Anyone bored enough and can put together an excel with 4 columns.

Wigan, Saints, Warrington, Catalans

Put the squad top to bottom in terms of expected salary.

And then we can really have a good look at how we have spent up to the cap next year apart from the £200k remaining or whatever in comparison to other clubs.

I cannot fathom how we only have that little remaining!!!

This was explained at the fans forum but is primarily because of mismanagement of the cap giving average young players too good deals. Apparently players like Byrne partington havard shorocks etc have been upgraded to 100k deals when their relative worth is lucky to be half of that...none of those players should be on more than 50k for what they offer. Then you have average like singleton and Powell probably on the same or more!
So we’re wasting huge amounts keeping a lot of deadwood.
Personally I’d clear out the whole pack bar Farrell Bateman KPP and possibly havard (if he’s on a sensible deal). Get rid of the rest, get Dwyer off Leeds and a few other forwards...should have got amor before stains resigned etc.
That’s how we sort this mess and get back on track

When was this announced?

I’d love to see it. I put a list on here a few weeks ago of internationals or borderline internationals at Wigan, Saints and Wire and it’s stark the difference between the clubs. ‘If’ there is only 73k left on the cap for 2022 then at least one of three things is happening-

1-Wigan are telling porkies.

2-Saints and Wire are telling porkies.

3-there has been an horrendous mismanagement of our cap this last year or two.

I’d guess it’s probably a mixture of a couple of the above.

Maybe use the fantasy rugby prices for the players, that may give some indication.

I'd guess this has been addressed already, but why on earth did Radlinski publicly give an exact number when talking about the remaining cap?

If Wigan go into the bargain bin for anyone else they would have to spend all 73k no matter who they go for.

We have more than that available. We have money put aside for a halfback, which is assumed to be another £150k.

That's not how we get back on track.

You'd get possibly keep Havard, but would have signed Amor. Imagine selling that one in 2 years and asking why such a talent like Havard was let go for Kyle Amor.

Byrne is going to be a very good SL prop. The lads 21 FFS and has played 50 + SL games already. Good SL props don't mature until 27 +. Look at Dudson as a perfect example "not good enough for Wigan" and now he's a good SL prop who'd walk into our side.

People need to have a cold shower & think back to 2017. The same moronic "clear the decks", "they aren't good enough" bile was being spewed. We won the league the following season.

Makes even less sense to say it then!

Be careful, pal, there'll a few white knights assaulting your inbox in defence of Bill and Ben with language like that.

I like to think I’m a reasonably sensible poster and try and stay pretty level on criticising the club but I’ll also try and be honest and my honest thoughts at the moment are that things just don’t stack up somewhere. It could well be that we’re too honest and the other two clubs are finding ways around the cap but the squads just don’t compare from an experience, proven quality and international caps standpoint.

None of those figures were ever mentioned at the fans forum!!!

Can either of those sides win a game missing 10 players?

I feel we have gone for depth as opposed to quality but with constant injury issues we spend most of the season missing our quality.

Correct. What was said was people need to understand that the youn players wages have to go up to keep them. Rads used kpp as an example. For Wigan to get kpp on a new deal it will be 4 times his current salary. Imagine Wigan saying no where not giving younthat, then he leaves. And the Lenegan gets in in the neck for being tight which is a complete fallacy unless your stupid or blind.

So we can only presume that havard,byrne,partington ect.. have had similar deals and hallsall,mcdonnell,hanley,oneill ect.. will be upcoming. We could just let all these go and buy journey men, then complain about that.

Lets all be happy as from now the person holding us back has gone.

New season soon be here with a new coach eager to impress.

Ok so i'm reading between the lines and joining a few dots. But what was said at the forum was that the young lads all want 100k deals or will leave....we've given said young lads upgrades recently. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what said lads are likely to be on.

As for another poster's comment on Byrne, that he'll be a great player....hes about the worst front rower ive seen at wigan since ricky bibey...Ball retention is as poor as Paul Prescott's was....but at least prekie was probably the hardest runner in the team and had a reason for it....Bryne sometimes starts off going backwards...he's wakefield standard at best!

