Ive yet to see him have anything like a good game. It's not his fault, he just isn't at the level required for the top echelons of super league which is where we should be.

Hmm don't see it with king either. Yet to see him show a tiny glimpse of some pure ability that might get me out of my seat. No offence to the lad either...he may and probably will improve but I've yet to see him beat a man with his feet, find his winger with a great ball ( not even seen him draw a man) or display an outstanding defence to make up for his attacking deficiencies. Livett has been lobbed into an unfamiliar position in a woefully out of sorts team and already shown more rugby talent than Toby king. Sorry if that's harsh but that's my humble opinion.

Wasn't Toby King a utility player a few short weeks ago & is now being billed as a centre by Mr Smith ?

No, he has always played centre apart from when he was with Meltham as a kid.

Here are some recent highlights of Toby King. It's difficult to judge a player from these since they take the best bits from all the games, but I think there is more than enough info here to show that he is a talented player and quite capable of beating his man. He doesn't have the physical presence of Atkins, but has more ball handling skills in his little finger than Atkins does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkSE0nviTw4 He is still only 20 and has played ?? around 24 games for us. Just IMO, but I would rate King and perhaps Livett alongside Currie as the best players to come through the Academy in the past 10 years. If King ends up playing in the Championship or League 1 we seriously need to think about closing our youth system down and simply buying in players.

Here are some recent highlights of Toby King. It's difficult to judge a player from these since they take the best bits from all the games, but I think there is more than enough info here to show that he is a talented player and quite capable of beating his man. He doesn't have the physical presence of Atkins, but has more ball handling skills in his little finger than Atkins does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkSE0nviTw4 He is still only 20 and has played ?? around 24 games for us. Just IMO, but I would rate King and perhaps Livett alongside Currie as the best players to come through the Academy in the past 10 years. If King ends up playing in the Championship or League 1 we seriously need to think about closing our youth system down and simply buying in players.

Quote ="Winslade's Offload"Here are some recent highlights of Toby King. It's difficult to judge a player from these since they take the best bits from all the games, but I think there is more than enough info here to show that he is a talented player and quite capable of beating his man. He doesn't have the physical presence of Atkins, but has more ball handling skills in his little finger than Atkins does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkSE0nviTw4 He is still only 20 and has played ?? around 24 games for us. Just IMO, but I would rate King and perhaps Livett alongside Currie as the best players to come through the Academy in the past 10 years. If King ends up playing in the Championship or League 1 we seriously need to think about closing our youth system down and simply buying in players.'" I thought Currie was "produced" by the Wigan set up? In fact don't we have a first 17 with more ex-Wigan academy players than our own?

Quote ="Winslade's Offload"Here are some recent highlights of Toby King. It's difficult to judge a player from these since they take the best bits from all the games, but I think there is more than enough info here to show that he is a talented player and quite capable of beating his man. He doesn't have the physical presence of Atkins, but has more ball handling skills in his little finger than Atkins does. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkSE0nviTw4 He is still only 20 and has played ?? around 24 games for us. Just IMO, but I would rate King and perhaps Livett alongside Currie as the best players to come through the Academy in the past 10 years. If King ends up playing in the Championship or League 1 we seriously need to think about closing our youth system down and simply buying in players.'" I thought Currie was "produced" by the Wigan set up? In fact don't we have a first 17 with more ex-Wigan academy players than our own?

Toby was our best 3/4 when he burst on to the scene, until his terrible injury.

He will get back to that for soon.

I never bought into the Toby King hype train early doors, but last year he display some good touches and elusive running. I think he'll turn out to be a good centre for us.

You are right of course, Currie came through Wigan Scholarship (U16's) then we picked him up and put him through the Wire Academy.

