Cue a lot of moaning and groaning, but let's get real - where would we have played him?

He'll do well for them, had a great last season with us, never gave less than 100%.

Do they capitalise on the free salary or is that only if they are a new RL from RU and not returning?

Yes theres an exemption for former RL players returning from RU.

Good luck to him, daft choice to go to Sale in the first place.

He will count fully on the cap, it's 100% discount for a player who has never played RL before and 50% for someone returning but they have to have not played RL for 5 years. So while someone like Eastmond would count for a 50% discount, Charnley doesn't as he hasn't been out of the game for long enough..

We have four very good wingers already so don’t really need him. He must be one of a select few where a “comeback” clause wasn’t written into his severance deal (thankfully). Good luck to him though I hope he does well there, he was wasted at Sale but his bank account will be a lot healthier for it.

We don’t really need him as a winger but I’d like to have seen him as centre cover!

I can't help wondering if he'llend up being another who takes forever to get back up to RL speed - 'forever' being literally true in the case of Karl Pryce, Iestyn Harris, Lee Smith (and seemingly Joel T). I'm also wondering how fit he'll be. Josh always struck me as someone who could get big quickly if he wasn't careful - and what's he been doing for the last year, apart from standing on the sideline?

I would take a wager now on JC scoring 20+ tries this season...a great piece of business by Warrington IMO.

Depend whether he left mid contract or not. The club tend to put the clause in when they release a player from their contract partly to protect the club from what Joel moon did to Salford. It is only a first option so if we don’t want the player we are not obliged to sign them.

If said player is out of contract no such clause can be enforced as I believe was the case with charnley

Not if he plays outside Ryan Atkins

I'll take that bet now.
£20 to a chosen charity.
If Charnley doesn't score 20 tries this season you give it to Joining Jack, if he does I'll give it to your chosen charity.

But such thinking would be no basis for Wigan re-signing him.

I'm not saying that you're claiming it is, but I've been hearing for a while that Josh has wanted to come home, and that Wigan's response was simply that they no longer needed him.

Also, I can't see that he'd be switching back to League for peanuts. He probably can't command the silly money he no doubt was paid to go to RU, but it wouldn't make sense for him to come back very cheaply. For me, that money would better be spent in our case on players we actually have room for.

Four very good wingers? Can't agree with this.

Marshall is poor apart from his speed. Positional play, tackling, defence and under the high ball he's no where near very good.
Manfredi is an unknown quantity. We've no idea how good he is after such bad injuries.
Pleased Burgess is coming back into form, he has the potential to be one of the best wingers in SL.
Davies is getting better all the time.

I currently count 2 at best.

The only way I could see Wigan being interested was of there was major doubt over Manfredi getting back to full fitness, otherwise we would be overloaded on wingers. Although Charnley did play centre a few times he was never a regular there and would be a gamble to sign him for that position.

I do think 20+ tries might be a bit optimistic - if he anything like any returning players it will take a while to get back to full RL fitness and getting back into the swing of RL - never ceases to amaze me how so many returning players struggle after a spell in RU.

Done.

£20 to Joining Jack regardless of outcome



Cruncher, I would agree, I don't think Wigan needed to recruit him and Warrington will suit him perfectly. This will only be a missed opportunity should Joe decide to give the NRL another crack and if he kicks on from the hat-trick against Wakefield it may well be the case.

Accept Manfredi (who if ever fit again, is probably the best of the lot) is an unknown quantity, but that's very harsh on Marshall imo.

Clearly he needs to work on his defence if he wants a long term career at a club like Wigan, but his all round play is definitely more than just speed. There are plenty of quick players in the league who don't have the knack of getting over the line, something Marshall has in abundance.

I'd still have him third choice after Davies & a fully fit Burgerss, but I've seen a few Shaun Ainscough comparisons here and there, which for me is well wide of the mark.

Good man. Great charity

Good luck to him. He’s been a good player for Wigan and in the main always gave his all.

There’s obviously no room for him at Wigan and you can’t have them all. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly he can get back up to speed and adjust to what is a massively increased workload for League wingers.

I saw him a few times for Sale and his workload was low for a union winger. He just never fitted in unlike Solomona. A lot of people on this board assumes that he would walk into the England team but that was never going to happen. At Sale he quickly became fifth choice behind a couple of u21s and he never seemed to realise that he could not just wait for the ball to come to him. Too frequently you could see him stood by the touch line with no other player within 30 metres, in fact the opposite winger, on his team, always looked more likely to score on his side.

Well if that's the rule the RFL have got it backwards. The offer should be to entice those back that have recently left. What benefit is there in signing someone who hasn't played the game in five years compared to someone who has only missed a season, for example?

We'll agree to disagree on Marshall. I don't think it's harsh, blunt, perhaps but true.

Back to the topic, we don't have 4 top wingers. But should we have signed Josh? Lots of factors in this, salary cap, need to strengthen in other areas etc. I think he could have covered wing, centre, FB etc, but only if the price was right.

Good move both for him and Wire, I think, and I agree that he’s not needed here so I don’t see it as a missed opportunity on our part.

no way we could justify resigning him, would be a total waste of salary cap space

I think it's a bit harsh too. A better comparison for Marshall might be Tierney (comparable size?). For me, Marshall is a better player than Tierney, but Tierney has carved out a career for himself as a SL player and I don't see why Marshall can't do the same.

Wire fans are over the moon and he will bring some stability to their backs but he would probably not improve our backs as much as a big fast centre would.