Well this rumour has certainly put the 'cat among the pigeons' amongst the fans. Will it do the same in the changing room if found to be true ?

i wasnt counting H.........did he actually come through the academy all the way, or was he brought in at a later age ?

GARETH THOMAS has completed his shock move to Wigan — as revealed by SunSport. The 100-cap Wales union star has signed a one-year deal with the Warriors. It is a surprise switch for Thomas, who saw a one-year extension with Crusaders ripped up when they pulled out of the Super League licence race. Thomas, 37, will not be regarded as a starting centre — with Joel Tomkins and George Carmont occupying those slots. But Wigan believe he will add more competition. He will also link up with current Crusaders boss Iestyn Harris, who will be an assistant Wigan coach next season. www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... -move.html

GARETH THOMAS has completed his shock move to Wigan — as revealed by SunSport. The 100-cap Wales union star has signed a one-year deal with the Warriors. It is a surprise switch for Thomas, who saw a one-year extension with Crusaders ripped up when they pulled out of the Super League licence race. Thomas, 37, will not be regarded as a starting centre — with Joel Tomkins and George Carmont occupying those slots. But Wigan believe he will add more competition. He will also link up with current Crusaders boss Iestyn Harris, who will be an assistant Wigan coach next season. www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... -move.html

If he can get through our pre season he will have earned his place without any complaints from me

plus if his film does get made it has the happiest of endings. I'm imagining something like the end of Star Wars with 1st teamshirtd being handed out instead of medals

our pre-season will be a damn sight harder than anything he has come across before......if he gets through that he still has 4 ahead of him in the pecking order, if nothing else it will spur on Stefan and Darrell to prove that they are better than a 37 yr old Onion convert

I know - we could always put it in our signatures...

Odemwingie is fast becoming my favourite poster on these boards. Comedy genius.

That hurts! So much I might have to watch the challenge cup final and Grand Final back to back tonight whilst checking out the last 2 seasons league tables!

You post a total mixture of stuff on here. Some of it is sensible, some of it is trolling and like this little beauty some is plain crazy.

If you think our current plight is funny you'll pi*s yourself if we go on to retain the league leaders shield on Sunday and then the grand final.

I hope we do just to cheer you up.

I did so flicked back through the pages and found us to have 9 to Leeds 10 and not the 4 to Leeds 10 suggested.

We had- Sam, Charnley, Joel, Hansen, Lockers, Mossop, Prescott, Farrell and McIlorum.

That number will rise next season aswell.

Yeah, you're right, we're top of the league, CC holders and have been, are and always will be the biggest club in the British game. But everyone is laughing at us.



Even if they are (which would make a welcome change from the usual childish envy and hatred, to be honest!) we don't care, why should we?

We do what we want
We do what we want
We're Wigan rugby
We do what we want

Who were the ten at Leeds?

Bjb
Hall
Watkins
Ablett
Hall
McGuire
Sinfield
Bailey
JJB
Clarkson
Burrow

so 11 in fact

Or 20 if you count [iall [/iof them twice.

Of course the difference between the two clubs is that Wigan have not only generated and retained top class payers but there are also lots of former Wigan players who are now playing at other clubs, but who weren't quite good enough for Wigan. Leeds on the other hand kept hold of some of their not-quite-good enough players and they play in the first team...

Watkins was in the Salford academy team, and then went to Leeds.

Have i missed something here?

Whoops





I did answer the question though..just included Hall twice

But as I posted on the previous page Watkins came from Salfords academy, so it's nine players each from the Cup final sides.

Did he?

He was in the Warrington Service area team with Joe Mellor and I am sure when Watkins left Latchford Albion to go Leeds, Mellor left to go Wigan.

18 or 19 academy players turning out at Wembley is a great achievement, and both clubs deserve a lot of credit. Lets hope other SL clubs aspire to what Wigan and Leeds are doing.

I am sorry Rouges but you are missing the plat. All the above logic can be applied to any player. Who do you consider the worst player in RL at the moment? Using your logic we could sign this player and it would all be OK because he would only get into the team if he performs. But we would never sign this player would we?

No we would not and you know it. We would not sign him because he would not be good enough to give any of our current squad any meaningful competition. It would be a complete waste of time for club and player.

And so it is with Thomas. He is simply not good enough so all this "he will only get in the team if he performs" is just a load of nonsense.



No it won't be. Wigan sign less than average 37 year old retired RU player is not good publicity. No one in their right mind will have Thomas on the back of a replica shirt next year. We are not going to sell shed loads of replica shirts to the Welsh and there won't be bus loads up from South Wales every week to watch a Wigan team that doesn't actually have Gareth Thomas playing in it!

The publicity for this will last about a week at most. When his film comes out it will last another week if anyone notices at all.



The most obvious one is this signing is so transparently to do with PR and nothing to do his playing ability it will be seen as such and so it's dead in the water on that front before it starts.

Another is Thomas will not have been on any Wigan coaches list as a player they wanted so this signing will not have been made at the request of any coach but is right out of the Maurice Lindsay style of chairmanship. Mind you I am doing him a disservice there as I doubt he would be daft enough to go for this one.

There is also the danger he will get 1st team games because the PR people need him to not because he is good enough. You can't generate positive PR from a player languishing in the reserves. That won't give them the happy ending for his film will it?

And finally the ultimate negative - he simply is not good enough.

I'll admit my post was a little bit of a WUM post even though people are genuinely laughing at it.
You're coming back with laugh because we have this and that and sit at the top and massively missing the point. That's the reason, because you have these accolades yet make possibly the worst signing behind Ah Van.

Dave's been waiting four torturously long years to be able to say something like this.

Enjoy your moment, pal.

Perhaps Lenegan is trying to tap into the north west's gay market, like Stade Francais did in Paris. Could be very lucrative for the club, another good move from the number one chairman in the game imo.

Just as an aside, I don't understand some of the negativity around the Welsh on this thread.

There have of course been other prominent Welshmen who have been part of the story of the greatest club in RL, but there aren't many (any?) bigger figures in the history of the club than

Jim Sullivan and Billy Boston

were they both 37 when they joined the greatest club though....