If you wan't to look at our squad numbers 1-17 then the local Wigan area players are Ratchford, Russell, Brown, Hughes, Dwyer. I don't think Ratchford was part of the Wigan Academy, he joined Salford at 18/19. Ditto for Dwyer who is Ince Rose Bridge, I don't know about Kev Brown it was a long time ago. The Wire Academy players are Evans, Currie, Cooper, Dwyer and George King. So probably something like an even split between the two Academies.

If you wish to drill down a bit further, both Hughes and Currie were Golbourne lads. I don't know if that could be said to be Wigan - Wire Yed (also a Golbourne boy) always maintained that it was more Warrington. Then of course the King brothers were part of Huddersfield Academy after leaving Meltham.


So it all depends on how you draw the line between 'local' players and your Academy produced players I suppose.

I disagree about Toby King I think he's got something about him. I think he's our best centre already.

I too am a fully paid up member of the Toby King fan club, I think he will be our starting centre next year & will continue to progress

He has had a stop/start couple of seasons with injuries but when he has had a run in the team he looks more than capable of being a top centre in Super league

Like Charlie above I saw a lot of him at academy level, the academy team in 2014 & 15 was a great side, the rugby played was some of the best I have seen at any level, Toby is a great product of that side

I also would put Jack Johnson & Dec Patton in the mix for being the best academy products of the last ten years as well, if these lads fulfill their potential (or should I say allowed to fulfill their potential) then we have some of the best prospects in Superleague

Kev Brown is a Wigan Academy product, yes. Millward always insisted he was a centre, though no -one else did, and he was one of the first let go by Noble when he took over mid 2006. Fans were pretty much unanimous that he was no loss. Went to Huddersfield, then Widnes, but realised his best chance of a trophy was at Warrington...

Heartwarming as all that is, the minimum target for this season was swimming Super League. The fact that we are pinning our hopes on such players shows just how wide off the mark we are.

i had my annual drink last night with a friend of mine, who is fairly well up on things. He told me the reason for the disharmony stems from the Ben Harrison testimonial. The claim is the Harrison's testimonial would have been the same type that previous few players have had, which would have generated him x amount of cash. However due to the wakefield loan deal, the club decided to 'change' the details of the testimonial, leaving him with less than a quarter of the expected income. This hasn't gone down very well with the players and its snowballed from there.

If this is true it's unlikely that Smith made the decision to mess about with his testimonial money. That would be the CEO and board I imagine.

In any case if we have a bunch of rebellious players they need to be shown the door too. Get rid of the bad apples.

It's hard to see anything but a full rebuild top to bottom. The team almost needs a new identity now.

The facilities and the infrastructure are all in place for someone to build a great team. Its going to be a bit of a project though, that could take years.

It is a pity if the club has cut it's nose off to spite its face because a reconstructed & rehabilitated Ben Harrison would have been a big boost to this years under performing team.

If this is true then the players should be sponsored by Mothercare so we can save in any dummies being spat out.

I think Ben is a great servent and has been treated badly, but a testimonial is a privilege, and in the modern SL era of full time better paid players something of an outdated one. There are people in all walks of life who do tougher jobs, clock up many more years service and don't get anything like the recognition, especially financially.

We employ player welfare officers and probably backside wiping officers as well, so take it up with them, and get on with the job you get very well paid for.

Weren't the details of the testimonial known before the Brisbane match?

Dunno I heard from a reliable source that Ben Harrison is certainly not all innocent in the reason he is not playing, he did not stick to diet and fitness regime given to him for practically all of last year whilst still getting paid. Is it unreasonable that the club was far from happy with this ?? Given they too have stuck by him thru his injury

It's not how start it's how finish

Why do you only drink with this dude once a year if he has useful info like this?

I'd be buying that lad pints every week and staying tuned in to the goings on.

oh i drink with him a few times a year, but mostly only happens once while the season is in full swing.

he tells me loads of stuff, but i dont post it on the internet, as he would stop telling me if i did

Seems too petty for that to be the reason behind our worst start to the season.....ever

agreed.. terrible coaching and awful recruitment have also played a major part.