The more I think about it the more I agree with the above sentiments. The fact George played through injury this season doesn't mean he is injury prone. He just picked up an injury but played through it and still gave some excellent performances.

I think it depends on the view of SW, MM and IL as to what is best for the club when they look at the bigger picture in that they will have an idea of can his undoubted quality as a player be replaced readily enough and what the salary cap implications are of giving him a new deal (this is where IL comes in!).

My own view is it would be ideal if he could be used to ease players into the team over the next two years rather than letting him go and giving Goulding and Thornley too much exposure. By the end of two years Gleeson will be at the end of his career as well which is something else to consider. It means in the next two years we have to replace two of the best centres in the competition. I just don't see how letting George go now and relying on the younger players will advance the sides chances in the short term next season as I don't see the younger players as up to taking his place nor is there an obvious centre recruit to come in which I am not sure we'd want anyway as they would want a longer deal as well thus keeping the young players out.

It's a bit of a dilemma!

Dave

If Carmont wants 2 years i would give him 2 years personally. I wouldn't say he is injury prone and don't think he has missed too many matches either in his stay here even though he has been carrying a knock for some time. Throughout his time at wigan he has been our best centre by a pretty large margin, on one leg or not, and i think we would be daft to let him leave for the sake of an extra year. If we do end up letting him go however i would hope that this would be because our new coaching setup had decided that Goulding/Pryce/Thornley were going to slot in here for the whole season (and were ready to do so) and not sign someone else to play in Carmonts place.

I agree. I think signing someone else to replace him would mean signing an establish pro on a two or three year deal and they would block the progression of the players you mention which is why (I assume) the club don't want to offer Carmont two years in the first place.

Replacing Carmont with a similar level of player for two years seems pointless, doing it for longer by dishing out a three year deal is even worse from the younger players development point of view.

The only way we should sign a replacement for Carmont is if we get a world class centre in his prime. Hardily likely to happen.

Dave

Another option could be to play Roberts at centre (where he has played in the NRL) and play Ainscough on the wing.

Worst idea you've ever come up with, don't think Roberts at centre would work. Doesn't seem big enough or powerful enough or even have the quality passing skills to be a centre.

Don't think this is a good idea personally. He is only just starting to settle at wing so i don't think it would help to move him to centre and hope for the best. If you are looking at fitting Ainscough in and don't think the younger lads are ready for centre i would rather see Phelps at centre with Richards at fullback leaving a wing spot for him that way.

An absolutely horrible thought. worst option possible

think he's having one of his senior moments

Oh ye of little faith,

I've just seen on the Quins page that LMS could be a potential target for the Bulls!

Anyone else think we should go for him as well?

I'd be very disappointed if we didn't. I 'd also be disappointed if we got into a bidding war with Bradford and they won, given the state their club is in compared to ours.

Whats IL situation with quins?

Did he ever sell his shares. i doubt he'll try and sign Quins best players if hes still as money involved

I don't know were he stands with Quins any more?

I do know he's a player IL has a history of working with and one he respects as well.

IL may not particularly want to sign LMS whilst he's under contract at Quins but i can't see him standing around and missing out on him if Bradford came on the scene.

I honestly can’t see LMS staying beyond his current contract as Quins. At the end of the day it’s a short career and any decent player would want to be playing in the later rounds of the cup and playoffs which isn’t something he’s going to be doing with Quins any time soon.

I think its a job for Wane to sell the club to LMS.

I think it would be shame for Quins if LMS left. One of the things that should be happening in RL is to reward clubs for producing their own players.

As you know (or should as I've been banging the drum for five years about it) I believe that any player who comes through a clubs academy system particularly from their own service area should have a percentage of their salary exempt from the "cap" calculation.

It's something I’d like to see in RL as it would improve the junior development at most SL clubs. It should have been brought in with the new licensing agreements as it would have worked well with the whole three year plan model imo.

That being said it still won’t keep all the top young like LMS & Myler at their bottom half of the table clubs. Players like Worrincey & Sheriff maybe would have stayed and it would give clubs like Quins and Salford a lot more leverage to keep hold of their average youngsters but their top young stars will still always move to the top teams for the reasons I posted before.

When you look at the success players like Leuluai & Ellis have had after moving to one of the more established teams you can’t blame them really.

Who's LMS?

[urlhttp://www.lms.ac.uk/[/url

If true and the Bulls are courting LMS then we've got to have a try ourselves, the guy hasn't matured as quickly as Burgess or Graham but he will over time become a great player. Everybody knows my feelings on LMS as illustrated in my sig, and if it does come down to us or Bradford getting him both offering the same money I feel that's a battle we'd win"no offence to Bradford".

We have to be in it to win it.

Dont bradford have money from the burgess deal they could use for a tranfer fee ?

Yeah they've supposedly got £100,000 I believe.

Bargin really!

I hope we get LMS, he is doing as well as most experienced props, he will only get better as long as they don't play him too much like the ginger guy.

That what the rumor started from i think. Bradford are a little punch drunk with cash after not having any for a while.

Either way with IL having very close ties with Quins he'll know if Bradford are sniffing around he'll also know

-How much they've offered,
-What he's currently on wages wise

We should in theory be on much stronger negotiating grounds with the previous history IL has with him and the enthusiasm Wane shows.

He's a player we should definatly be looking at when his contract is up at the end of season.

BTW can IL not just offer his quins counter part a transfer fee and then accept it himself and walk away with the dosh? You know Whelan would have done it

You would hope that Lenegan's ties with Quins would be are advantage over Bradford, either way LMS comes out of contract at the end of next year anyway.

The only thing Bradford may have is more cap room and they have a couple of ex Quins players there.

Other than that i really don't know why a player wouldn't pick us over Bradford as we seem better in most areas

Training facilities
Final league standings
Cup runs
Stadia
Players
Juniors
Coaches

If you really had to look at it from and unbiased view point 99% of the time you'd pick Wigan over Bradford imo as we are in a much stronger position.