carroll, Ben Davies, (Martin Gleeson), Ben Cross and Karl Pryce all leaving and with only a couple of Crusaders youngsters and Lauaki coming in then we should have a significant amount of salary cap space available.
We have money and salary cap space.

I think Wigan should start getting aggressive in the market.
Target the most promising youngsters in the game and start offering transfer fees for those players that clubs - who owe money to HMRC - will probably need.
We poached Mark Flanagan from Bradford IIRC.
Leeds have poached that Briscoe lad from Hull, so other clubs are doing it too.

Established stars like Tom Briscoe/BJB etc are probably less likely to leave/be available. But the best 17/18/19-year-old lads in this country that are yet to sign professional terms we could snare. I'd raid academies all over this country. We have an excellent academy here, but you can never have too many talented youngsters. I know our academy is not producing centres at the moment and the last prop forward we produced of any note was Lee Mossop.

With the NRL market 'largely dead' (Ian Lenagan's words, not mine) and the SL OOC list absolutely abysmal I see little alternative (or anything better). Stick to our guns this year. Snare the best talent in this country, integrate them with our own, develop them, get a few years out of them and reside ourselves to losing most of them when Union/NRL start poaching, but at least we'll have won a few trophies.

Joe Arundel, Tom Burgess and Daryl Clark would be 3 I would look at.

The latter is probably off the rader for a year or 2 but he's worth keeping an eye on.

Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Thu Oct 27, 2011 12:33 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

Joe Arundel, Tom Burgess and Daryl Clark would be 3 I would look at.

The latter is probably off the rader for a year or 2 but he's worth keeping an eye on.

He has just signed a 5 year deal with Cas after a number of super league clubs were after him

Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Thu Oct 27, 2011 7:05 am  

cherryandwhitedavid06 wrote:

He has just signed a 5 year deal with Cas after a number of super league clubs were after him

I know and that's why I said he's probably off the radar for a couple of years. At the end of the day we've seen with Joel contracts mean little but were obviously not going to get him out of a 5 year deal after 2 weeks.

As for Arundle and Burgess I believe they both only have 12 months on their contracts and the latter is looking for a decent contract from the Bulls that hasn't been forthcoming yet.

If we get 250k for Joel we could do worse then invest some of it in those 2.

Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Thu Oct 27, 2011 8:51 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

Joe Arundel, Tom Burgess and Daryl Clark would be 3 I would look at.

The latter is probably off the rader for a year or 2 but he's worth keeping an eye on.

Tom Burgess would be an ideal long-term replacement for Coley

Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:23 am  

If we're going to go for Burgess though, surely it would make more sense just to wait a year. There's no point paying for what will be free a year down the line. If we're throwing money at someone, it should go somewhere else.

Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:47 am  

Easy, with Rangi Chase not eligible for England surely he can get a British passport therefore no visa problems and a move away to a bigger club on more money, I reckon that's the reason he chose to play for England in all honesty.

Tommy to play hooker all year, Finch at 7 and Chase at 6, bid for Chase with the transfer money from Joel, easy peasy. Add to that sign Larne Patrick, sod Luauki.

Dudson and Flower might turn out to be decent signings.

Move Charnley to Centre and put either Marsh, Goulding or the other reserve winger who is quick on the wing.

Re: Rumours and signings v8 : Thu Oct 27, 2011 10:59 am  

NickyKiss wrote:

As for Arundle and Burgess I believe they both only have 12 months on their contracts and the latter is looking for a decent contract from the Bulls that hasn't been forthcoming yet.

If we get 250k for Joel we could do worse then invest some of it in those 2.

There wouldn't be any complaints from me if we signed those 2.

Good exciting prospects.

: Thu Oct 27, 2011 11:06 am  

I presume souths will be all over the 4th brother. Shame as he's a talented lad, but money+Australia+playing with your brothers is too much to compete with.