They probably do but they don't have to like it. It is also a ready made "happy clappers" excuse when the club signs an average player.

Not that I am saying this in relation to Green (don't know much about him) but the fact it is hard to sign top overseas players doesn't warrant a head in the sand approach about the potential of the players we [ido[/i sign. It won't elevate average players to being good players and if people are less than impressed by a signing they have every right to say so.

Quote ="Pemps"If you include substitute appearances, Tomkins had played more games than Smith up to that point and he was only 2 games behind on starts. wigan.rlfans.com/fusion_pages/in ... ge_id=1509 I think Blake Green has been signed as a stop gap for the halfbacks we've got coming through in Powell, Hampshire & Williams and then further down the line Shorrocks & Whittaker'" Wasn't Smith picked before Sam thou? Point is appearances possibly would have been different if Smith hadn't broke his arm. I agree, I can see Green as a stop-gap, however, if he's a first team half we all will have certain expectations.

Quote ="Pemps"If you include substitute appearances, Tomkins had played more games than Smith up to that point and he was only 2 games behind on starts. wigan.rlfans.com/fusion_pages/in ... ge_id=1509 I think Blake Green has been signed as a stop gap for the halfbacks we've got coming through in Powell, Hampshire & Williams and then further down the line Shorrocks & Whittaker'" Wasn't Smith picked before Sam thou? Point is appearances possibly would have been different if Smith hadn't broke his arm. I agree, I can see Green as a stop-gap, however, if he's a first team half we all will have certain expectations.

A darn sight better than if he hadn't been.



Your memory is failing you. The club deferred wages of some players to sign Fielden and Dobson and this was a common practice in Oz at the time which was Mo's argument for doing it.

Possibly. I do know that Nobby did plan to use Sam at FB at the Quins game but an injury to Smith during the game scuppered that plan.


We do have expectations and I'd love to see us sign another Barrett or Finch but unfortunately it's not going to happen, as I'm sure you're aware.

I'm quite looking forward to seeing Green play but I'm a little less enthusiastic about Smith. If we surround them with a good pack I think they'll do well though and I would expect another finish in the top 2.

FWIW, I don't think Green is a brilliant signing. His injury record alone worries me. But from what I've seen of him, he isn't by any means a bad signing, and he's certainly not a one-trick pony a la Dennis Moran. Time will tell on this one.

But I get exhausted seeing posts from people harping back to the Trent Barrett era as if it doesn't happen any more because of incompetence on our part. Yes, TB was a great player, but he cost us so much money that we didn't have a whole lot left to spend elsewhere. David Vaeliki (sic) was a another expensive signing and that one turned out really badly. In addition to our own salary cap constraints, we now have the Aussies' massive extra spending power to contend with. 99% of these guys only came over here to get more money. Now they don't need to.

I just think that people who constantly talk about the massive signings of yesteryear are only setting themselves up to be disappointed. It may happen now and then, but not regularly. Call me a happy clapper if you wish, but I like to think I'm just being a realist.

It's going to get worse. The finances of most SL clubs are in a shocking state. Revenue is flat and costs are rising despite the SC. The SC and franchising have been abject failures. Those running the game seem unable to attract a good sponsorship deal for SL and, even more importantly, unable to secure a good TV deal.

The RU clubs have just signed a new TV deal with BT and will have even more money to spend (£38m a year for the Premiership clubs to share out between them, and they have a separate deal for the Heineken Cup!).

Despite RL having much bigger TV audiences for club matches than RU (though given the growth of their game and the stagnation/decline of ours that may not last) the clowns running our game are unable to secure a similar deal for RL. £38m would be £2.7m per SL club.....

We need to forget about marquee signings and enjoy full time professional rugby at a largely mediocre standard because things are going to get worse, not better from here on in.

With the lack of leadership and vision and the failure of financial and operational management that we have at the RFL and SL clubs we are heading in the medium/long term for a semi-pro game nearer to the standard of the French domestic competition than the standard of the early days of SL.

Try that on the VT mate but don the Kevlar first!

I have faith in Smith, I think he's a good 7, he'll become better at organising and leading the team, plus he has a kicking game. As much as Finch is a better 7, he nor Tommy rarely turn the fb around making them work.

What about smith spelling Micky with green and Powell at halfs

I think blake will add a new dimension to our attack in that he has the pace to take the ball up the mddle. He will put more doubt in the defence who are now getting better at reading theshift to sam.

Smith also adds a better kicking game - something we are lacking at the moment.

They may not have the craft of finch or the defence of tommy but they do bring othr positives that we have been lacking.

I can seePowell coming into the team and rotatin smith at 9 next season.

That year we were docked points for breaking the salary cap the year before.
2005 and for previous years we had been top heavy on the salary cap with a small number of players taking the majority of the money.
Our deferred payments were only punished the year after on the salary cap.
So personally i dont think his memory is failing him.

[uActually you couldn't be more wrong if you tried[/u.

It's getting to the point where I am questioning whether it's worth turning up to matches now such is the reduction of quality of player on offer. If others are thinking the same then the term "what I (we) want" has a very serious bearing on the reality of sporting economics.

ha good luck with thurston!

brough? or is he scottish

Best of luck to Blake,he will do well with you guys and become a fans favourite im sure.

Look after him folks !

Before i opened this thread i knew there would be the usual dross. The lad hasn't even put on a jersey and he is getting it. The KR fans say he is a cracker so i would take their judgement over certain peoples who don't like the sound of his name or where he came from.

If you like i will start a thread bout all the signings from 'lesser' clubs who have turned out to be crackers for us. I can even name and shame a few of you if you like.

Coley, Tommy, Carmont, Dudson, Flower, Lauaki and Matty Smith have all had the treatment from certain areas of this board.

