Fully agree

How do you propose that happens?

We had a legally binding contract for him to sign with us. We decided not to use this option as IL/KR didn’t want a player who didn’t want to sign for us.

Ignoring the legal and contractual challenges of this, in simple terms if Warrington said they aren’t paying a fee then we end up with a player who doesn’t want to be here and who has the biggest contract in the clubs history (only taking up £75k on the cap, a marquee spot but costing the club a lot)

Whilst there may be an element of truth to the new challenge, of course it is and he will go down in their history if he helps them to win the grand final.

But you have to accept money played a part, how much in % terms I am unsure.

He was offered Wigan’s biggest ever contract, there are also rumours Warrington are paying him £60k per year more than we offered and also rumours he’s the highest paid in super league.

Money defo played a part.

But when you think of it, other than him being from Wigan, why else would he come back? Warrington are in a far better position than us currently across all areas other than academy. Also has the benefit of being very close to him.

Or he sits in limbo and doesn't get paid by anyone, until a fee is paid. Whilst it's not the same situation, in sure Leeds did something like that with Segeyaro.

OT, but I'm not sure how GW manages to function with so many Wigan fans inserted up his rectum. The love-in from our fans is sickening. There are players (like Smith) who actually play for the club and get more stick from our fans, than a guy who sacked us off and signed for one of our biggest rivals.

I’m tired of the whole GW to Warrington rage TBH. Whether he signed for money or something else or money and something else - why does it matter now? It’s happened, it’s been and gone and it’s high time some of us stopped banging on about it. I loved GW when he was here, I criticised him as well at times granted but as soon as he left that ‘love in’ ended. He stopped being of relevance as he wasn’t a Wigan player.

We should be concentrating on the players we have here and now rather than ones who went elsewhere.

Agreed he’s not on my radar anymore good luck to him

I'm sure some of those were helping his arms up to cup his ears as he celebrated scoring the winning try for his new love against the club who developed him. No doubt we'll see an act of badge kissing next time he scores against us.

I agree with the first point - let him sit out the season if neither GW nor WW were prepared to pay a release fee - thats a lot of £ he'd have lost between July and December.

Sometimes the Daniel Levy approach to player contracts is needed - this was one time where I believe it was.

How on earth would that happen.

Doesn’t officially sign for us but we block a move unless Wire pay a fee.

He either signs for us (via his choice or enforcing legal contract) OR he can leave for another club.

Maybe the club should have inserted transfer fee into the legal part of his obligation to return / first refusal. But you cannot just chuck it in now.

ATEOTD, none of us know what was in the legal document and what it entailed so it's a pointless conversation.

I've said that Segeyaro was an example of Leeds refusing him to sign for another side until they came to an agreement. Granted they are different circumstances, but if a club wants to they can be very difficult.

I don't know all the details of each individual case or specific contract details so I'm not going to say the club should have done x, y or z in any given scenario. However I do feel that the club has become something of a 'soft touch' over recent years. We rarely seem to get the better end of being the nice guys. In fact I'm struggling to think of a single example of where that's worked in our favour.

It does appear that way but it could just be that the times it does come off don’t make the news / rumours / forums.

The weird thing with all this supposed ‘too nice’ stuff by Lenagan and Rads is my partner worked for one of Lenagans companies for years and she certainly didn’t find him a soft touch and nor did the rest of the staff. She thinks he’s as hard faced as they come and people were on edge around him.

Maybe he rolls over because they’re rugby players and he admires them or maybe we just didn’t have an agreement that was worth the scrap of paper it was scribbled on.

100% I've heard that too.

On one of Catalans away trips I spent the weekend with the father and brother of an ex player and he said exactly the same thing.

True but obviously we can only deal with the ones we know about. I would certainly say that none of those (that I can think of) has gone our way. GW, getting what seems to be an easy release and now he's performing well for one of our main rivals. Likewise taking an injured Tomkins back on marquee money and getting a couple of sub standard seasons before he ups and leaves for the South if France. Bevan French getting extended leave and getting injured for the season as a consequence (according to Rads). I know there are probably 2 sides to those stories but, nevertheless, on the face of it we definitely didn't benefit from any of those for example.

The extended leave for French, let’s just agree it was acceptable because of the family situation.

