Being charitable to IL (because of what he has done to turn the club around) I am taking his comments on Sky (I don't know if anyone else saw this - about being proud that our best players are leaving the club to play in other sports/competitions and that we shouldn't be negative) as attempting to put on a brave face and rally the troops in the face of the bitter disappointment of losing one of the best players in the world and the greatest British player since Hanley.

The reality is that this is a huge blow for our club and sport. The only potential good news is that England might get a bit more competitive at international level because of the number of players in the NRL, but the international game is so low profile and so poorly marketed in this country that I doubt this will feed back into the domestic game in a significant way.

It would be good to hear IL acknowledge the wider problems of the game and offer some leadership. Instead he has spoken about the SC as a good thing and his comments on the Tomkins saga give the impression of a man who is focussed purely on what is going on at Wigan and us remaining top dogs in RL. I do hope that is not the case.

The game is in a difficult situation and seems to be going backwards. Most clubs can't even afford to pay players 2/3 of their real term wages when the SC began. We can't even find proper sponsorship deals for our sport and the World Cup has had no real publicity and is likely to be a failure as a major sporting event. The future is looking grim for RL.

I don't want a future where Wigan remain the leading British RL club but in a semi-pro league similar in status and quality to the French domestic league. That is unfortunately where we are heading in the long term, unless there is radical change. Being the best of a bad bunch is not my vision of Wigan's future but I'm worried IL doesn't see the long term direction of travel in the sport - being the best of a bad bunch is all we are likely to be able to achieve if nothing changes.

We need IL to take up the mantle of leadership in the sport. He is the custodian of the greatest club in the game. It is time for Wigan to lead the rest of RL again and drag the sport kicking and screaming into a better future. I know Ian (and people close to him) read these board and hopefully he will hear this and other calls to action.

Very Churchillian I must say

The thing is, it's not his problem. His job is to keep Wigan challenging for honours and profitable. People should be looking to the RFL to sort things out not club chairmen

=#0040FFI agree with most of the other stuff tho' !

I am as parochial towards Wigan as most on here, but even I can see that the current administration isn't fit for purpose.

The RFL also stand by the excuse of "it has been voted for by the clubs and there chairmen"

Now you can see that we have a sporting governing body that chases its own tale around

That is not leadership.

I fully agree, it's daft that they put these things to the clubs to vote on. The RFL should be looking at the bigger picture and making these decisions based on what's good for the game.

do you mean the RFL or Wigans?

there is no quick fix for rugby league no matter how many times they change the league structure or teams. we need dedicated people to go into the schools and help set up a proper school root rugby and get the next generation interested and understand rugby league (Not just lancashire, Yorkshire and cumbria).

The international game has more of a chance developing in Australia, kind of like state of origin and let the international scene grow organically and not through gimmicks.

just a thought but could we have short term pain for long term gain?

Lets be honest rah rah's popularity went through the roof when England won the world cup, so could it be that if we have loads of people playing in the NRL England will win the world cup, this then drastically increases our games exposure and therefore sponsorship could go through the roof meaning clubs can pay players more and we'll be able to keep more of our talent.
The reason no one else is interested in us is because England/GB haven't won anything since Jesus played left back for Bethlehem united. If the England team did something stupid like win a world cup then our game could take off.

the down side to this is of all our players go to the NRL and England are still rubbish then the game over here is knackered!!!!

Some of the clubs (four I think it was) were "tasked" with putting together ways of improving the state of the game particularly things like marketing. At the following meeting when they were to show their plans etc half of the non participating clubs failed to show up.

It's frightening.

Thought it would be obvious, but I meant the RFL!!!

I've no problems with how the club is being run by the current set up (despite the Tomkins saga, player drain etc.)

They should have been fined or had competition points docked. These kind of things really important for the future of the game, baffling that some chose not to attend. The RFL need to get tough.

haha fair enough well you never know these days.

The issue is fundamentally different.

RU has always been the "go to" rugby code and is played on a wider scale internationally and domestically. If you ask 95% of the population about "rugby" they will probably give you an answer the implicitly talks about Union.

So right from the start, RU has an implicit advantage in terms of widespread availability and recognition.

