I'm not normally one to moan but I see no benefit to the training sessions with Bath RU whatsoever given our current bad form.

In our current situation the sessions should have been cancelled and I don't give a damn what this would have done to our relationship with Bath. In the build up to the Wakefield game we now have 2 days allocated to training with a union team when this time could have been spent trying to fix or improve the areas where we a struggling.

I may be being short sighted but I see this as being beneficial to Bath only on the basis that they are able to view first hand the potential talent that we have coming through the ranks. Its like going into a shop and being able to sample the goods before you buy!

Hope for your sake you're not doing full contact training with Sam Burgess. With his lack of involvement in Union he'll be chomping at the bit to crack some bodies.

Liam Farrell with his new aggressive style will soon sort Big Sam out.

Are they up my way again? I only live 3-4 miles from the Bath training ground (which isn't actually in Bath).

Opposite way this time with Bath training at Orrell.

Could be preparation for the cross-code game with Wigan's RU partner club Saracens?

It's very nice of us to give Bath a hands on trial of our players.

Ryan Hampshire, Baths next No.10

OK, we'll have Eastmond, then.

Rumours are that Hull FC will be playing Bath as both sides are celebrating 150 year anniversaries.

I'd still be seething about the appalling drop-off of Henry Paul and Gary Connolly's form after they went through the Bath "training" regime.

Tell Union to go and fish. They're the damned competition.

From an outsider looking in it seems Wigan are going into these alliances with others with no clear benefit to themselves, the only ones who will benefit are Bath, Saracens and the Warriors. Feel sorry for you guys to be fair your club giving these clubs and all their riches access to your talent

Don't they use the training ground on London Road anymore, near the A4/A46 roundabout ?

No, I think that's built on now.

Maybe one reason is that when we train with Bath RU we have conversations again with a certain Mr Burgess. He won't spend the rest of his rugby career in Union but return to League at some point. It would be pretty good if he were to return to League at Wigan.

The club have also talked about getting bigger players. Union has plenty forwards who are bigger than ours and some would be ideally suited to league.
Maybe Mike Ford can point us in the direction of one or two who he feels could make it in League,
whether at his own club or other clubs.

I'm ok with the Bath thing as long as they don't start any old rubbish about more cross code matches.
Rugby League and Wigan need to look forward, not back to 1996.

In my book the best ball-playing forward in the Premiership is the Samoan-American Manoa at Northampton. I reckon he's make a great league player. Unfortunately he's off to the galacticos at Toulon next season.

Mark Bitcon is one of the best in the business, if this was not of benefit to Wigan then Im sure he would say so internally, lets not forget that he spent a good deal of time in Union as well as the NFL so its not surprising we have learned from both - on and off the pitch.

Seriously folks, Wigan's lack of forward power [uDOES NOT[/u require the aid of any Union forward. Unless players unnamed have prior League experience what makes you think they might be "ideally suited" to our sport?

Is it because they are big and, erm, big? I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to consider a genuine Union prop. Their primary role as bulk mass in the scrum completely precludes any possibility that they might last more than five minutes on a pitch before suffering massive coronary infarction. Ditto second-row (for different reasons). Which means you're looking at flank forwards. The flank position in Union is a technically specialised role. Years of muscle-memory would need to be completely erased before you could even begin to overwrite it with League's skill-set.

Consider Maurie Fa'asavalu at Saints. Millward picked him up practically for nothing and admittedly he turned out to be a great buy who provided outstanding value over several years. But it took Maurie THREE YEARS to develop his skills, fitness and mindset to the point at which he could legitimately be called a genuine league player.

Six months is a long time in League. Three years might as well be a generation. Think about it - by the time your new Union recruit is up to speed (which is a big if in itself) half your team will have moved on.

If Wigan need forwards they need them quickly - and with a full compliment of league skills.

Besides, there are plenty of big players already playing league. There are plenty more juniors coming through. In case you haven't noticed we are currently living in a Golden Age of English prop forwards. In fact, we've got so many we could probably fill a second or even a third-tier England team which could at lease give a good account of itself in the yardage department.

