....back from sci-fi fantasy to out of this world Duck rumour...

There is a very hush whisper that there is a plan to get Widdop over for this season and give St G a big severance.
And getting Chris Evans on the board who wants to pump in some cash.

That is out of this world. I didn't know Captain America was interested in RL!

Alas it isn't the Marvel marvel...but DJ who was a Tartanagram back on my day.

His son Eli is an absolute Wire...Chris is long time iindustry friends with Simon Moran is rumoured to want in.

Stuart Middleton is certainly driven too and clearly wants Warrington to be the biggest brand in RL...not just SL.

What odds of a Virgin Radio sponsorship deal if Chris Evans joins the board?

We have it available to to become that, I think once we win a grand final in the bank we will go on to win a few within close succession.

Not sure we would get him in this season unless st gearge don't make the playoffs. And would we have cap space if we do. Would be great if true but I would still be content with a confirmed 2020.

With Smith going and price saying a while back we're still looking for cover players can we see anyone else on the way in or would the youth platers be able to get a game.

I don't know. St George have already signed a quality half and Widdop isn't in the best of condition to make a go of the early NRL season.
With so many teams and so few regular season games, it's vital to start a season well...they could be doing the maths.

This may be why there isn't a signed deal yet??

I just thought back to an idea the good doc came up with pre the marquee vote...
He suggested that a team ought to be able to rent/buy another teams marquee grant if they wasn't going to use it.
London would be very greatful of a windfall for that!

I think if we are going to start thinking about winning not just one but a few in close succession, and being the 'biggest brand in SL' we might need to look at our junior talent pipeline and think is it really going to be producing more than Leeds, Wigan, and enable us to sustain a dynasty...?

I would also have limited expectations about what the name association with Chris Evans would do - maybe we could do what Featherstone Rovers did with Chris Moyles and rename the HJ as the "Chris Evans Stadium" to establish ourselves as a credible global brand.

Sally is right with the junior talent pipeline. We need the talented kids in Lancashire/Cheshire (UK wide?) to all want to play for Warrington as first choice. I imagine at the moment we are behind Wigan, Saints, Leeds in that department as they will rightly see that is where you go to win trophies.
Then of course we need to be able to take the talented kids and develop them into Top 4 quality players. Something we have not been very good at all.

So we need to emulate the Man City approach I think. Spend big to get the success, then we will become an attractive club for youngsters.

Quite apt, considering our GF record

Virgin as a brand would be a step in the right direction in terms of sponsorship branding we should be looking for and in terms of their sponsorship budget won't break the bank. Himself if he wants to put his hand in his pocket fair play, it may get a bit of media attention but I think his value as a gateway to virginnmsy well be valuable.

We've seen a continued investment in youth development but it takes time and comes with no guarantees, I see it as a bit of a chicken and egg situation, there's a huge weight of expectation on us to win a grand final that makes giving a young player the time needed to gain sl experience a risk. Once we've won it that pressures lifted a little and we can possibly attract a few better players that will in turn help with player progression. We've not got team at present that can win titles and maybe Carry the inconsistencies of few youth players so for the foreseeable I think we will continue to bring in our top tier players

We're not a club that is afraid to give a young player a chance because of the expectation of winning a Grand Final. We took chances for years on players like Rhys Evans, Matty Russell to give them the chance to make it - much more so than Leeds/Wigan would have done, where they would have struggled to hold down a place because there would have been better players coming through ahead of them in the pecking order.

More like we're a club who is average in SL standards, in terms of producing young players. So players come through to the first team with us that wouldn't have been able to at other clubs because they have better players.

The uncomfortable truth Sally. It's also compounded by a sort of mass self denial and wishfull thinking which makes a lot of people think that those players are indeed better than they are. This illusion is shattered once they move on in the downwards direction which is what they inevitably do with the recent exception of Dywer.

Virgin is a despicable brand why would we want anything to do with it?

and Virgin already went down the path of having a rugby league enthusiast DJ asking for his employer to get involved, as i believe it was Jonno coleman that asked Branson to take over the Broncos.

