Here's hoping we've signed a John Ferguson (yes Bowen at his best can be mentioned in the same breath as the great man who was also in his 30s when at Wigan) rather than a Michael Withers (fine player but a crock when we got him).

Dave, the reason they are not taking up a further year on his contract is due to the lad they have in reserve who is also an excellent fullback.

They have the pressure if accommodating Thurston in the cap and also potentially lose a very good young fullback if he were to spend another year as a back up. If you think Queensland are letting him go without other motives you are incorrect.

Fully agree with that, did chuckle at the bit in bold though

"The Courier-Mail understands the club's medical reports, coupled with Bowen's training data this season, indicate his reconstructed knees will struggle to cope with another NRL campaign in 2014."

"Despite having outlaid millions to secure Origin quartet Johnathan Thurston, Brent Tate, Matt Scott and James Tamou, it is understood the Cowboys have salary cap room to accommodate Bowen."

From here:

[urlhttp://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/north-queensland-cowboys-fullback-matt-bowen-playing-for-his-career/story-fni3g8pa-1226672798088[/url

The quotes from Parr would also be incredibly cynical if it was all propaganda as was suggested further back in the thread.

I'm with you. I can still hold IL to account over his limp attitude to contracted players but credit him for signing as good a full back as it was possible to get. In that regard he couldn't have done more. All the bickering about whether he is "marquee" or not is either pedantry or potshots at IL for the sake of it. If someone wants to criticise him there are much more valid grounds than his description of Bowen as "marquee", as you have highlighted with the Powell and pair of Broncos signings.

if you believed everything stats tell you, you wouldn't get in a car. sam tomkins stats probably make for rubbish reading compared to the past season. He shown that hes still able to play at the top for the past 6months no matter what rubbish the media spout over there, they cant afford to keep him and all the players they would like and he's the oldest so hes the first out the door.

Competition time !!

whoop whoop

Are Wigan fans on the whole quite positive or quite negative?

Currently we have a

1 - Bowen has signed" thread

and

2 - Sam has departed" thread

I wonder which will run the longest?

It doesn't matter - the miserable git brigade are posting the same whinging bile on both threads.

Your probably right.

Whats the point in trying to argue Andy?

Whats the bliming point?......................

There isn't.

No game this week has brought them back out again - they went a bit quiet last week when we won at Huddersfield. Lets hope for another couple of wins for general board sanity.

Of course should we win the GF, they'll be whinging that we only won because of the drop in standards etc, etc.............................

Some people on here could win £12m on the Euro Millions Lottery and they still wouldn't be happy because it wasn't a rollover week.

Head over to the other forum. It looks positively cheery on here by comparison.

Interesting to read the views here.

Usually the signing of an ageing player becomes one of one upmanship from other clubs - "why don't you sign some young kid instead of some old crock only here to top up his pension" however sometimes they get egg on their faces.

A lot of fans laughed at Warrington signing an ageing Chris Hicks and then Brett Hodgson too but they had a lot of success with us.

The key with an ageing player is not the age as a number but his fitness. An old, fit player is a good signing because players generally improve their decision making with age and this part offsets physical decline. But some players can decline physically very quickly.

In football AC Milan latched on to the whole ageing players thing and they had a quality team in the mid 2000s that was largely made up of players in early to mid thirties (and some in their late thirties): but they were ruthless about making sure they only signed the fittest. Sam Allardyce had some success at Bolton too with guys like Okocha, Djorkaeff etc and especially Gary Speed.

I wouldn't right Bowen off as he is a terrific player, and I would have quite liked us to sign him, the only thing I was sweating about on us signing him is there does seem to be a fair bit of concern raised about the state of his fitness.

I remember thinking Brett Mullins was a terrific signing for Leeds and he could have torn SL up in the 2000 season but he was just never fit enough to get rhythm going.

In any case on this, aside from competitive loyalties meaning I don't want Wigan to have an advantage, I actually want Bowen to be a real success because these days SL is lacking in real talent and losing the best talent in Tomkins is a blow - we need to have excitement in the league and if Wigan get Bowen on the park he will provide real excitement.

He could be a decent signing for the club. He could help our younger players come through.

He is not a marquee signing and nowhere near a replacement for Sam.

Unless we get some new signings our squad looks a lot poorer than it has done for many a season.

I'm definitely in the minority happy with this signing.

Are you taking experience, and the quality of our opponents into account when you say that? I think next years' squad would soundly beat most pre-Maguire Wigan sides, even if there aren't as many big names. We'll be challenging for honours again next year IMO

Maybe, but people have said that every year recently, and we've been doing OK...

True. We forget to factor in the deteriorating standards at other clubs too.

I have no problem with the Bowen signing. He is the the best option available to us even with his dodgy knees. Even if he doesn't manage to play a game for us (which im sure he will) its nothing lost on us as fans as we have no other option. My gripe is with the fact he is being called a marquee signing and used to smooth over the loss of Tomkins. We should of just announced that Matt Bowen will replace Tomkins and left it at that rather than try to make out that we have got some kind of fantastic result out of it all.

A very good signing coming in but a better player (who's only 24) leaving the club. The happy clappers will have to forgive me for not being excited.

Wow!
Is it possible that your more than 100% right!
Some of the "experts" on there make me nearly wet myself.

I mean if certain posters do want someone to buy Wigan and run things completely differently then why font they do it?
I mean they must have billions stashed away from making money as they know Everything and are 100% right about everything.

Bowen is a risk yes, but he's by far the best option you had, of the people questioning this signing, who else should your board have gone for?
Still don't understand why you didn't make Sam stay though, he's not coming back anyway might as well get another 3 yrs out of him I'd have thought?

So your tantrum yesterday was about the use of a word?

I'd hate to watch you and your mates if you had to cope with a real crisis.

It really is quite extraordinary.

Not a Wigan fan but genuinely excited to see him in action next year, as ive read the thread it seems reason he isnt being classed as a marquee signing is the obvious comparisons to Tomkins, but its about as marquee as it gets for super league at the moment, one of the finest full backs of his time and a few of you are still not happy. If my club had signed him id certainly class it as marquee, id be interested to see who you who dont class him as marquee would have signed instead, barring Slater and Barba dont think it could have been any better

The sad reality of life is that some people will moan at the sun coming up in the morning.