Whatever happened to that millionaire fella who looked like he was going to buy the stadium for them?

Feels like that guy fancied getting his name in lights for a couple of days. Heard nothing of him since!

The situation at Salford looks worrying. Raising money from the fans, on the basis that they could hold on to their best players, only to then sell them must have lost a lot of the confidence people had in the guys running the club.

I think you have recruited well in parts (Croft and Ackers) others are in the unknown category. I think your improvement though will be judged by the performance of your federation players. If they step up then Leeds will be competitive. One thing you do need to sort is your defence, particularly in the middle of the park. Hopefully, you will have a much better season, SL needs more clubs competing for trophies. As for Saints, they will be there or thereabouts.

Im surprised none of the old Man Utd lot havent shown any interest in Salford. I know some of them are RL fans and have seen them at Wigan games in the past

There was the whole “stadium swap” situation which I thought might’ve led to something like but neither have ended up happening.

Seb Gerrard?

If that was to happen then Salford would be finished.

That's the bloke.

Listening to the NRL daily telegraph podcast. Smithies contract is 3 years, 6 figure fee to Wigan.

They realise Welsby is a superstar. They say teams are falling over themselves to sign Lewis Dodd and Harry Smith is well on the radar too.

Newman also got mentioned as wanting to go over there.

I don’t see the fuss about Dodd, maybe I’m missing something?

Newman wants to go to the NRL in 2025 but I think he knows it will only happen if he stays injury free and has a good 2024, he needs to keep his gob shut on the field aswell.

On Harry Smith I always felt he went under the radar but he’s a fantastic controlling halfback and they are really valuable I can see why NRL clubs would be interested.

Logan Astley signed a 2 year deal with Oldham.

Massively over-rated according to a lot of Wigan fans

On a less argumentative point is it a decent podcast? I listen to "The Bye Round" with James Graham, the BBC 5 live one with Dave Woods but thats it really in RL terms. I watch a lot of NRL shows including the Matty Johns with Cooper Cronk one which could be listened to as a podcast but I prefer to watch that as a video.

Logan Astley to Oldham.
I had high hopes for him but if we’ve resigned Hampshire then I suspect that he had to exit as first team opportunity’s would have been virtually non existent.

How many is "A Lot?"

Whatever it is I can confirm that it'll be a lot less than the number of Saints fans who think Wigan Players are massively over-rated

Fair enough, I probably should have changed to "numerous"

There are a few on here and it seems on social media, the majority of Wigan fans that reply to threads whenever he is mentioned also say the same.

Come on Stu, you are starting to get a little bitter after our recent success, it's only a game mate! Who are all these fans who think Welsby is over-rated? Any chance of listing them? The true test for our guys is whether they can perform in the NRL. Williams and Bateman did it we shall have to see if those that follow can.

I don't think people think he is over-rated, I think the issue is how he has become a bit of a hype machine for Sky (maybe others) who seem to over promote him compared to other similar/better players at different clubs.

Nobody can deny his quality.

It’s all about the baseline of what Stu wants his rating to be. If he wants it to be that he’s head and shoulders the best player in Superleague, than many people won’t agree and will say he’s overrated but if Stu says he’s one of the best few players in Superleague and people still say that’s overrating him, then I think they’re wrong because he definitely is.

When people use the term "over-rated", usually thats all they say. They don't quantify it against a baseline, they just usually say Player x is over-rated.

I think he's a potential superstar given his age. He's far from the finished article so his ceiling is higher. Going over old ground again but I think some of the negative comments stem from the fact he's a Wigan lad.

He's not far and away the best player in SL as I had no complaints with French winning MOS.

I also think the hype is more to do with the fact he's English so Sky jump on that.

Anyway my Welsby initial comment was a throwaway one liner

The main part was asking NSW about the podcast

Agree with all that. The potential superstar bit will need two things IMO- 1-A move to stand off and 2-a move to the NRL and for him to crack in over there.

When do people think we'll get some movement/updates on who is staying and leaving?

When England are out of the RU world cup

This weekend then!

3rd place game is next weekend, annoyingly.