What isn’t acceptable is:
1 - why he didn’t have a personal trainer out there
2 - why he wasn’t doing extra gym work
3 - why the club rushed him back? Is there someone at the club who doesn’t know what they are doing ? (Burgess injury, French, Field? Who else have we caused injury to).

Now points 1 and 2 is an assumption based on club saying he returned unfit.

Maybe his family situation didn't allow for him to spend time training?

Possibly but an hour a day at night or in the morning? I think that’s a more than reasonable ask personally. Clubs got to expect something back from French, otherwise it’s fully paid time off which is of no benefit to anyone but French and if that’s the case a huge precedent has been set.

I think you're being unfair to him. He came back unfit for a pro rugby player, he didn't come back grossly out if shape.

He probably did the hour etc, but that's a world away from a 8 - 12 weeks pre season in a pro environment.

I’m not criticising him or trying to be unfair, I know nothing about the situation back home and know full well from my own familial experiences that some things happen where literally no time can be made for anything other than being with/doing stuff for that family member. But other situations can warrant an hour at least a day.

I’ve worded it poorly so can see why you’d take that view.

The fact that talented players including Ratchford, Welsby, Williams etc no longer want to play for their own town club of Wigan is an indication of how the club has become a less attractive to some players not only from our own country buy also to some better players from down under and it comes as no surprise when other top clubs like Leeds, St Helens and Warrington all play in in brand new and regenerated Stadiums of their own.

Time that some supporters got off their high horse of arrogance and faced the fact that it is not only in the game of Rugby League where Wigan has now fallen behind nearby more progressive towns like St Helens and Warrington.

The rot except for the odd better season or so set in when the club left Central Park!

First of all, none of those you are aiming pot-shots at are responsible for that. The Gang of 4 have gone. Whelan and Mo have gone. All this was stitched up long before IL came on the scene. And none of the fans, even the 'arrogant' ones who 'ride on high horses' had any say in the matter and still don't.

Secondly, it's already been explained to us in painful detail why we can't have our own stadium at present. Even if we could afford one, the Council wouldn't let us. We would have to move outside of Wigan, which nobody wants.

Thirdly, I strongly doubt that the likes of Ratchford and Welsby (who I'm pretty sure was released by Wigan - it wasn't the other way round'), would only have played for us if we owned our own stadium. Seriously? Where on earth has that figment of imagination come from?

All the stars who have left us in recent years have left us to go to RU or the NRL. Not to Leeds, Saints or Warrington. GW came back to Warrington rather than us, but we all know why. They offered him a wage so ridiculously over what he's worth that he could hardly refuse.

The only way you're going to get what you seem to want - i.e. a stadium in Wigan that is purely for the use of Wigan RL - will be when Latics collapse. That may not be a long way off, but even if it happened next week, we'd then have to buy the DW ourselves, sell it and build another, smaller one. It's not going to happen overnight.

They were released by Wigan as youngsters. Ratchford wound up at Salford and Welsby (who I wasn’t aware was at Wigan once upon a time?) at Saints. There’s literally thousands of youth players Wigan have released over the years - me being one. Some went on to make Wigan regret it, others not. I don’t know what point you’re trying to prove here, what do you suggest we do? Keep hold of every youngster? Williams was never a Wigan player to sign. You’re picking and choosing players who didn’t sign for us, or who were actually RELEASED by the club to prove a point which is ludicrous - supposed world class players aren’t signing for Wigan because we don’t own a stadium, really? We’ve been in it for 22years and in that time we’ve signed;

Trent Barrett
Craig Smith
Brett Dallas
Steve Renouf
Paul Deacon
Stuart Fielden
Ryan Hoffman
Jeff Lima
Brett Finch
Jackson Hastings
George Burgess
Sam Tomkins
Mark Riddell
John Bateman

To name but a few. Jackson Hastings had a host of offers when leaving Salford, he signed for us. Bevan French hasn’t been short of suitors, he re-signed with us. Your argument has no basis whatsoever.

This “rot” isn’t really a rot seeing as we’ve won trophy after trophy and made final after final in the last 11years. I’ll take that kind of “rot” everyday of the week.

Keep wearing the blinkers!

Keep wearing the blinkers!

Alternatively, "I can't argue with a single one of the points you make, so I won't try."