Im not sure Branson did much for the club, they finished second in Superleague when he had a 15% stake in them. The following year he then bought a 55% stake, and promised to make them the best in the world. He actually got to lead them out a Wembley looking more smug than he normally can manage.

However he ditched them three years later then ditched the UK 6 years after that...!!

David Hughes however has spent £20 million quid on London.....

That's a no from you then is it?

Purple square Benson for Beds it is then!

Virgin Radio is nothing to do with Branson these days. Like most of his businesses he started it up and then sold out. Licensing out the Virgin brand. It is owned by News Group, which is the Murdochs. Now they are more Rugby League people. More so than Branson ever was.
As a London fan I can tell you, he was all about was promoting himself and Virgin as a brand. He could not believe his luck when we made the final at Wembley. He was in his element. For the fans and the club, he was a disappointment and not too many were upset to see him go.
What he did bring to the club whenever he was there, was some delightful and attractive air stewardesses, but that is a different story.

Huh?
Branson doesn't sell up mate. He sold the UK station as a franchise.
His Virgin Group still own Virgin Radio that has stations in the world all over.

That made me think about Vladivar Vodka, which is still around and is now Scottish.

Yes. We're still distilling Greenalls Gin though.

That takes me back.
Worked at Loushers Lane for G. & J's from the early 70's for about 20 years.

Quote ="Irish Wire"That takes me back. Worked at Loushers Lane for G. & J's from the early 70's for about 20 years.'" https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/wat ... NnheWsIB40

Quote ="Irish Wire"That takes me back. Worked at Loushers Lane for G. & J's from the early 70's for about 20 years.'" https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/wat ... NnheWsIB40

Just my era.
Knew a good number of people personally on that film.
Thanks for that.

I think Dwyer moved in a downwards direction too. Leeds obviously is a huge club but they are going through a period of readjustment following the loss of a lot of great players and he can get more first team opportunities there than he would have here with Clark and Walker. Same with Dom Crosby, he got a 3 year contract which wouldn't have been on offer to him here.

It's a long time since we've lost players 'upwards', in fact since Sculthorpe can you think of any Warrington home grown player who outgrew us and left for an upwards career move? Mike Cooper, and possibly Sibbit although the Storm were not that strong when he was there and he came back after a season. You could cheat and count Toa Kohe-Love going to Hull since we were his first professional club after signing as a junior from NZ.

It must be frustrating for teams like Wakefield and Cas and even Salford who have produced young talent and seen them get tempted away by clubs higher up the food chain, but we don't even have that story to moan about, we haven't produced anybody good enough. The usual route for one of our Academy lads is: play 1-2 games towards the end of a season and then get massively hyped up by people on this forum, "going to make a major breakthrough next year the future is bright the future is Wire" then hang around the fringes of the first team for a few seasons before the forum passes its verdict "not good enough" shortly before the coaching staff pass the same verdict and then they move on to a lower SL or a Championship club.

Respect to Paul Wood, who was a good player, who became one of the better props in SL at a young age and had a long and very consistent career - not quite a superstar in the Harris/Sculthorpe class but undoubtedly quality. But other than him, Cooper, Riley and pre-injury Currie, there hasn't been much to shout about for two decades.

True.

I hope Livett doesn't read this synopsis though. The worry is he could quite easily fall into the usual route unless he progresses in 2019. He's 36 games in now and needs to be nailing a starting jersey. I hope he does have a big year and gets over his injury, he was in sparking form April/May 2018.

It seems like a lot of our home grown players struggle to get past the first set back. They start off promisingly, then they lose a bit of form or get an injury, and then never recover. But I've seen Wigan players go through the same cycle, get a harsh verdict of "never gonna be good enough" by their fans and they end up turning it round. There's a different toughness there than with ours.

The one who did come back from set backs was Chris Riley. Two or three times, he found himself down the pecking order and looking like he was on his way out but then came back and re-established himself. Credit too to Mike Cooper who came back from injury set backs.