Depends on your opinion. Personally i think its clear the issues are a lot deeper routed than lam. i actually feel sorry for Lam. He's been made to coach with his hand behind his back, had signings forced on him, ended up with no pack, no choice over signings, no investment to bring in new blood when we've been decimated by injury, then been held accountable because he hasn't been able to work wonders with it!!

What Edwards said was timely when you apply it to Lam's situation. Wigan don't really want a head coach......they want a lad to take charge of training whilst they make all the decisions, then someone to blame when it all goes pete tong!

no it wasn't.


KR: This is probably a little bit of education – we offer a traditional contract when a player comes to the end of his Academy contract; it’s a two-year contract with a one-year option. Most players get that kind of deal. After that third year, we then have a choice to make. Do we let them go or do we pay them what they what they should be paid on an open market. These players have all got managers now and the managers are trying to get the best for them. We’ve opted to pay them what they’re worth. So, if you look at the likes of Ethan Havard, Liam Byrne, Morgan Smithies, Oliver Partington. We’ve chosen to keep them on and develop them more so in two to three to four years’ time, they’ll be the corner stones of our pack.

Now, I’d like to ask you the question, is that the right thing to do? To retain these lads? Or should or should we be letting them go knowing that we we can’t afford to pay them? What would you do there? Do we do we retain them or let them go? We’ve got conversations that we will need to have with Kai Pearce-Paul soon, you know, Kai’s obviously set the Super League on fire this year, but his manager will come knocking very, very soon. And you will still get the same Kai Pearce-Paul, but his salary might be four times more. So, if I’m sat where you are from a Wiganer’s point of view, you don’t see the fact that we might have to pay him three or four times more. You just see the one player and that’s the challenges that we’ve got to overcome.

We believe we’ve got the history of developing and promoting our young players. That’s what we build our cornerstones on. It’s something I’m extremely proud of that other professional sports look at the development of our players and the fact that two thirds of our squad are homegrown, it’s unique in sport, and it’s a business model that we’ll stick to and that’ll always drive us forward. But it’s very important that you understand that when a player signs a long-term extension is great news, it also means we’re going to always start having to pay them properly. And that’s something that has worked for us in the past, but you need to understand.

Except those that he asked to sign and then never played.

He did mention that agents will come knocking asking for 100k but I think it was more a figure than confirmation than Byrne, Smithies etc being on 100k.

I’d be shocked if players like Havard, Byrne, Smithies are on more than £50k a year at present.

Most deals for young players tend to go up year on year.

If it's 3 or 4 times their existing salary I can see a base salary for a first teamer fresh out of the academy being around the 20k mark, so maybe Bryne , Havard, Smithies, Partington are on around 50k to 70k? Not exactly breaking the bank is it?

whilst i think the majority will agree that we have suffered in the backs all season, losing French, Manfredi, Field etc for good parts if not all of the season, i have to disagree regarding the pack

he has had 4 1st team props sat on the bench virtually all season. that isnt through injury for the most part, but just not picking them. he has flogged the young forwards this season, to the point that they are probably close to burn out. Even if they are out of form, playing 2 or 3 of the recognised starting props will have taken so much pressure off the younger players. How can a pack with an average age of 20-21, compete against the Saints pack with predominantly seasoned professionals (and big ones at that). We played Catalan last week with 3 of the 4 props, and look at the result

Baffling decisions about who has played full back, hooker etc, all point to a coach making decisions cos he doesnt know what to do

so i can say i dont feel sorry for Lam, yes there are certainly far bigger issues than just Lam as coach, but some of the decisions he has made this year are just baffling

No but their salaries will go up year on year.

Shorrocks, KPP will be next.

It’s just too many forwards, all at a similar level getting upgraded / inflated contracts at the same time.

For me we should only really have two young props, two young second towers at the same time. We actually have 3 props and 3 second rowers all first team regulars

Aye. Something stinks rotten and the stench is coming from the skeletons in the boardroom closet.

My personal feeling is that it's number 1 as in the fans forum they pleaded poverty starting that they're £450 grand worse off a season, while also stating that we offered Williams our largest ever contract. You can't have both.

If Byrne, Shorrocks, Smithies and Partington are on £100k each that’s shocking and no wonder our side looks weak on paper. I’m sure that’s not the case.
Havard I can understand because there was interest from plenty of other clubs including the NRL and I’m sure he’s a potential star in the making.