Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:09 pm  

Part finance and part lack of available options I guess. I remember a podcast with Matt Shaw discussing how many clubs fancied signing a prop mid season and the list included us, Hull, Wakey and Catalans at least. I’m not sure anybody got one in the end.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Aug 24, 2021 8:35 am  

dany1979 wrote:

Suppose the obvious question would be who was available? Especially with the pandemic effecting things down under too.

I think there’s always somebody available. It may just have been that the right type of prop wasn’t and if that’s the case, so be it. I’d rather we didn’t sign a prop than sign one that’s completely wrong. Even if that meant continuing with a pack as weak and young as ours.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Aug 24, 2021 11:51 am  

100% Warrior wrote:

I think there’s always somebody available. It may just have been that the right type of prop wasn’t and if that’s the case, so be it. I’d rather we didn’t sign a prop than sign one that’s completely wrong. Even if that meant continuing with a pack as weak and young as ours.

Could the same not be said about half back? for me signing Miller on a long term deal could be poor move. I would personally look for a stop gap on a 1 year deal and look to sign the right half next year. I wouldn’t put him in the same bracket as Green as he was good in the 2 seasons he had at Hull KR and had a better pedigree in Oz. Miller has taken time to find his feet over here and I have never watched Wakey and think he has looked too good for them and should be at a better team.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Aug 24, 2021 1:29 pm  

CobraCraig wrote:

Could the same not be said about half back? for me signing Miller on a long term deal could be poor move. I would personally look for a stop gap on a 1 year deal and look to sign the right half next year. I wouldn’t put him in the same bracket as Green as he was good in the 2 seasons he had at Hull KR and had a better pedigree in Oz. Miller has taken time to find his feet over here and I have never watched Wakey and think he has looked too good for them and should be at a better team.

I think the same could be said for most positions to be honest. As for Miller I’m not sure, I’m not sold but I’m not dead against either. If Smith was flying and Field was flying would we be looking at him? I’m not too sure we would. It feels a bit panic but to me, which I might be totally wrong in thinking but it just doesn’t feel like a Wigan buy. Goes without saying if he does sign I hope he smashes it and proves me wrong completely.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Aug 24, 2021 4:04 pm  

100% Warrior wrote:

I think the same could be said for most positions to be honest. As for Miller I’m not sure, I’m not sold but I’m not dead against either. If Smith was flying and Field was flying would we be looking at him? I’m not too sure we would. It feels a bit panic but to me, which I might be totally wrong in thinking but it just doesn’t feel like a Wigan buy. Goes without saying if he does sign I hope he smashes it and proves me wrong completely.

I think they always wanted to bring someone in unless they were/are planning on Leuluai going round again. Otherwise we're one injury away from having to move either Powell or French into the halves. It feels to me like we're feeling the financial hit from COVID and made the decision to pull out of the battle for Williams and go for a cheaper option.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Aug 24, 2021 7:08 pm  

Grimmy wrote:

It feels to me like we're feeling the financial hit from COVID and made the decision to pull out of the battle for Williams and go for a cheaper option.

Which is absolutely fine but we had a legal agreement in place and probably could have asked for a transfer fee? Plus the club could just come out and say that but with a billionaire on the board why is money an issue

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Aug 24, 2021 7:14 pm  

[Gareth] wrote:

Which is absolutely fine but we had a legal agreement in place and probably could have asked for a transfer fee? Plus the club could just come out and say that but with a billionaire on the board why is money an issue

We should have got every single penny out of GW and Wire that we could.

I called it at the time, but it's also done massive reputational damage to the club imo. Just look at this forum to see what the current opinion of the club and it's management is.

There's zero reasons as to why we made it so easy for them.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:25 pm  

sergeant pepper wrote:

We should have got every single penny out of GW and Wire that we could.

I called it at the time, but it's also done massive reputational damage to the club imo. Just look at this forum to see what the current opinion of the club and it's management is.

There's zero reasons as to why we made it so easy for them.

Couldn't agree more

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Aug 25, 2021 7:08 am  

[Gareth] wrote:

Which is absolutely fine but we had a legal agreement in place and probably could have asked for a transfer fee? Plus the club could just come out and say that but with a billionaire on the board why is money an issue

As a business deal that made no sense to me - if there was a contract in place then Wigan would be entitled compensation to waive the contract the statement about not wanting to force a player to be at the club was a smokescreen. For me the real issue is the signal it sends out to any future contract discussions. Next time a player wants to be released to go elsewhere (NRL or another club) their agents will be falling over themselves to point out Wigan did not enforce the contract and that sets a very dangerous precedent for future negotiations. Strange decision.

Re: Rumours and signings v9 : Wed Aug 25, 2021 7:45 am  

exiled Warrior wrote:

As a business deal that made no sense to me - if there was a contract in place then Wigan would be entitled compensation to waive the contract the statement about not wanting to force a player to be at the club was a smokescreen. For me the real issue is the signal it sends out to any future contract discussions. Next time a player wants to be released to go elsewhere (NRL or another club) their agents will be falling over themselves to point out Wigan did not enforce the contract and that sets a very dangerous precedent for future negotiations. Strange decision.

the way i see it now is that we should make it clear that if you sign for Wigan for x years, then unless you have a clause inserted that you can speak to NRL etc after Y years, then they should be made to honour their contracts. There have been far to many 4-5 year contracts handed out and we all know that the player wont see that out. The only short term benefit has been the transfer fees received, but that leaves us without a player

With regards to the 1st refusal element of the contract, whilst i agree we could have enforced it, would that really do anyone any good. we would have had a player who didnt want to be here or possibly ended up in court in a similar way to Harris (Bradford / Leeds) and does the game really need a legal battle over a player costing hundreds of thousands of pounds? we also dont know the terms of the 1st refusal.