My god, we have built a serious team for this year haven' t we? Insane when you see it written down.

Majority of teams in SL would kill to have that whole bench in their starting pack.

Dan was right in 2022 when he said what he said about 2023 and 2024

My thoughts as well. I’m not sure if Isa will start games or come from the bench early in the season but I’m pretty sure he’ll be involved. I think Peet will want that Wigan experience he brings, especially with so many new forwards likely to be in the team.

My guess to miss out would be Cooper. He has produced miracles by the sounds of it to be on track to be available for the start of the season but it’s a massive ask to be ready for a WCC after that injury and in the back of possible minutes in a friendly and at Cas.

Isa also brings flexibility to the squad, covering back row and centre. I think the bench across the year will tend to be two front rowers, a back row and a hooker. When Nsemba is fit he needs to be prioritised for the bench back row spot.

I think Cooper's a wait and see scenario - as you say sounds like his rehab has gone well but the friendlies will tell us where he's at.

Burgess to HKR after being sacked by Salford.

That home grown left edge of Williams, Farrell, Gildart and Burgess.

The young 3 should have followed Farrell’s example and had a long successful career.

Now they are floating round at mid table clubs they have no connect to whereas Faz is winning trophy after trophy with his home town team.

Lesson to the younger lads.

I get the point but not sure about Williams in that equation. Whilst I’d loved to keep him at Wigan he went well in the NRL and is the current captain of England.

Where one friend goes, the others seem to follow.

George next? Seems unlikely, but then look at the silverware he voluntary surrendered to play for Wire.

Yep, same with Charnley (wasted years at Sale and Wire) However he did manage to win a Challenge Cup with Leigh unexpectedly.

Burgess and Charnley were both fabulous wingers. If they had taken different paths they could have been great wingers. Charnley’s full length of the field try in the CC at Wire was brilliant.

Burgess and Charnley were both fabulous wingers. If they had taken different paths they could have been great wingers. Charnley’s full length of the field try in the CC at Wire was brilliant.

I will particularly never understand the career path Budgie took. In his early days at Wigan, he was one of the best wingers in the country, and looked to have huge future potentially filled with international honours. A number of poor decisions on his part then seemed to bring all that to an end long before it should have.

The downturn in Charnley's fortunes appears to have been his brief stint in Rugby Union. Perhaps they made it worth his while financially, but playing-wise, but he never seemed to hit the same heights on his return.

Great one that also the one against Saints at the DW when the ball bounced in our 10 mtr and he caught it and went through the middle to go the full length,loved that one.

Appreciate Burgess and Charnley are picking up some criticism but would be interesting to know what the clubs stance was at the time.

Whilst they were in the system we also had Davies, Marshall and Manfredi coming through the ranks.

Most clubs have depth charts when looking at development and recruitment/retentions.

I’m guessing that both Charnley and Burgess’ worth and salary demands were compromised probably below market value with us having such depth in the wing position and as such I doubt (don’t know) that we wouldn’t have fought too hard to retain either of them given what we had coming through and the need to invest in other areas of the squad.

I can see this with Charnley. Seem to recall he'd been around the first team a bit longer than Budgie, and while he was regarded as a good first team winger, his defensive shortcomings were well known.

But Budgie had future international written all over him. He had exceptional speed and was scoring tries for fun in his first season. I'd have been surprised if the club hadn't tried to keep him. They seemed to welcome him back from Aus, but that attitude wasn't apparently reciprocated by either the player or his agent. The rest is history.

The Club definatley wanted to keep him, and offered him a much improved deal, not too disimilar to what Rossters offered
He wanted to go

I can’t help wonder if Burgess would make different decisions if he had his time over again. I suspect he probably would but who knows. I honestly thought he’d go on to be one of the best wingers in the world and have multiple England caps to his name.

When Burgess first came on the scene he was the first winger in years, certainly at Wigan, who was happy to take his opposite winger on the outside at every opportunity. I loved watching his faith in his pace to beat the opposition. With right application and dedication he could have been a tremendous player.

Watched a good podcast a couple of years ago with Charnley (Might have been Out Of Your League) and he said he had to go and tell Shaun Wane he'd decided to go to Sale for a new challenge.

We definitely would have kept him otherwise

Or alternatively, they were offering more than Wigan were.

There were limitations to his game, and therefore limitations to what he was worth. We recognised them. Sale didn't (and that proved to be an error).

I don't recall these massive weaknesses you speak of. At the time he was one of the best wingers in the league and was the best we had.

He'd be well clear as Superleagues top try scorer had he not gone to Union.

Didn't have the same pace when he returned but still an excellent winger. I thought he was MOM the day Leigh beat Saints in the semi this year.

Averaged close to a try a game didn't he?

I didn't say he had massive weaknesses. I said he had limitations to his game.

My recollection towards the end of his Wigan career was he was overweight and somewhat disinterested.

He had a Blip in 2015
2016 he was very good again and back towards his best

Even on his return to RL in mid 2018 he scored 2 trys every 3 games and was, and still is imo a very good winger
He would have had another 40 plus tries to his name imo without his saunter into RU
I'm not sure I agree with Cruncher regarding his value/worth and RU miscalculating it

If he was a 150k a year player in RL for example and he was offered 250k in RU, then that's not far off a parallel in terms of RUs ability to spend money
At that time and for a few years before we'd seen union have the ability to risk, spend more than RL on players and a RL player, if he wanted to, and if a RU club/England wanted him, could easily double the amount he was paid

But in relative terms that was only the same type of % of their budget that the RL club would pay.

Bazdev says he can't remember weaknesses and he was the best we had
I wouldn't 100% agree with that either
I dont think his commitment in his latter years was as good as it was 11to13, he did get a bit distracted (that happens a lot to younger players who "make it" early in their career). And Imo Manfredi was probably the best we had (but the injuries curtailed that), Davies/Budgie/Marshall all had qualities within their game that Charnely didnt have, and certain parts of their game that were better than Charnley, but overall putting all the parts of the jigsaw together he was still their equal, 2016 and when he returned from RU

But at his best (2011-14 & 2016) he was right up there with the best in SL

I thought Charnley ended his Wigan career in the right way. and was excellent in that 2016 season. The thing with Charnley to me was that he always needed to be challenged. When things became comfortable, it seemed like he did. When he first came in to the team he was awesome and then when he was first choice it felt like he eased off but once others started to come through and he lost his place, he again seemed to focus and found his best in that 2016 season. It was the same at Wire, were he was excellent in his first season or two but then seemed to take his foot off the gas and looked to be coasting. It'll be interesting to see if he can break that sort of pattern with Leigh this season. I think he may well do that because he looks like a guy that realises he's not got long left in his career and he wants to make the most of what he sees as a last chance.

All in all, I'm a huge Charnley fan and I think he rightfully goes down as a fantastic winger for Wigan. He's produced some moment we can all look back on.