As Wigan born and bred, but now living in the Midlands,IMHO this is the most positive thing to happen in RL since the inception of SL.
I have a lot of friends in Gloucester, Worcester and Bath who for years, have given me (mainly) good humoured grief about how League is a minority sport played only by cloth capped, ferret lovers in Lancs and Yorks.
However I have noticed over the past twelve months or so that many of them are quietly aknowledging that we've got a lot of things that can improve the entertainment factor of their game. This is mainly because of the sucess few years ago of Jason Robinson, along with the resurgence of Wales (Edwards influence) as a dominant force.
Combine this with names like Owen Farrell, Chris Ashton, Kyle Eastmond, and, most recently the publicity around the Tomkins boys, they really are now begining to accept the skills in our game.
Believe me most RU fans certainly know of and admire Sam in a big way, far from taking anything away from our game this is only adding to the interest in Super League, with lots of new followers both on TV and watching live, Two good mates of mine from Walsall are now regular visitors to the DW.
I really hope Sam plays to his pottential and paves the way for more of this type of activity , which imo will surely benefit both codes (mainly ours) in the long term.

its a simple argument though Dave. the decision has been made, not you or any other fans can change it yet you will still support the club

quite simple really

finally, some sense!

They are playing rugby union, at twickers.

First time sam gets caught with the ball and gets rucked he will wish he wasnt playing anyway as thee aussie will target him

Here we have a player who has just signed a new contract and is so happy to play RL he almost instantly plays a RU match

The more i think about it this must be some salary cap scam to get him more money without wigan paying him

How would it hes playing Union. As said previously how much has Chris Ashton and Jason Robinson's success in Union raised the profile of rugby league? Not one little bit.

Most people in Rugby union say hes already signed for saracens for after RLWC. If thats true its pointless paying him a fortune he might as well leave now, hes making a mockery of RL

There's a topic on the VT about salary cap, the idea i'm for is that you can spend what you want over the cap but for every £ over you have to put the same £ in a kitty that is split between all the clubs that can't spend at cap limit, at present they are a few clubs able to spend at the limit, Wigan, Hudds, Wire, Saints, Hull FC, Broncos, Leeds and Widnes, that's over half the league and if those clubs spent 100k over each that's 800k to help the 6 other clubs.

then it wont be a bad thing then will it?

see Jimmy Hornby's post

So we should get rid of Leuluai now as well then?

silly idea

cap should be 50% of turnover, end of

if clubs like quins and wakey cant manage then they need to get their fingers out

Im thinking more about him getting unjured

Anyway i hope he does OK and comes back in good shape

Clubs that can't spend to the cap shouldn't even be in SL.

which is a fair point (and one i agree with) but the decision has been made

Indeed.

As an aside I was talking to someone about the likes of Lockyer doing a couple of years over here instead of retiring. Can you imagine him running onto the pitch on a wet Sunday afternoon at Wakefield?!

Wally Lewis did. (And he was better than Lockyer).

There are a lot of knickers getting twisted over this!

IL has correctly recognised that you cannot ring fence your employees and tell them not to look, don't talk to those nasty people over there. As soon as you become scared stiff of allowing your employees look at what else they could experience you develop a culture where a) you restrict the talent you bring to your organisation, b) you stifle the development of people in your org.

It is the sign of a scared beaten company.

Thats true he could have got injured playing in the four nations final..injuries rugby league are an occupational hazard and i wouldn't have had any issues with that, however getting injured playing rugby union is a different kettle of fish altogether. As i said in my earlier post, him being insured is no consolation whatsoever to me as a wigan fan.

Well that is very nice for you with your discussions with your friends but in case you missed it RU's renewed interest in our game seems to be resulting in RL players moving to RU. That is how they are "accepting" the skills of our game. So anything that encourages RU to look to league to take our players isn't something I would class as the best thing to happen to RL since SL started. I really do not think you can say "told you so" to your mates in Bath because Eastmond is now playing RU. Not unless you have an odd definition of success.



How anyone who just rattled off a list of players who ought to be playing league but are now playing their trade in Union can argue this is going to benefit our game is beyond me. I can certainly see players moving to RU from RL benefiting RU but I'd hazard a guess your two mates from Walsall will stop coming if all the talent has moved to RU.

Except that is apparently exactly what we have done for the first 3 years of his contract

Anyway this is maybe some sort of salary cap workaround to get more money to sam without us paying it

So your saying you want a league of about 8/9 clubs?

leuluai is not playing for other teams in rival codes and he is not going to play for a rival code when his deals ends also he has not changed his contract twice and had people bend over backwards for him.

No I want a league of 10.

Also he has honoured his contract he has signed