For personal reasons?

Off to RU then, Saracens with the Wigan legend Faz?

Yup.

must be, the Sun says so...
[urlhttp://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/rugby_league/3862257/Joel-Tomkins-ready-to-quit-rugby-league.html[/url

Looks fairly nailed on now although it's not on that he's able to simply tear up a 5 year contract on a whim.

The big concern of course is that Sam will follow.

Hope its not true and if it is. The last thing I'd want is for Sam to follow. But who would blame him. I certainly wouldn't.

Thought they were wigan through and through!! you could blame them hes under contract long term

Well I said I'd wait for something official looking before believing it and now I do.

We must get some good money in for him and we must spend it on transfer fees to strengthen the squad.

The RFL must also let us offer Sam a new deal with a good portion of it nit counting on the cap.

he'll no doubt be one of the next [i'4 year plans'[/i for the RFU ready for the next RU World Cup, good luck to the lad & hope it brings him everything he expects.

Its a strange one,

A worrying trend of young players making the move early in their careers,

Ashton, Eastmond now Tomkins

If true, extremely dissapointed. Signs a long term contract, states in the media he has no intention of leaving Wigan for Union, then could possibly be buggering off barely into his 5 year deal.

This confirms to me that Joel will be on his way to Union and its wishful thinking to think he has pulled out because of the treatment Sam received in the Exiles game.

I hope we are getting a big transfer fee for this to get him out of his 5 year contract!

You are the one Wigan supporter I can trust to have a fair view of the game etc but your last comment - you cannot be serious???

Quins I believe

All I'm reading into this is that there is a yawnion offer on the table and Joel is considering accepting it. Doesn't mean he's definitely going yet

It kept Radlinski and Cunningham in Super League. Sam is good enough to warrant similar treatment

So you would rather Sam went to Union?

Bye bye Joel.

There's no way that would ever be allowed to happen. And it would be wrong to allow it. As much as I'd love Sam to stay at Wigan forever, That wouldn't be a fair way of keeping him on board.

But other clubs havent had to do that have they? Sinfield was touted for RU and he never went and we never got any dispensation from the RFL

We need to find a way to stop the loss of talent to Union though. The RFL need to act. The only reason players are going is for money and SL teams need to be allowed to compete on that level to keep our best players in the sport. Sinfield was an exception, not the norm

Pathetic.

£2.5 million from Saracens for both Tomkins brothers i got told at the weekend

Im sure people who want announcements werent expecting the club to be making one about a Tomkins to RU this week!

And when Sam gets booed playing for England, that will, Im sure in his mind, show him why he should leave.

If he does go Wigan need to make sure that we keep his RL registration for the duration of his current contract so if he comes back it is to us or others have to pay us a transfer fee like we did with Bradford for Karl Pryce.

Really bad news.



We had the chance in the early days of SL to reform the game's structures and grow its revenue base to help keep players like Joel in the game (or at least keep them for longer) but vested interests and anti-Wigan hysteria stopped that.

I think it's probably too late now to do anything to save RL as even a respectable minor sport in professional terms. Further marginalisation of our game seems inevitable as it declines to a semi-pro future (at best).



Good luck to Joel. I have no time for RU but at least he will be able to earn the kind of living that a talented athlete should be able to, in a sport which does not begrudge people doing well.