Some fans on here are really wind up merchants.

If the British game disappeared tomorrow - never mind if you and I stopped going - it would have almost no effect whatsoever on the Aussie game. And it's the Aussie game where these top players are who so many people want us to sign. From this point on they'll be earning top dollar down there, and won't need to uproot their families and come over here for an end-of-career payday.

We are in a mess, I grant you. I despair for the state the British game is in. But, for whatever reason - and I agree with a lot of your views on the salary cap and the blinkered idiots who introduced it - to yearn for the return of an era when we could compete financially with the Aussies, RU etc is destined to bring only disappointment. We need to live in the now.

I think the British game is in transition. The standard may suffer in the short term but long term the benefits will be massive for the code in this country.

I do wonder who, people like you slating the signing, would like us to sign to replace Finch. Seems a recurring question that nobody calling the signing is able or willing to answer?

Is there a reason for this?

I fear you may be right in relation to the purchasing power of RL clubs in this country. As DG spelled out above though, it doesn't lessen the fact that it is a potent point.

I suppose I should feel lucky that I had the privilage of watching RL in the 80's and 90's, a time where the very best athletes in the world, RL or RU, were on display in my backyard. Frankly the signing of Green, and I wish him all the very best once he is in the team, in THE key position for Wigan RL can be taken as a barometer of the health of the game in this country as a whole.

Some people are unrealistic, they want us to go out and sign a SOO calibre player from the NRL. Which quite simply is never going to happen, IMO Hoffman was/will be the last of that standard we'll see in a Wigan shirt for a sometime. As I personally don't believe as good a player Brett Finch is over here he'd look that good back home, Only my opinion others a welcome to theirs. And we only got Hoffman under extraordinary circumstances, effectively a season loan while Storm sorted themselves out.

Now we have signed a very good SL calibre Aussie, As for me he is the best that is available and I personally look forward to seeing him in the Cherry and White next season. If we hadn't gone out and signed a new 6 people would of complained that we've thrown a young kid in or moved Sam from 1 and again would have to play a youngster there. Having Green and Smith isn't as much as a change as it could of been if we'd signed other option as I believe next season Smith will play some time of games at 9 allowing a youngster to come off the bench and get some game time in the halves which would of probably happened with Powell this season if he hadn't suffered his injury.

It will be a long time till we get over seas player of the same calibre as Tommy, Brett, George and Jeff again and at this moment in time I plan on just taking my seat and watching them play for us while I still have the chance. I'll worry about 2013 on 7th October hopefully when our season comes to an end with Lockers lifting the SL trophy.

The post said we spent 80% of the cap on a small number of players and you are saying something similar. Neither of you know who earned what. According to press reports Sam is the highest paid player at the club but no one is complaining about that. Even within the games £1.6m there will be players who earn six figure salaries and there will be inequalities. It's never been an issue that the top stars get the top wages. They still do. I really don't like the implication we should never offer say a £200K or £250K salary to an absolutely first class player. We can't have more than one of those but I think suggesting the signing of Barrett was a bad idea is nuts. Players like that put bums on seats.

Is our absolute maximum wage enough to tempt top Aussies or Kiwi's? I don't know. We may need to find players like Pat who actually wanted to come and sample a different lifestyle but whatever I don't accept we are doomed to forever be signing players of an average standard.

They also keep youngsters out the team, weaken your squad and usually sh*t on you when they decide they want to go home.

Sometimes signings don't work out. Florimo was another. However I don't accept signing Barrett was in any way misguided.

This was the team that came back from 30-6 down in the playoffs to beat Bradford in 2007 largely IMO due to Barrett taking the game by the scruff of the neck (note this is post salary cap breaches and when we were not breaking the cap):

Richards, Calderwood, Bailey, Vaealiki, Colbon, Barrett, Leuluai, Fielden, Millard, Paleaaesina, Hansen, Fletcher, O'Loughlin. Subs: Higham, Hock, Goulding, Prescott.

Plenty of class in that side alongside Barrett.



That is certainly a big problem and means the level of wages top players like Barrett could command may not be enough to get players here but I am not sure it is a complete write off that we can't.



There is nothing wrong with being a realist so long as you don't use your realism to make out that signing average players is a good thing. Doing that [iis[/i happy clapping syndrome.

Like Pat you mean?

Or Tommy? Or Finch? How dare such class foreign players help us win trophies and them seeing their deals out has been a disaster for our squad development. Obviously.

Singing class overseas players like that has never been a problem or detrimental to the side. We have however signed average players who because we sign them still tend to get picked regularly. They are the ones who keep youngsters out of the team.

As to the squad the £1.6m cap gets divided up amongst your top 25 earners so its a bit of a myth we can have any real squad depth if we were less generous to top class players.

Matthew Johns stopped young Phil Jones getting in the side because as you said "he puts bums on seats" (something that Maurice Lindsay quoted to Frank Endacott who was forced to play an injured Matthew Johns for the season whilst a promising young player was sent to Orrell RU)

Trent Barrett left us in the lerch because he wanted to go home as has Jeff Lima, Matthew Johns and no doubt countless others.

In the 2 years that Barrett was here we didn't really set the World alight on the pitch and had a solid starting side but a p*ss poor squad due to the wedge that Trent was on.


You're quite right we could go out and sign a top drawer Aussie from the NRL that would put bums on seats. It would also see us lose players who we could no longer fit under the cap, have all of our eggs in one basket and I would pretty much guarantee would win us f*ck all and set us back another 2 years in our development. The reason why we had so many "transitional years" was that exact reason. The "lets throw money at him" attitude.

Is this the same Brett Finch who we've been forced to replace with the "shocking" player that is Blake Green?