So now the RU World Cup is over and no announcement been made are we putting the Farrell rumour in the bin ?

You’d image he would need to be in Wigan for the photo opportunity. if so he’d need to come home from France. Also, no point announcing it on the day of the final or a Sunday.

The new kit and squad numbers should be out by 1st Dec and I'd imagine we'd know by then.
I can't see him having a squad number more than the number 13. If he signs great, if he doesn't we will still have a very good pack of forwards indeed. Best for years.

The rumour that bothers me more than Owen F are replies on here that Liam Byrne may leave - be released. That would be about as mad as mad could be. Anyone know if there's any truth behind this are is just scribbling for the sake of it?

Byrne leaving ? Surely not.

I can only see Byrne leaving if he wants out or there has been an issue between him and Peet/the club

Would make no sense whatsoever to move him on for another player

Can't think of a team in the league that wouldn't want Byrne, fed trained, huge and just coming into his prime, shocker if there's any truth in this

Where has this rumour come from?

No chance of Wigan letting Byrne go.

Just scribbling then. Thanks!

The first I have heard of it and I frequent these forum regularly (particularly this thread). The only rumours I have heard for outgoings are Smithies to Canberra (that’s as good as confirmed), Field to Catalans (believe they made a play for him but it’s not happening) Powell to Salford (after the GF he admitted he’s surplus to requirement) and I have also heard Hill isn’t happy with his situation, although not a credible source. Think we may look to move players off on loan, Eseh, Hill and Chan potentially as we seem over manned in the pack.

I am hoping the club waits until after preseason to make decisions about loan agreements. Players can develop over a short period of time and they should be selected on merit. Every player should be given the same opportunity to make the starting 17 irrespective of experience.

Absolutely. Hill, for example, didn't look out of place last season and it will be another 6 months from when he last played to when the new season starts. That's a fair chunk of development in a young player. Probably a loan spell would be good for further development but the year long loan that some are already advocating may not be. Let's see where everyone is come February next year.

Also Wigan may feel that players like Eseh, Chan and Hill would benefit from being around the club and staying fresh playing the odd game rather than getting flogged week in week out, certainly Hill and Eseh given their age.

Oliver Pratt staying at Wakey.

I had heard super league clubs were circling.

Think it’s right move for Oli.

3 year deal.

Will get a good few games next year and I’d say a handful when Trinity return to SL in 2025, probably with a view to starting in 2026.

He will only be 22 at the end of his deal and all parties will have a better idea of how his career is going to pan out over the next 3 years.

Good luck to the lad, he has to go what’s best for himself.

Moley reckons three NRL teams are after Welsby: https://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/the-mole-2 ... cial-NRLFS

Moley reckons three NRL teams are after Welsby: https://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/the-mole-2 ... cial-NRLFS

Hope there's some good news coming .
With it being a significant fee and there being some wiggle room losinh cust and smithies are we going to replace ? Anybody heard anything? I see thompson as a better prop than loose forward and walters would be a huge gamble to give the 13 shirt too...

I agree completely on Thompson - when at LF he is the extra "middle" that was, and still is to some extent, a commonly used strategy. Walters isn't a LF full stop. If we're going to develop our attack further (which we should be doing, as standing still is basically going backwards) we need to be using the LF as an extra pivot as we did very well with Smithies. That part of his game was massively underrated. I'm not for a minute claiming he was anything like a prime Farrell or O'Loughlin, but he was hands down the best LF in Super League for this last season, as well as being the best all round LF IMO.

We've all known it was coming but Smithies will be a loss. We've strengthened well so far but it's also true to say we've just lost the best LF in the comp. Along with KPP, that's 2 big contributers to how well we've gone this year.

I think you can only judge a year of recruitment when you compare the ins and the outs. Wigan have done the best they can and brought in some good players but you could make a case that none of the replacements for Smithies, KPP or King are upgrades. Leeming for Powell possibly is. Again it isn't a criticism of Wigan - just the reality of how tough it is with limited players available and the obvious lure of the NRL.

On the positive side there are lots of reasons to think that there is more improvement to come from the existing squad. French and Smith will hopefully thrive after an offseason of practice and we have a number of players who have developed their game this year and should continue to do so (e.g. Brad O'Neill, Kaide Ellis, Junior Nsemba etc).

Hopefully the lad smashes it. Other fans will write him off but the lad has a lot of grit I think he’ll do well. We’ve got good cover for LF. I really hope we can go into future seasons not loosing our youngsters. It seems like every season rolls round we end up loosing another young lad. I imagine it will be Nsemba next

Everyone raving about our recruitment but I think we could be worse,

King, Smithies and KPP were on fire especially in the last 10 games of the year.

The club have done the best as they can getting

Keighran, Thompson and Walters to replace but on current form I’d say they are 3 downgrades.

Leeming hopefully will be better the Powell. Can’t forget Dupree being an enormous upgrade on Singleton to be fair.

Chan and Eseh are depth projects.

I agree to a certain extent. I'm not sure they're necessarily downgrades and we won't know for sure until we see them in the Wigan environment, culture and team.

I think it fair to say a prime form Thompson, if that's what we get, is an upgrade on practically any forward in Superleague and I would definitely include Smithies in that. Whether we get the prime version is where the uncertainty comes in. Leeming/O'Neil should be an upgrade on O'Neil/Powell if only from the point of difference. Walters for KPP could go either way. At the time of writing I'd consider it a slight downgrade but, as I say, that's from a point of view of only having seen him in a poor Leeds team rather than in a successful Wigan one. King/Keighran is a more complex one as King's style of play really suited us. However Keighran was in many journalist's dream team this season and is undoubtedly the bigger attacking threat. I think he has every chance of being better than King but, again, at the time of writing it is probably even at best.

Dupree is a massive upgrade on Singleton.

Eseh and Chan are excellent additions to the squad and far more likely to actually play than Silva.

The main upgrades as I see it (notwithstanding any further additions) will come from the younger players. Nsemba and Hill will be be even better for their game time this year and being part of a championship winning side. Eckersley has looked the real deal for a while and will add even more pace to our already pacey backline (pace was not something you'd attribute to King to be fair). Same for Douglas. Most of all, many of our young, if experienced, props seem to have come of age and I feel will really start to come into their own. Havard has been the best young prop in the comp for a while but Byrne also started to show what he's capable of prior to his injury. The increased competition for places should amplify that growth.

I think we're in a good place generally but the 3 mentioned above will certainly be a loss we need to cover.

The recruitment could go either way but where I have great hope in terms of improvement is that guys like Havard, Smith, Byrne, O’Neill etc have another year under their belts and now have confidence gained from being part of a championship winning season and in the case of Smith, from being England best player in his first international series. I also look at the fact we won that Grand Final minus Cooper, Byrne and a fit Havard, as well as then playing a guy in Mago who doesn’t do long minutes and we can surely only improve in that area of the field, so the recruitment might not be the be all and end all regardless.