I don't go in for co-incidence theory much. If we're currently pumping out top quality props like pork sausages this tells me we are getting something right in our coaching. Which means the answer to Wigan's problems in the pack can be found in our sport.

Shelling out good money for a wild punt on some Rugger Bugger can only exacerbate your problems.

Aye the following players were total shoite
Jim Sullivan
Billy Boston
Lewis Jones
Inga
Cliff Watson
The Von
Jon Davies
Martin Offiah
David Watkins
John Bevan
Frano Botica

Admittedly I could name as many gobshoites but then I could do the same about RL originating players.
Some of the above were very wild expensive punts but........
My view is keep your options open.
Personally I would love right now another Steve Hampson or a Ben Flower but then we haven't got Saint Longy of Betfred or Saint KC of Special Cornflakes coaching us so I would wouldn't I?

Could you? Could you REALLY? Because I'm betting you'd end up naming an order of magnitude above that number in blowouts. And comparisons made with amateur players are utterly worthless. Neither sport is what it was twenty years or more ago. Not by a long way.



Ah, I see. Somewhere between the moment you made up your mind to refute my reasoning and mentally totting up the total number of union flops in your head the penny dropped and so did the realisation that my argument is broadly sound. At this juncture regular folk simply depress the BACKSPACE key for an extended period and then find some other avenue of the Internet to explore.

But not you - you cheeky little monkey! Why exit gracefully from a thread when you can spew a ton of flamebait over it like a fighter jet scattering chaff to avoid a radar-guided missile?

I mean, I don't have an issue with the Wigan mods or how they police their board. But it strikes me that whilst one of the biggest threats to any club-centric message board is undoubtedly thoughtless (or worse) fans from rival teams, the fact remains that a (thankfully) small segment of one's own colours seem hell bent on encouraging said idiots.

This is the [usecond time[/u you've attempted to de-rail a thread with coded references to Keiron Cunningham and now Sean Long.

Not many props there, are there?

We have 3 props in the Wigan u16s who are already over 105 kg according to the club website. They will be even bigger when they have finished growing under our conditioning regime however they may not have the skill set or mentality to make a first grade player. Kibula is a beast and looks to have the size and skills (and pace) but I will have to look at Freer and Prescott a bit more. Size isn't everything! Look at Karl Pryce!

Until these lads come through in what could be 5 years time we will have to buy in big props.

The links with RU clubs are clearly an IL idea and I very much doubt IL asked Mark Bitcon about any of this.

In any case why would a conditioner as experienced as Bitcon who as you say spent a good time in Union think an actual training session with Bath was of benefit? He is I am sure capable of adapting anything he sees from another sport to RL without having to ship an entire RU team up to Orrell.

I am mystified why either club is doing it. PR maybe but if so I think that is not to the benefit of RL or Wigan as most RL people are, I would suggest, sceptical of the benefits.

Do you not remember Wigan signed Scott Quinnell who at first looked like a fish out of water but in a lot less time than three years was a quality player? We didn't even have him for three years but he was great once he got going a lot quicker than you suggest.

Now granted that was a different era but the point is if you are a good enough athlete with the right attributes for the sport you will adapt quicker than you suggest.

The problem is Wigan are not going to be signing RU players of the quality of Scott Quinnell, not that RU players can't adapt quickly enough.

My comments have been more generally recruitment rather than mainly forwards.
Why would we look away from any potential pool of players when our own generic pools are based in Yorkshire, Lancashire and a little bit in Cumbria?

Union link up has nothing to do with signing their players or targeting Burgess, in my opinion it's about generating commercial opportunities and raising our profile just like the London pre season fixture.

In relation to Union players they need to be targeted way before they are part of a Premiership first team squad as the wage expectations make it increasingly unlikely they will be realistic targets.

From my personal experience as a coach in both codes open side flankers make the switch most comfortably to Prop as physically the demands of the game are similar, lots of defence, strong aerobic fitness as cinstantly moving and pace as they tend to be expected to be first to get to the breakdown. Blindside flankers and Number 8s also tend to be easy to mould but you need to get them way before they are established Union players, as happened with Ben Flower, who I bekeive was a Welsh International age group flanker.