I would be stunned if Sam decided to stay at Wigan beyond 2 years, so to that extent it's hardly a shock.

I am not up to speed on the sort of money the NRL can offer though.

If Sam went to RU he would be a millionaire within a year.

I doubt IL would allow Sam to leave for free when he is contractually obliged to play for Wigan for the next two seasons.

I strongly disagree he would have to move to French Rugby Union to earn any thing near one million pounds the raise in the Aviva Premiership salary cap next year to £4.5 million would mean the average player in a 32 man squad would receive £140,625.

As he will be successful in either side of the sport of Rugby it would be far better for Wigan & League as a whole if he chose to go to the NRL, At least being a success in NRL still means that by the time he is 29 or 30 he can still come back to Wigan if both parties wanted the move, Whereas success in Union means televisual appearences and borderline stardom with little or no chance of a return to League or Wigan. So as gutted as I would be to lose him to NRL i'd wish him every success with the knowledge that he would tear it up over there plus we can still watch him on telly and when he comes back for Internationals with Matty Russell or Jack Murphy or Lewis Tierney ready to step into the breach.

Ridiculous. We want the best players here not in the NRL or RU. It will never get any better if we adopt your attitude. We should be unashamedly selfish about this.

It's a non-article anyway. Player reaches period in his contract where he can exercise his options so its an article about that. This is news because...?

Only two options then....

Shae Lyon-Fraser or bring David Doc-Murray out of retirement!

The RFL can only sit on their hands for so long. We all know the reason that Sam is considering going to the NRL is for the money and the increased quality.

How can they expect our best players to stay here when they make no increase in the salary cap for years? The NRL can now pay it's players twice as much as we can, while we vote to keep it the same. If the argument is to stop clubs overspending and going bust, it's clearly not working looking at Crusaders and now Bradford. I know that wages aren't the whole reason that Sam is thinking of going, but if you can offer the money to players, the quality will come. Many will see that as an excuse to go back to the days of over the hill Aussies coming for a pay day, but while that may have some truth in it, that effect will diminish with the proper procedures and restrictions in place.

Matty Russell may well be a very good player in the future, but quite frankly I don't give a monkeys. I'm sure I'm not the only one that would prefer to see Sam in a Wigan shirt for the whole of his career. Ditto Finch, Lima, Leuluai, Hoffman etc. Don't get me wrong, I still want to see quality young players coming through the ranks, but it should be because [ithey're[/i good enough, not because they have to as a result of A.N Other going to the NRL or Union.

His actual salary in Union would be a small part of his overall earnings.

I wish I had your confidence in them. Sitting on their hands is the only way the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

I'd be little other than amazed if the contractual wording doesn't take that decision out of Mr Lenegans hands.

Its news because fans of opposition teams cannot wait for the day he's no longer running rings round them in a Cherry & White jersey

then we'd have to brand Mr. Lenegan as utterly incompetant, and I dare say he's the complete opposite to that. We will get something for Sam when he leaves for the NRL, whether it be money or exchange of players

I fully agree with you Dave!

Really? Sam signed the contract at the same time his brother went to Union and no doubt had a fat offer on the table at the time to go as well. He negotiated his new contract with an extremely strong hand after recently switching to an agency with a reputation for touting players to Union and I would suggest that IL's offer of a 5 yr contract with a specific 3 yr agreement not to speak to other clubs was competent and sensible business. The contract is essentially a 3 yr deal with a subsequent 2 year option afterwards in Sam Tomkins favour, a safety guard if you will if he were to suffer a serious injury in year 3. If he were to stay past the 3 year mark I've no doubt it would be re-negotiated.

Let's also tackle the NRL/compensation thing. The contract is between the player and the club in English law. Let's set aside the fact that over the last 10 yrs or so since the Bosman ruling the transfer fee has all but disappeared from English sport, attempting to get anything from an Australian club who are bound by none of the terms it contains would be futile. Given the contract has a specific agreement for him not to speak to other clubs for part of the contracts duration, if it doesn't contain a release clause at that point also would be quite simply bizarre.

I'm with the 'I'd rather he go to the NRL than the RU' camp. He'd could make a tidy sum in Australia, where League is arguably the most popular sport. He'd be a superstar and learn from some of the best coaches and players in the game. That can only be good from an international point of view, but also for when he comes back to us

If an NRL team can afford Sonny Bill Williams as rumoured with the TV money going up, then they can afford Tomkins. I hope for the sake of our game he chooses to stay in rugby league and not to join his brother.

To have half the England team in the best competition would be brilliant for us internationally.

Please name them, a cap for England is worth £30,000 and I wouldn't picture him playing for the national team in his first year, in terms of sponsorship I think a rookie to rugby union would struggle it's only players who have performed to a certain level on the international stage.

Union would use Sam as a high profile signing and arrange high sponsorship deals for him......

I hope he stays with us for ever but can understand why he would want to have a go in the NRL and if someone is going to knock your head off probably better to be near Bondi beach than Wigan pier.

Sam is THAT good he's half the England team? No wonder they'ld want him in the NRL

All of this is still speculation but the media are reporting it's a one year deal with the roosters he'll be competing as a boxer and after the season in the nrl will be playing in the Japanese rugby union league in the off season earning over £1 million Aussie dollars and then continuing his career else where.

I will still be gutted. The best player I have seen in week in week out.

Disaster for super league losing their best players as well.

If the internet was as strong in the 80s/90s as it is now i feel we would have been having the same conversation about mr Hanley. Great players come and go and it always seems like the end of the world when it happens, but new faces are always coming through and the conveyor belt will continue to produce equal if not better talent for many more years to come.
The king is dead....long live the king i say.

But you've just mentioned Hanley and then Sam as examples. That's quite a large gap in years.

Great players don't just come along every year.

Your lucky if you see a few in a lifetime.

Me too! The kids are already eyeing up potential care homes for me...