It’s on the official site. He’s turned down a four year extension at Wigan to move to Catalans. Wigan have made it clear Catalans approached him before they were allowed to and aren’t happy with it. No surprise but still frustrating to lose him. He’s head and shoulders our best player at the minute but I agree with the club that he wasn’t worth his current salary for one more year. www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2018- ... e-warriors

It’s on the official site. He’s turned down a four year extension at Wigan to move to Catalans. Wigan have made it clear Catalans approached him before they were allowed to and aren’t happy with it. No surprise but still frustrating to lose him. He’s head and shoulders our best player at the minute but I agree with the club that he wasn’t worth his current salary for one more year. www.wiganwarriors.com/news/2018- ... e-warriors

Though I would be interested to hear what Sam has to say about it, I just can’t understand how anyone can label Sam a Wigan legend (twitter) or say he will be missed and hope he comes back one day.

This is the third time Sam has high tailed it off in the name of “money”. Wigan - NZ Warriors - Wigan - Catalans. He’s played well for us for 3 1/2 seasons. That’s it. Granted he was outstanding before he left for NZW but this season is the only part he’s played well for us since he came back.

He’s realised he isn’t getting what he wants - that’s despite still being a marquee player on significantly higher wages than other players and decides to high tail it off to Catalans disguising it under that old “culture change” banner.

His attitude stinks. I’m relieved he’s going elsewhere.

Ta ra Sam. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Gutted, first player I watched at academy level and saw him turn into a superstar. His 2015, 2016, 2017 seasons were ruined by injury which is unfortunate. What a players this guy has been though.

Will be missed but we will find someone else, we always do.

Hope Sam goes out with some silverware.

That’s the one plus side to this, he should be hungry to go out with a trophy because without being all ‘he’s throwing his career away’ about it, he is going to a club that is a long way from challenging for honours as things stand.

It’s hard for anyone to give a real opinion currently without knowing other factors. I’d like to know who’s replacing him and who else is staying and going before I’d really bag the club or praise them.

Watching us these past few weeks we will need something up our sleeve because it’s not been pretty and he’s been the difference for us at times.

Can't blame him looking after number 1 when he's approaching the end of his career and has s bad injury record. Think it would have been a mistake for the club to keep him for 4 years on a marquee salary

Some interesting statements made by the club that can be taken several different ways. I wonder if Tomkins will bite and repsond.

All the best Sam. One of the most exciting and most talented players to pull on the C&W. He had a massive hand in us competing and winning silverware again. I hope to see him back at Wigan in some capacity in a few years.

I’m kind of sad for him in a way.
He was just getting back to his best and proving some of his detractors wrong. Now he’s at Catalans there will be no more silverware for him. And I assume much ridicule as people who dislike him watch him lose most weeks.

I sound bitter, and that’s probably because I am. He’s ruined his own career through bad choices, and proved that he’s more interested in the money.

That’s fine, and that’s up to him of course. Last time he left I was ok with it, this time is frustrating and just leaves a bad taste.

Disappointed, especially given we offered him a 4 year marquee contract.

Unlike others I do ‘buy’ the wanting to live and work in another country for a few years, having done it myself.

Can somebody please check on DaveO?

In part I feel a little let down but he has to look out for himself, and a four year top dollar deal in the SOF would be hard to turn down.

He is one of the best players I have seen play and will never forget those first few years when he was unplayable. If we have signed Hardaker and keep Bateman, it’s a good piece of business for me.

No point worrying really,last big contract and one I suspect the club couldn’t or wouldn’t match,even with the offer on the table,I wish him well

Sure he can go and look after himself, culture, sun etc in the south of France but he was offered what Radlinski says is in the top 3 highest offers we've made in the last 10 years. Are you telling me he wouldn't live comfortably? Catalans have basically got him for free too.

We as a club have paid him a substantial amount in wages and resources to turn a broken player into a pretty good one for Catalans basically.

To those of us fortunate enough to have watched locally born star players who apparently signed for Wigan for life - Shaun Edwards (14 years), Steve Hampson (10 years), Any Farrell (13 years), Kris Radlinski (13 years) etc, only leaving when they were veterans - this kind of thing is a bitter pill to swallow.

But we just have to remember that the game is different now.

The current salary cap does not reward the wholesale development of homegrown talent. It does not reward clubs whose players go on to represent their country. It does not provide additional funding to help keep them out of the clutches of RU and NRL predators. It does not allow us to make the UK a more attractive place to play RL in than Australia or the South of France (venues that already have enormous natural advantages over us).

But we can't blame the players for that. Who wouldn't turn down swimming pool land, 8 months of guaranteed sunshine, and a very big payday?

If there's any annoyance with Sam it's that he hasn't been half the player we thought we were getting, he's been absent a lot of the time through injury, and he's never in the memory of man been marquee standard. But there's nothing to be done about that now. Anyone can get hurt, and all players who base their style on whippet-like speed are going to slow down at some point (he's 29, let's remember). Farrell and Hanley were shipped out as they approached 30, so there is a precedent for this.

