Third most assists in SL according to Sky... 4th after the weekend after checking on SL website and three tries in 9 games - that's 15 out of 44 tries he's been involved in. Other parts of his game could do with improving but after being injured at the beginning of the year he's hardly going to slot straight into such a pivitol role, especially with a team that has undergone so many changes and has been far from settled... His stats seem to be better than Deacs, whom some would have had us re-sign as well and not that bad compared to Brough - both of whom play with teams who are performing better. I know you can't always get the full picture from stat's alone but he's not as bad as some make out.

Not a stand out player thus far but not the worst either. Hopefully the bloody team will start to gel and perform soon so we can get a better picture but still too soon to judge a new player in a new country in a new team in a new league... and after watching the NRL highlights at the weekend I'd be tempted to say new sport.

He'd add something to our current side but he isn't going to be leading us to SL titles anytime soon.

We aren't going to be winning SL titles anytime soon.

He'd be a step in right direction.

He'd just be another 'ok' type of signing for me. If the club are serious about challenging for Silverware then we probably need to be aiming higher though IMO.

Herbert is doing the job for us atm. He isn't anything special but give him time he will mature. He tackles hard, takes the line on and also short kicks are great. - That is the type of Scrum Half we need right now and we have got it.

A Stand Off - we need someone who can take pressure off Herbert who has a decent long kicking game and a decent long pass, they need to stand back and just distribute.

When the history books come to be written, and the autobiographies come out, I suspect we will all learn more about just how effective the salary cap was at capturing all payments to players. I have previously posted various means by which the salary cap could be circumvented by an owner with the financial means. It will be interesting to learn the extent to which any such circumventions did or did not take place.

Yeah, i know what you mean. But it will probably be the same as this year. No one that good is available for the right amount. I imagine the club will be cautious as well after the Orford scenario.

I'd like us to sign him, if we had a few more real quality players.


I'd still be happy with the signing atm, I certainly wouldn't complaon, but I think the cap needs to be used for real quality for the 2012 season. Thurston please

Indeed - isn't there a live cap in Australia too? It didn't stop Melbourne did it? When was the last time Warrington were outbid by another club in the hunt for a player? I'm pretty sure there were other big clubs after the likes of Morley, King, Myler, Atkins etc. I can't think of a more star-studded squad in SL that has been largely assembled on the basis of signings as opposed to youth development (the basis of every other successful side in SL). Despite the attitude of some Wire fans I doubt these players signed on simply to work with Tony Smith (who has a rather limited reputation outside SL) or to be part of some all-conquering Warrington side that has been promised for years but never materialised. It will be interesting to see if Warrington go through the same phase of being forced to lose promising homegrown players (assuming they actually start to develop decent ones in any quantity) that the likes of Wigan, Leeds, Saints and Bradford have over recent seasons. If not, I'd suspect something dodgy is going on with the cap.

Morley, King, Monas, Carvell, Anderson and others were all signed by Paul Cullen, anyway. And why should it be the case that imported 'stars' rather than local stars will demand the highest pay? Are we to assume that Leeds are over the cap as they can afford to pay for England internationals Sinfield, Burrow, Maguire, Peacock and the rest as well as your imports? I suppose Buderus and Webb came to Leeds just for the honour of being coached by McLennan and play for peanuts? As for youth development, Wire more-or-less closed down the youth teams while struggling to survive financially in the late 1990s. More recently, we've seen Harrison, Riley, Evans, Williams, Blythe and others come through the system to reach SL standard. Take a look at the Valvioline Cup table to see which team currently has the best Under 20s squad. You can 'suspect' all you want but it says more about your attitude to the arrival of another side threatening to disturb the old status quo, if you ask me.

Enjoy your time at the top but please remove the rose tints

In precisely what regard am I utlising 'rose tints'?

It tends to be the case that players move for money, and if they didnt i would argue saints, wigan and leeds would get the players who wanted to move to a club with a reputation. As a bulls fan i hate to stick up for the rhinos buts its well known that leeds players have stayed for less money to play with lads they grew up with. PLUS, some of the rhinos have played 10yrs for the same club, so only half there salary cap counts.

top of the 20s means nothing

I believe you can only use that rule on one player in your squad.

We can only use the rule on 1 player as Langley is the only one to be here for 10 years not sure about wether it applies to teams with more than one player who's been there for 10 years.

Also U20's means nothing in terms of Youth Development. For the past few weeks people like Halley, Sibbit and Briggs are playing for the U20's and none of them are U20 and 2 of them arn't part of our youth development.

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... hford.html The picture is Holdsworth.

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... hford.html The picture is Holdsworth.

the rule isnt as simple as half of a players salary doesnt count provided he's played 10 yrs. its half their salary cap value upto a maximum of 50k. so say langley was on 100k, in terms of salary cap he'd only count as 50k. but if we had another player who qualified then that 50k reduction would be shared between the two players. so say 2nd player was also on 100k then he and langley would both count as 75k on salary cap. Theirs only one 50k reduction available to be shared amongst all qualifying players.

Really weird example given in rules is if you have 2 qualifying players on 25k each then their salary cap values are both £0 i.e. for some reason the reduction applies to more than half their salary. don't understand that example at all but its in the rules.

Ah right I wasn't entirley sure that's all, thanks

I understand that example, weird but understandable.

I understand why you say that, but the old status quo has already been well and truly disturbed by Wigan winning the GF last season. By the same argument I should be just as envious of them (who ended the Leeds run of trophies), or even Saints who have managed to avoid going into a similar decline (or so it seems).

I'd actually temporarily forgotten that Warrington beat us in the CC final last year. A shame Leeds didn't really turn up on the day after we did all the hard work of knocking out form team Wigan and Warrington bogey club Saints.

Yep, Leeds just handed it to Wire on a plate, as did Huddersfield the year before.

No one mentioned envy at all. It's just odd to me that two teams have fallen foul of the salary cap ( Wigan and Saints ) yet you seem to view them as above suspicion, and instead turn your gaze on a side that has not a single blemish in this regard.

Give us a break. Either Wire are meant to develop good youth players or they are not. These players turn out in the Valvoline cup and it's in that setting that they grow and develop. Would it be better if Wire under 20s were bottom of that league? How else can they be judged?

Well Wire do have some very good U20s. Albeit some lured over there with big money.

Equally you could argue that we could and should be able to hang onto our best youngsters, the likes of Hellewell and Wardle would undoubtedly have figured for us this season so far. The club argument that they may not have made it is holding less and less water when you see they were far ahead of the other backs int he U20s.

I would be interested to know if the Warrington fans on here honestly, hand on heart believe they are spending the same as all the other clubs.
Do they?

I must confess I wondered how we did it in 2005 (and we didn't).

Wire manage to keep 14 full test players plus Brett Hodgson, Michael Monaghan all these promising youngsters (Evans, Blythe, Riley, Grix etc) and Paul Wood under the cap. It sounds a lot. I've just had a go at estimating how much they all get and trying to be fairly objective I found that I'd only gone about £150k over the £1.8m mark. So it seems fairly believable to me.

It also makes me wonder how much under the cap we are!

Its been quite openly stated that king alone is on 300k..solo was reportedly on 150k a season when with us..

saying that i just had a quick jot to say what i think they could be on..could be mind you as noone knows..even with monaghan/morley/westwood/atkins/bridge etc i estimate them to be 200k over..but thats with having riley on 45k. evans on 25k..dont know how much they would be on so reckon its about that..of course they could be on less..ie crossley only gets 15k off of us..tom b roughly same..so with all their stars and still only just over, if at all, then we should be well under.