Quote ="blackpoolwigan"Dont really see what the club can do about players going to the NRL. If they dont want to be at Wigan anymore forcing them to stay will just result in uninterested players.
Maybe its good sense to get what you can while you can at the moment.
Its a shame that they cant sit down with players and get proper time frames though. Right now its if an NRL club comes calling they go, whereas uid prefer they just say "not gonna go for at least two seasons then im going to get my agent on it" rather than limbo a la Sam Tomkins.
I think doubt between players and the coach causes more harm than anything. If players and coaches have one eye on squeezing the best deal from Aus they arent going to be fully committed to the season, which if I was one of the players fully committed would annoy the hell outta me.'"
Well you can't plan if you don't know who your players are going to be from one season to the next so I don't think it is sustainable in the long term to wave the white flag and meekly accept its inevitable any class players will probably be targeted and we have no chance of retaining them.
No contracted players have left Leeds yet. A couple of good young out of contract players have gone but that is what you would expect when contracts expire. Faz has signed a five year deal and if at the end of it he leaves then fair do's. In fact despite the high profile cases of players who haven't seen their deals out most of them do. Players like Tommy L and Pat did not or have not walked out on contracts.
We recently took the option of an extra year on Hansen's contract and its no secret his has attracted interest from the NZW and the likes of Salford. If we can hold him to his extra year the club must offer some attraction to players of his quality.
My personal opinion is the "we are powerless to prevent players leaving" stance is just not the case given what has gone on here and at other clubs and is an easy excuse to trot out. Unfortunately I think under IL every player has a price and we will never see a "hands off" statement from the club. The best we will get is players signed to long term contracts with a view to cashing in if suitable interest is shown.
As to expectations for this season IL was pretty clear on his at the start and while he acknowledged a lot would depend on how the younger players went there was no talk of a transitional season. There never has been under IL and he always says he expects improvement year on year which is IMO how it should be. A club such as Wigan ought to manage the normal turnover of players without becoming a lesser force. Transitional seasons are IMO an excuse for bad squad management.
In terms of how we have gone this season there is two ways to look at it. The statistics are as they are and we are in a semi-final of the CC and no one doesn't expect us to get to Wembley given the draw. We are high in the league (though relinquished top spot with a very poor performance) so on the face if it everything is rosey.
However I don't think there is a single fan who posts on these boards who given our form against the better sides doesn't have at least some doubts over the sides prospects of silverware.
We can of course still win all three trophies and two of them are knockout competitions anyway so anything can happen in those. Leeds were poor all season when they won it from 5th (and no it wasn't a master plan) so if they can do it so can we.
There is a difference though between how we are playing now than under Madge in 2010 in term of what that means going in to big games IMO. I was very confident playing Saints in the GF and it wasn't long into that game I was confident we would win and I watched the likes of Graham get frustrated as he was basically powerless to stop us - and he knew it IMO . I have nothing like that confidence given the way we are playing currently. We were feared in 2010 and 2011 and I don't think we are now.
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