We do have to forget Wrench for a while. He is bound to miss at least half the season.

anyone follow riley dean on insta? he put a pic of him and ellis robson on this weekend,

two thoughts i had from this, one, he's a good 6 inches taller than robson, which proves a point of our undersized forwards this year.

two, if he's that big, for a stand off, he should be a lot more confident in defence than someone like leon hayes. (size example) he should be able to hold his own in the defensive line

Not quite sure where you got that idea? Thewlis and Wrench are firm favourites of Wires fans and the current coach, and highly regarded in the international setup (Wrench was rewarded with a call up to the training squad in 2021). The only criticism I've seen of Dean is one comment after his second full game (i think), where Powell made a point that he'd like him to improve in some areas. Granted, that caused a bit of consternation on here, but only because our senior players weren't seemingly doing any better. If that one comment had been made after a victory of a team consistently playing well, we wouldn't have paid any attention to it.

Personally, I would have preferred Thewlis to be brought through at Fullback rather than on the wing, but Powell has signed Dufty to add an extra dynamic to the attack and that means Thewlis on the wing for next season at least. Ashton is nailed for the other wing so Wrench (when fit) will probably slot in to the centres (despite Powell's original wish). For 2024, King is still contracted to us, and may well do a bit of growing up in the Wigan system, and come back a more consistent player with a level head. Nothing is off the cards.

I agree about trusting young players, which is why I’m opposed to being a development stepping stone for Wardle. Unless Wardle has seen how the sausage is made and has decided that Warrington isn’t the club for him, his plan was to join Wigan in 2023, and we should have knew of that and thought twice about developing other clubs players.

This is why I found the Wardle move to Warrington so strange.

It was only when he signed for Wigan that this move came about.

I find it odd given how the season was going that Wire didn’t want to look to develop their own rather than give a player going to a competitor game time.

Same could be said of King I guess, however should Powell remain as coach of Warrington I don’t think King will be back in a Warrington shirt.

I can’t see a way back for King either. He either goes and earns a longer term deal at Wigan or we cut the losses I think. Both parties have let themselves down in my opinion.

That said, I’ve followed Warrington for long enough to learn to expect the unexpected.

This comment, in the WG, is fascinating.


There is a little snippet that isnt common knowledge , Warrington will be paying
£40,000 of Toby Kings £160,000 contract while hes at Wigan the CEO tried to be clever an move King on to Wigan an attempting to keep Wardle , Huddersfield quite rightly blew Warrington out of the water an abruptly moved Wardle onto Wigan ,

Warringtons new centre yet to be announced is Oliver Gildart , if hes stupid enough to accept the offer put to him last Friday by Mr Powell in a Cafe in Lymm , its time our alleged Chief Executive was shown the door after all he was responsible for stabbing Tony Smith in the back , time to get rid ,
Mr Moran , Mr Middleton & Co its time you did your duty on behalf of the
Wire faithful

Toby King must be the best paid centre in Super League. He’s going to have to completely outshine Wardle at Wigan to earn another contract like the one we gave him. I was a King fan and wanted to keep hold of him at the time, but sheesh, that’s a crazy figure for 4 years.

Did the writer forget to add #KissCamOut ?

#kisscamout is not a bad hashtag campaign though is it? I've heard of some shocking contract negotiations which lie squarely with him. Can't we just sit him in a back office somewhere, give him a job title of Social Media Irritant but unbeknown to him never actually upload his dirge.

One thing for sure, he has a great agent. That salary is above the marquee dispensation.

Let's just hope for hyper inflation and a contract that doesn't include a CPI/RPI increase clause.

Ultimately, it’s a shambles. Whether it’s Fitzpatrick, Powell or any combination of them + board members, it’s almost comical.

Powell goes out saying he has full control of recruitment in April, King gets given a bumper deal in May, just over 12 months later goes out on loan only to be shipped out to one of our fiercest rivals for a year while we contribute to his salary (allegedly). All the while we contribute to the development of another Wigan signing by giving them a dozen or so games rather than letting them play reserves at Huddersfield, and STILL fail to find a replacement 4 months on.

It’s pretty much that.

Have tbh someone is making a right freaking balls up embarrassment of our club. We duly deserved any sugar we get threw at us.
We know it’s not SJM and I would say not Powell either.
I can’t rule out the novices, the Chairman and CEO.

Never a dull moment at the Wire

It's a combination of one or more of these

Chairman | Stuart Middleton

Vice Chairman | Prof Steven Broomhead

Directors | Simon Moran, Norman Summers, Mike Lomax, Lance James, Karl Fitzpatrick

CEO | Karl Fitzpatrick

Responsibility vs Accountability.

If what he himself said (to the press, April 2021) is true, Powell is responsible. Karl Fitzpatrick and the board are accountable though, through the appointment of Powell and the delegation of that responsibility.

All this rotting that seems to have happened has coincided with the arrival of the new Chairman and CEO. I'm not accusing or blaming them, but it is certainly coincident.

Maybe we have a bad organisational culture right the way through, and if we do I suppose it's due in part to the club being a bit of a rich man's folly. We seem to just be happy to throw money at things, do things badly or unprofessionally, and not worry about the consequences.

Going back to the comment about King's salary and the story of signing Gildart in a Lymm cafe: Surely it can't be as simple as 'Powell wants xxx player, CEO / Owners throw whatever money player demands'?. Powell seems too shrewd to not realise most of our cultural problems have stemmed from an unbalanced salary structure, and overpaid but underperforming stars? But then, we are apparently paying vast sums to Bullock, who is just an average prop. Add this to the Inglis debacle, the massive salaries for Austin, Widdop and Roberts, and it's no wonder we are a laughing stock.

I just hope Dufty isn't on megabucks, because he may well be the scapegoat next season if we fail to gel.

Right or wrong you expect Dufty, McGuire and Vaughan to be on relative megabucks. What you don't expect is to have King and Bullock on silly money - that is just very poor contract negotiation.

It's a rich mans train set with poor governance.

What stands out in recent years is the lack of forward planning in our recruitment process ,as a result we are panic signing uncommitted or substandard players at inflated prices. A shake up in the scouting & succession planning department is a must.

I think we was all hoping and expecting :
all the wrongs made right,
all the bad made good,
all woes made to laughter
all the years of empty cabinets made full stock.

They done it, they made us a ‘right good laughing stock’!

is there one?

Must be, one day KFP (allegedly) sacked wolfie, the next minute a new wolfie in a mack with a fresh swagger was wandering st Helens with a pair of binoculars, providing priceless scouting reports on our over successful neighbours.

At least Holmes if off anyway. Signing for Leigh.

You are right, we have a succession planning department. Apparently the kit man is next to step up to the hot seat.