Time to move on. Like Kris Rads said, big changes at the end of this season.

Does the "it's a short career" tag really apply in this case? He's already earned a lot and would have earned a lot by staying on a new deal, albeit apparently less then he will at Catalan over the next few years. Add that he will probably walk into a job at Sky Sports when he hangs the boots up and it just confirms the feeling that he is putting money above playing achievements or leaving behind a legacy. A strange choice IMO for a man already comfortably off financially.
Re the club, I await recruitment news with interest.

They wanted him to take a pay cut he didn’t want too and as is his right he’s moved on,be on less money but you can still be a marquee player I find that a bit odd to be honest.

Salary set too high on his return,well didn’t the brains trust at Wigan agree to that to get him back? Surely as he came back injured from NZW they could have been in a position to renegotiate the contract?

I reckon he'll be Championship Player of the year 2019

I reckon we'll be looking at a 14 team Super League if Catalans end up in a position to get relegated.

Maybe this will be one of the many changes promised, or something like it.

The only teams who should be in Super League are the teams who can afford to be there and afford to compete.

Catalan tick many boxes for me. They have a good ground and a big home crowd.

A couple over here in the UK are less impressive.

Best of luck to him! He’s been a phenomenal player and I’m glad he played for us and not one of our rivals.
We coped with the loss of Hanley, Edwards, Gregory etc and we’ll cope with the loss of Sam Tomkins. As has been said, if we have Hardaker and Bateman then it’s good business by the club.

its a shame we haven't had a nauseating sky sports propaganda campaign giving him adverts and presenting jobs in order to keep him at wigan like they did last time

I think that Sam owes Wigan another contract, at a reduced salary, based on the last two seasons. He has taken a lot of money from the club and hasn't really provided anywhere near that value on the field.

I respect anyone's decision to go after the most money possible, but think that Sam's own integrity should have seen him pay back to the club that made him famous and stood by him when he was providing little to no value in the contract he was taking home week on week.

Good luck Sam, I hope that the extra couple hundred thousand in the bank will be worth it when all of your best mates are challenging for trophies and you're playing away to Batley in the middle 8s.

It would be controversial, but I'd exempt teams from relegation on the basis that:

- They are full time
- They run a reserves team which completes at least 15 games
- Average attendance is greater than 10k (heartlands) or greater than 6k (non heartlands)
- They have a decent ground

That way, we are still offering a route into SL for teams who perform well on the pitch but struggle in other areas (e.g Cas, Wakey), but we are protecting teams who aren't as good on the field, but are contributing in other areas (e.g Catalans, Toronto - if both ran reserve teams). It would encourage teams like Hull KR and Widnes to try and improve crowds and run reserve sides, rather than just be the 11th best team in the league.

Be interesting to know what effect it had on his decision making that Cats broke the rules and approached him early. If he thought there was no way Wigan were going to match that and made his mind up before any deal form Wigan was put to him perhaps the club could learn a lesson here and not leave it late before engaging with players in the last year of their contract. I know in theory the rules mean it ought not to matter but clearly a player with a deal on the table is going to seriously consider it in the absence of one from his own club.

Then again he may genuinely want to sample the lifestyle in the South of France and if he does no one can blame him. We benefited when Pat Richards left a GF winning side in the NRL to come here because he wanted to sample a new lifestyle.

That said the fact Wigan decided to be cheapskates an not take up the extra year on his contract for no other reason than money (that didn't count on the salary cap...) was an open invitation to look elsewhere. As was the fact the four year deal on offer was a pay [icut[/i.

Doesn't matter if it would still have kept him as a marquee player and the fact it was an offer that would still have given him a contract that was one of the three best in the last ten years. The fact this has even been mentioned comes across as a rather snide remark and excuse making by the club for offering him a pay cut. That we must have paid a couple of players a huge contract in the past 10 years and more than offered to Sam now (otherwise the club would have said it was [ithe[/i best contract offered) is totally irrelevant given the different rules on pay at the time and standard of players available.

Remember Sam cost the club £75K on the salary cap so had zero effect on its ability to retain other players. The club has not been forced to offer reduced wages and/or not pay him his current salary for 2019, it has [ichosen [/inot to. The key question is therefore if it doesn't want to pay Sam this much is it going to want to pay any player that level of wage and if not what standard of player does it expect to sign? It may be able to mitigate this loss somewhat by signing Hardaker but it can't rely on other clubs top players getting sacked so it can sign them on the cheap.

Bottom line - can Wigan still afford to sign the best?

Yes, it would have been much more preferable if one of the British game's few genuine stars had NOT been allowed to advertise it on telly.

I get the impression it's more that they didn't want to take Tomkins up for his fourth year when his head has already been turned. They didn't want to keep an unhappy player on the books.

Can Wigan still afford to sign the best? Absolutely not. No Super League club can these days.