No, "let's face it" Potter has achieved more than MM has at Wigan. He's reached a GF with what Wigan fans keep telling us is a poor squad. MM may NEVER achieve that at Wigan.

Let's speak again in November about your wonder coach. He may well back up the early promise (my thought are that he probably will), he may well be another of the Wigan hero-today, villain-tomorrow types you've had so many of recently.

To say "god forbid" a coach ever leaves a club after a good start to a season (but achieving nothing) is ridiculous.

they dont though they stay and demand more as they have had success.

spot on, we dont need bellamy, madge is workin miracles at Wigan at the moment and whether we win anything or not, he has got Wigan playing fantastic rugby and the fans are enthusiastic again. to bring in bellamy would be a complete insult to him and would show very little gratitude or trust for what he has done. I would be more concerned with melbourne coming looking for Madge as a replacement if bellamy is sacked.

You mean like Ashton did?

They can demand it all they want, but they won't get it if their club's up to the cap.

thats a different thing. Successful clubs need to pay top dollar to keep hold of their stars as once they have won things they think they are worth more and other clubs start sniffing around. Ashton went mid season and to another sport.

I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make.

My point was that wanting what you're worth doesn't always equate with being greedy.

Players who ask for an increase and then go somewhere else because their club can't give it to them thanks of the cap are not necessarily baddies. They might just be being realistic about their short career. Most have families and want to look after them, etc.

Ashton is not an ideal example because Wigan's finances were being badly mismanaged at the time. But if he'd been on a decent wage to start with, he might have been less vulnerable to the approaches of RU.

And the RU factor is relevant, even if it is a different sport. If we police our salary cap very strictly, as we do, and they don't, they are always going to have the advantage over us. And that's something we need to think about when we next readdress the issue of the cap.

Note, I'm not saying do away with the cap. But we have to take some measure that will enable our top clubs to keep hold of the talent they've spent time and money developing - otherwise why bother developing any in the first place.

Its always been the same in the sport, success breeds greed. When we were winning everything in the 90's I bet not many players took a pay cut to stay at the club. All im saying is that Melbourne have been successful for a while now with the same team. The same happened with Canterbury.

As I say, I think it's too simple to just call it 'greed'.

But we'll have to agree to disagree.

there's a good reason for that there sherlock

Greg Inglis to wigan.

Please <3

Strange how this comes out just when there's a Union team launching in Melbourne and the CEO of said Union team held the same position at the Storm.

Not condoning what the Storm have done but there's 11 pages on this thread on the getting a few digs in at other clubs.

What's that saying about divide & conquer

So you don't think that the players who had signed duplicate contracts were in on it? How stupid do you think they are? Do you think they were sat there wondering why they were being paid more than the contract they had signed said they should have been?

You're incredibly defensive when you think someone is having a go at Wigan, even though this is about Melbourne, but you saying that the very players that were being paid more than they were declaring didn't know about the situation is frankly laughable.

Matt King has been on Radio Manchester tonight and said he knew nothing of the deals. When asked how he thought Melbourne had amassed such an array of talent he replied that players like Felou (sp) and others had been allowed to leave for salary cap reasons. He also stated that many of the players were not on big money and that they had come initially from their feeder club in Brisbane. "The players do not know each other salaries".

In that case a player could have a salary of $500K Aus which could be made up of two parts $300k (declared by the club) and $200K from the "hidden" account.
All the player would know was that he getting $500K. I don't know if it could be done that way.

How that works tax wise I'm not sure.

No doubt it will all come out in the aftermath.

That's the way I thought it would work, if its true that the players didn't know. Each of the big earners would probably just assume they were the highest paid at the club and wouldn't ever discuss it between each other would they.

Surely though, when auditing the cap, why don't they ask the players what they are getting paid? They would have stated the amount bigger than that declared, so surely they would have spotted it within the last 4 years?

[url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/sport/rugby-league/3613816/Jail-terms-may-await-Storm-scams-architectsJail terms may await Storm scam's architects[/url

[url=http://www.radiosport.co.nz/SportsNews/spleg/Detail.aspx?id=174478Gallop adamant NRL can survive Storm scandal[/url

This story is going to get a lot more messy as it goes along methinks

What are you, an RSS feed?

The players may not know which of the others is involved, however they'd know if they were themselves. I can't see such a scam being put at risk by the simple question to a player of 'How much do you earn?'

Interesting question. I have one for you, who was the last team who cheated in order to avoid relegation?

Leigh.

I think it's the thing about 'the coaching staff' that really made me laugh. But then, if I was a Saints fan, I'd be living in hope at the moment as well.

Quote from Brian Waldron


"Half an hour before David Gallop opened his press conference and revealed the full extent of Storm's salary cap rorting yesterday, a panicking Waldron told me: "There were people on the board who knew about everything that was going on.

"It's happening everywhere. What about [name withheld leaving us and getting paid $200,000 by [sponsor withheld outside the cap by the [team name withheld.

"This is a joke. All clubs do it. I can't say any more."


I hope for the integrity of the game int his country that he is not referring to an English club.

I have not read all 11 pages but for me what this shows is clubs [uwill try and circumvent a salary cap in any way they can[/u.

Is anyone in this country naive enough to think our clubs are not trying to do the same thing?

Wigan tried to do it by employing the deferred contracts route which was allowed in the NRL so thought it was a legitimate way to do it in SL so did it above board. It was then ruled against the spirit of the cap which is just a catch-all phrase which means "make it up as you go along".

So what's the betting other clubs have tried other ways to maximise what they pay to players?

I am not condoning what the Storm have done but rather flagging up the fact a salary cap results IMO in clubs agreeing in principle but then trying to their best to get around it in practice.

Dave

Another intersting question!
If your guess is Wigan could you just clear up which rule that was in the Rule Book at that time was it they Broke.





PS

Magic Weekend?

Hasnt Matt King got a tattoo about the Storm 2007 team or something according to Mather Twitter or am I making things up there?