However, until now RL had an advantage over RU (which crippled itself by hanging onto 19th Century tradition). It's players were, by and large, fitter had a more professional attitude to winning and perhaps due to the laws of the game, generally more skillful.

RL could rest on it's laurels, attract the big names from RU (especially those from "poorer" backgrounds who could be attracted by money more readily). It was run by self interested little cliques who's ears went "pop" if they drove far south enough, except maybe once or twice a year when they had their "day out".

RU became professional. Things changed. Admittedly not immediately, it took time for the players to become fitter, more technical and overally just "better". Of course they helped themselves to RL coaches, why wouldn't they? They took the odd player, some worked out, others didn't but it really didn't matter- the professionalism that they took with them rubbed off on the rest of the team.
Many ex RU players returned to the fold. Gibbs, Bateman, Tait, Quinell all went back better players than they were.
The result? RU is now right up there with RL in terms of attitude, fitness and application.

Any RL players that go to RU will now be the cream of the crop. There is no need for them to take "average" players. RU is crippled no more.

Many RL fans don't help the game either. Ridiculous comments like "RU is a toffs game" (go to Bristol or Gloucester and say this, I'm sure you won't have to buy a round all evening), or "They are out to get us" - why would they? RL can nurture any players that fall through the RU net until such time that the RU clubs can buy them.

This myopic anachronistic attitude of some RL fans, is shared by some of the people who run the game. The tail certainly does wag the dog in the form of small Yorkshire clubs.

The CC is slowly strangling the life out of the quality of players in the game. If I had a talented son there is no way in the world I would be steering him to choose RL over RU. Chris Ashton isn't a patch on Josh Charnley, nowhere near as good a winger in either code, yet Ashton is more than likely a millionaire, and Josh (probably!

) is not.


All this said, there is hope for the sport. RL is a very exciting sport to watch, relatively simple to grasp (compared to RU) and is immensley popular in Aus.

However, in order for it not to dwindle into a semi-professional game, it needs to quickly identify it's target audience and adopt a meaningful marketing plan.

I am not sure the current administration is capable of this.

Absolutely well put!!! What a lot of Wigan fans forget is that Wigan once played RU. My grandfather was just as proud of watching the best RU team - Wigan

as I do watching IMO the best RL team - Wigan

Lets not go there

I felt he had totally lost the plot with those comments. Proud our ex-players are winning things playing RU? Why? I have no issue if he is pleased for them on a personal level but I'd like to think his emotions when seeing them running around in another sport are ones of regret they aren't still here, not pride.

The comments as as misguided as saying he understands having won a CC's and GF's here players don't have the same challenge any more. In Social Psychology there is a phenomenon known as "when belief creates reality" which applied in this context means if you keep saying such things people (in this case the players) will decide there is no challenge any more despite any normal sportsman who has tasted success once wanting to repeat it. If he keeps banging on like this the players will quickly conclude they have done it all and their club chairman thinks they are all better off in the NRL or playing RU.

When Sam signed his special deal IL said he was confident Wigan could offer an attractive package for players to come here. He is undermining his own position with comments like these.



I have said the same kind of thing myself elsewhere. He seems to be aiming to keep Wigan at the top of a game of declining standards rather than addressing the declining standards that are a result of a lack of money in the game.

As well as coming out in favour of the SC he has also asked the question why would he want to pay the players more money? This is not good IMO.



I have said exactly the same things elsewhere.



When he first arrived IL did a very good job of restoring the clubs image in the game which was never very high under Mo and DW. I always felt once he had gained the browney points he would use his influence as the owner of one of the games leading clubs to try and improve matters in the way both you an I are on about. He hasn't done this. Instead he tows the RFL line by not only voting against increases in the cap but as I said not even wanting to raise wages for players. He has also voted in favour the other great stupid idea of late which was the stupid U19 rules.

Unfortunately IL is more of an ally to clubs who are holding the game back who continually block increases to the salary cap.

This also shows why the current structure is a block to progress because if IL did suddenly try and show some leadership for the sport and proposed anything radical it would all too easily be voted down by the other chairman as Koukash soon found out.