16 games a season? Seriously?
I don't think you'll find Cas merely aspire to survive. Over the last few year we have made a cup final and finished 4th-5th for three seasons.
Bradford had legal action taken against them, so very different to Cas who are instigating legal action.

I thought is was better last year, but it's an aspect of Wigan's approach I have disliked since McGuire was in charge.

I din't think Cas bring nothing to the comp, and at times last season they played as good footy as anyone. But I certainly find their team easier to like than their fans.

Of course a 4-5 team comp is crazy talk anyway.

My comment regarding 5 teams was somewhat tongue in cheek. Cas have played some good football especially last season and were good to watch, my issue is that they appear to continually want to stay in their comfort zone, which in itself is fine but not when it forces all the other clubs to stay the same, the game needs to grow and with that the salary cap, clubs need to continually evolve and rebrand themselves but all too often clubs just stagnate and are happy to make up the numbers. If you want to make up the numbers then fine, there are two lower tiers in our sport to do that but please don't stop the others who want to move onwards and upwards.

I'm with you on increasing the cap, but the game as a whole can't afford to take it to the level if the NRL or RU.

I agree and that's why we need to make the game as attractive as possible, not only for the supporters but the players as well. Alas I feel we will never be able to compete until we can improve our national side, reverting back to GB is a step in the right direction.

I'd completely forgot they even beat us tbh

Sam Tomkins lost you that game. I'd never seen such a petulant performance from any player and he completely lost his focus on the game. Once he was injured you seemed to be a better team.

Translation: I got called out with facts so I will just make something up to try and save face

Regards

King James

I fear you give too much weight to online personas.

Regards,

Princess Tiger.

What about the previous game at Cas earlier in the season when Tomkins won wigan the game with that brilliant defensive display, particularly his tackles on Solomona.

He was MoM that game, for sure.
I remember speaking to people afterwards and commenting that once he rediscovered his attacking game he would be the best player in SL by a mile.
Unfortunately, it never happened and his defence seemed to fall off a cliff too.
Later in the year, he seemed so frustrated that he couldn't do the things he could a couple of years ago. Hopefully, he'll come back stronger next season and this will help his petulance.
As long as he has a nightmare against us.....

Did you not see his game at Hull in the Super 8's or the game at Wire? He dragged us back into both those games too.

read some really silly texts on here slagging cas for the salary cap been held back oh what short memories you have while we have spent within our means and own our facilities do you not remember your glory days over spending then having to sacrifice your ground and become tenants of your footie team . i wonder honestly if you had the choice of giving up two or three of the trophies and instead having central park back how many fans wish they had not overspent. we have had too many clubs spending then losing there grounds just look at bradford no assetts and in admin do we the fellow clubs still own there staduim from the last bail out by the rfl. one last point do wigan fans not remember the rfl trying to protect your stars from the aussies poaching them so lets all stand together as a rl family stop any more clubs going under and stop ru from pinching our stars todays solomona is tomorrows george williams or kallum watkins if sale get away this. WE THE RL FAMILY MUST STAND TOGETHER FOR OUR SPORTS FUTURE we can have our rivalries for 80 mins but we must unite as one afterwards

[uMyth[/u

Wigan almost went bust due to overspending on superstars.


[uReality[/u

Wigan almost went bust due to unforseen circumstances during the building of the Billy Boston Stand.

Correct. Filling in a long-abandoned coal mine, with no assistance whatsoever from any other source, was hardly likely to come cheap.

But that's a part of RL history most of the British game still prefers to ignore.

Spot on. Plus they actually invested in the ground, undersoil heating, electronic scoreboard etc and post Hillsborough ground safety regs and council regs meant that a lot of money had to be spent on things like crush barrier improvement.

Strange when you look at the state of some of the grounds in Yorkshire which are worse now than when Central Park, Knowsley Road and Wilderspool closed.

That will probably be Wigan's fault too.

I must admit that I usually support the likes of Cas as I think the more teams in Super League the more interesting a tournament it is. I enjoy going to different places during the season and I would hate it if there were only a few teams competing. Playing Saints and Leeds six times a season is frankly boring.

And I don't really know what Cas have done wrong here. People are saying that Solomona is worth more and that is correct but they took a punt on him when he was worthless and it paid off. So they should be able to reap some sort of reward. Quite how any of that is to the detriment of Super League is beyond me.

All that said, and just speaking personally, I do find Cas to be the most inhospitable place in the league and the fans (though not all) do seem to reach levels of hostility and ignorance that make the visit, win or lose, a chore rather than a pleasure.

We were sh*t that year, you were ter. If you'd played better, you'd have stayed up.
We signed Fielden and Dobson. Why didn't you?

Bizarre amount of animosity from both sets of fans here, some of the comments are borderline embarrassing. This isn't about the state of our ground (due to lack of funds/lack of council support, you have correctly pointed that both Cas and Wakefield aren't doing too good in that respect - you are very lucky that you have the financial backing you do, compared to us 'smaller clubs') or what happened 10 years ago. This is about Solomona and the fact that he's taken himself, a huge asset to Cas, and robbing us of that.

Conveniently forgetting that Castleford broke the salary cap the previous year to get promoted.

If you're trying to find reasons why Wiganers don't like Cas, I suspect you've got it in one right here. Also speaking personally, every Wigan fan I know shares this opinion.

Sadly it's not only Castleford that I feel like this, which is one of the reasons I scoff at the family game tag bandied about about rugby league.

I usually go with my grandad and my fiancée to games, and therefore don't antagonise people or try and cause trouble win, draw or lose. But on a number of occasions I have felt hostility towards me and the group that goes beyond the light hearted banter than I would have associated with going to games in the late 90s.

I've experienced hostility at Castleford, Wakefield, Salford (the only time I actually retaliated verbally) and Hull. This ruins the game for me, what I love about our sport is the ability in general to sit and talk rationally about the games wth fans of other teams. But due to incidences at the above mentioned clubs I won't be going again. I simply have better things in my life to be bothered with than go somewhere to be antagonised just because I support the team of the town where I was born, frankly I find it pathetic, especially when (for example) people say "I hate st Helens" or "I hate saints fans". Just grow up.

The irony is that I find Saints one of the better places to go to in that regard. I've certainly had more friendly banter with Saints fans than with others.

Most clubs have their quota of idiots. Sometimes you notice an upsurge when that club are doing well, presumably because they then start attracting rag-tag and bob-tail. For example, I'd never come across as many obnoxious pillocks from Leeds until they started doing well in the late Noughties. Bradford were the same during Bullmania (after the 2003 Grand Final, I witnessed the worst behaviour by opposition fans that I've ever seen in my life). But some clubs seem to be permanently saddled with idiot camp-followers. Warrington have long been the worst for that, in my experience - the only time I've ever seen fighting outside Wembley, but Leigh ran them a close second back in the day (will be interesting to see in 2017 if the Leigh goons have grown up, but I wouldn't put money on it).

Over in Yorkshire, I think Cas have long been the worst of the the smaller Yorkshire clubs. I can never remember the sort of innate hostility at Wakey or Featherstone that seems to be the norm at Cas. Not sure why. Perhaps they've experienced more success than the others, and so get more cheesed off when they lose. Who knows?