Looking at Canberra result today would appear he played unless they have another Williams with 7 as a shirt number perhaps resolved their differences until end of season

That will be Sam Williams I expect, ex Catalan / Wakey half.

Yes you are right

In that case though, if he’d agreed terms in that way wouldn’t he also have signed straight away and the news would be out? Anything that goes on in the NRL is usually leaked immediately and turns up on the Aussie news/websites.

I hope it’s true though.

There are terms and then there is the fine print!

You’ll be surprised.

I’m excited

Anyone ready to eat a BIG piece of pie?
RD.

I want the whole pie. I’m just not getting the plates and cake slice out until I know I don’t have to walk back into the kitchen with them, disappointed and hungry.

As long as it's not the humble variety RD. I believe your doubters might be feasting on it sometime soon though.

Assuming it’s true that Williams has agreed terms / signed, would that be for this season or next?

And if it’s this season (I know he’s returning to the UK this week) where are we offloading Blake to? Canberra?

Bye bye Big Greg. 3 games 2 tries not too bad.

Welcome George.

So presumably you mean Williams will take Inglis’ salary for this season then be on full whack next season?

If true, can we even do that? I thought the cap meant you couldn’t just release players who are injured once they’ve played a game in that season? Not for the purposes of cap space anyway?

Correct, his full salary would count on the cap. We would need to offload players (presumably if we are at cap) to other clubs who pay their salary for this year.

Is it not possible to sign a short term deal ending in Nov and in advance a fresh 2/3 year deal from Nov 21?
Asking for a friend.

Short answer, no.

I don't know the exact nuts and bolts but the RFL ultimately set the level and the figure is calculated weekly. It also doesn't matter who pays the player, the value is assigned to the club that they play for (so if Club A paid a player's wages but he played for Club B then the salary would count towards Blub B's cap).

To deregister a player needs the RFL's permission. We managed it with Kev Brown when he injured himself pre-season because he hadn't played a competitive game. I think that it may be different if a player retired mid-season, but I'm not certain.

Williams and Trueman in the same team would be fun, wouldn’t it?

It will surely be one or the other though.

I think we’re also forgetting that if Widdop stays and can keep the form he’s in, he’s actually better than both Trueman and Williams. I think next year ideally we would have Widdop and either Williams or Trueman alongside him. That’s a best-case scenario…. Worst case we’ll have no Widdop or Williams / Trueman. I’m not sure what Powell will have up his sleeve for that one - Ratchford and Dean?

I think that in my view. The best scenario would be widdop and Williams in the half back positions for next season. And trueman as a backup next season. With trueman also learning from widdop before widdop retires at the end of the season next year.

Great thinking, how about signing Nathan Clery aswell as back up in case you get a couple of injuries?

Isn’t that known as “the Wigan approach”, from the good old days when you used to sign players and stick them in the reserves to pee off the opposition?

The Nigel Wright manoeuvre. The cap was brought in to prevent that very tactic.

It was until the money ran out and then they were shopping at Tesco.

https://www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby- ... ms-3271818

https://www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby- ... ms-3271818

So if Williams comes in now and replaces Widdop who is rumoured to be going back to Australia to Canberra, would you be happy with that? It's a good move long term, Widdop would presumably only have played for one or two more seasons at most, presuming he stayed over her and Williams should be good for 6-7 years. But it's also probably a step down, an out of form player who hasn't played recently replacing your form player this year?