What wonderful news. No really.

I'm surprised too, and absolutely delighted. And as said, it's good news for the comp too to keep quality players in SL.

Sounds like you'll be announcing Dodd has signed up soon, him and Welsby gives you a good chunk of your spine sorted for the next few years

Excellent news.
After we signed Jai up again, I felt sure that Bevan would leave.
Absolutely made up with this.

I'm as giddy as everyone else, but like you was concerned about what this meant for Farrimond. Hopefully, in this new age of forward thinking at the club, he (or his agent) have already been kept abreast of developments.

Absolutely fantastic news though! Takes the sting out of Good Friday a bit...

great bit of news and thats a lot of key players / positions tied down for the near future

with Cooper and Isa likely to retire at the end of this season, that gives us a couple of 1st team spots up for grabs, with Farrell likely to retire 2025 (note i have no inside knowledge but going off age and current contracts), so good opportunities for Nsemba and Walters to stake claims for 1st team 2nd row spots, unsure what we have in the academy in terms of potential future stars in the backrow

i also think with the changes to the high tackle rules and also the number of games a player can play, then the squad will be fully utilised so the likes of Forber, Farrimond, Eckersley etc will all get good game time as part of their developments into 1st team players. we are already seeing how injury / bans have impacted our front row this season, but because we have so much depth, its not really been noticed or commented outside of a Wigan forum

Incredible news. I saw a tweet from Huddersfield saying to tune in to Sky sports news at 3:30. The last time they did that was for Tom Burgess so I thought it would be a big signing. I flicked it on and was greeted with the best news.

When he signed for 2 years at the end of 2022, I got the impression that would it for him in SL. Paid us back for the support given in 2021 and won the GF in 2023.

Especially after his performance in the WCC and all the Aussie media wanting him back in the NRL I thought his time had come.

Elated he’s staying, a player we’ll be telling future generations about.

He’ll be here for nearly 10 years if he stays the duration and can go down as one of the clubs greats if the silverware keeps coming.

Well done Radlinski and Mr Danson.

I suppose he's better being a big fish in a small pond. He would just be another player in the NRL rather than a stand out player in SL. He should have gone to the NRL if he wanted to prove he is a World class player. There are many players in the NRL much better than French.

Rather a small pond than a puddle



Do you think Amone, Asiata and Ipape will go back?

Add Moylan and Lam.

It feels like a privilege to watch French at times so made up with this news. He'll go down as one of our greatest players

All 3 would just be average players in the NRL. They may not even make the 1st team, just like French. The NRL is full of outstanding players. Just take a look at Reece Walsh at Brisbane Broncos. What a player he is and he's keeping another excellent player, Tristan Sailor, out of the team when he comes back from injury.

French is probably the best back in SL, but he would just be average in the NRL. The NRL is a far better product, unfortunately.

So 25 year old 11 game Sailor is excellent….but French would be average. Where is the logic in that?

Sailor looks a great prospect, but as you say, only a handful of games. French would improve plenty (but not all) of NRL teams IMO.

Fortunately, this is all now strictly academic!

It’s a great league but they blow enough smoke up own their backsides without us joining in. French would be a good player back in the NRL just as Smithies has taken to it comfortably, Pearce Paul has etc. Even Aidan Sezer is having a great time of it back there at the minute. Guys like Ipape and Amone would do a good job as well.

They have more very good players than we do and clearly more World Class players but the best in this competition have consistently shown that it isn’t a league full of super humans and we shouldn’t sell our league so short. The pundits over there do enough of that, talking as though KPP has come from playing in a pub league.

Couldn’t have put this better myself, I was about to mention Sezer too who was shocking here.

They are loving KPP and Smithies there already.

It’s a great comp but there’s a load of bang average players playing week in week out.

Some of their games looked in slow motion compared to Wigan Saints.

The thing that bugged me with them talking about KPP on one of the review shows, was how surprised they were after his debut that he could cope that well with the physicality and pace of the game. They made it sound like a Superleague commentator would talk about a guy stepping up from League one here. Now he might not have been playing games against Saints every week but KPP had just come off an English Grand Final and is used to playing in big games.

The step up is over egged and I’m surprised after over a decade of English players going there and thriving, they’ve not realised that these lads might actually be able to play and might just be in good nick, without needing to be spoon fed.

The NRL is streets ahead of us.

They might blow smoke up players, but at least a few of them deserve it & they pick the right ones. SL, or Sky will laud over guys like Sneyd & McShane, telling us how great they are and how wonderful Salford, Cas etc are. All whilst guys like Wardle or Smithies last year hardly get mentioned. It's laughable.

I think a good few clubs in the NRL would love someone of Sneyd’s ability.

They are desperately short on quality play makers hence the reason Wigan and Saints are being so protective of theirs.

Someone like Sneyd walks into a team like Souths at the moment.

I’m not saying the league is not superior but they are lacking depth of years gone by in certain positions such as halves, 5/8ths and 9s, yet their strength in fullbacks in particular is ridiculous.

Athleticism has replaced guile in a lot of cases which has seen the likes of Sezer go back and nail a starting spot.

I don’t think anyone would deny it is but there is sometimes a narrative that goes around in this country that it’s 17 supermen per side going at it each week and it’s just not the case. Dozens of Superleague players would get games in the NRL and some would go extremely well.

It's utter garbage anyway. French wouldn't be average anywhere. He has too much natural ability and x factor for that. Was he average against the NRL's reigning premiers the other week? I think a MOM performance would suggest otherwise.

Some players can just do things others can't so will always stand out.

French took a 4 year deal because he would probably only get a 1 or 2 NRL deal.
Good economic sense but to really test yourself you need to play in the NRL. Watch a couple of NRL games and then watch a SL game. SL is like slow motion.

Apart from a few games, like Saints v Wiggin or the play-offs, SL isn't at the same intensity on a weekly basis. You only have to ask how many current SL players would walk into a NRL team. Not many. How many current NRL players would walk into a SL team. Quite a lot.

Smithies and Pearce-Paul.

And you could add Thompson & Leeming who were both regulars last season and French and Smith who both had offers and that's just from Wigan!