Good Luck to him, thought he was nailed on for St Helens next season though according to those (not in) the know?

Rather The Roosters than Saints, all day long.

If true, I’m disappointed he’s leaving.
He’s a fantastic talent that will now get an opportunity to experience a different lifestyle in a fantastic climate,while getting to play the game he loves!
What’s not to like about that? And that’s before money even gets mentioned.
Good luck to him.
There’s a lot of fans from the big clubs over here who have started banging on about the salary cap issues again. Which is typical of them. Personally I think it’s got more to do with the fact that they expected Murphy to sign for their clubs and realise they’ve been out flanked by the Chucks!
Unlucky!!

Got told about this few weeks back,hes as been offered a deal with us but turned down in favour of roosters,as a fan its a bit annoying that he we gave him a chance from college rugby and aided his development then after only a very short time and at the first opportunity hes spread his wings and flew the nest, that said cant blame the lad

FIL is jinxed....
Every player he picks leaves....


Maybe he should (according to some on here) use Tom Lineham's now....


It's OK though Pat.....


Seeing as he's [ialways[/i banging on about it - and it will be a "safe" one - I'll send him mine....

I like the fact that it’s one of our players leaving for the NRL that has caused RL social media to go into meltdown.

He’ll find it impossible unless there is a plethora of injuries , more than likely the feeder club for him to bide his time .

The Roosters appear to like wingers from the Northern hemisphere unfortunately their track record does not install confidence because they quickly revert back to one of their own. They tried Hall and Burgess but both were eventually replaced and returned home, were they better players I don’t know. The only success is Young but to be honest in the NRL his performances were at best average but the team he played for was going through a bad spell.

You're so wrong there Khlav, we could and I believe would compete with that. Money is not as big an issue for us when it comes to player signings than people think. What we can't offer is assured success, or as close as you can get to that.

Joining the Roosters will immediately secure Murphy an England spot at some level, probably before he plays in the NRL. Should it not work ou, so long as he wasn't a total flop, he will walk back into a top SL team on a mega salary. It's a win win for him.

I don't know if this story is true, Shaw has a marginally better success rate in the gossip stakes than most, but seeing as Trinity fans seem to want to believe everything they read lets go with it.

If true doesn't surprise me, Murphy seems incredibly focussed for his age, very Gareth Ellis in his maturity. So I've no doubt he'd go for it for the very reasons I outlined above, he's a very smart lad it seems.

FWIW I reckon it was that tackle against the Wire that alerted the Roosters - the Aussies will have admired that far more than his try scoring exploits - even by NRL standards that was the work of a true pro in the makings, and he's pulled off a few good tackles.

If he goes best of luck young man, you made your mark from day one in the Academy imo.

Hall was past it, Burgess just didn't settle, it happens.

Murphy seems very close to his family, might be his only issue in the NRL (home sickness) but who knows. It's not like he's going to Mars, if it doesn't work out he won't be without a gig for long.

If true it’s a shame, but not unexpected.
Better going there than Saints.
He’s a Huddersfield lad I believe so why would he have any allegiance to Wakefield.
One day perhaps, if we get good enough players we bring along will want to stay but until we become likely to win something Murphy won’t be the first to move on.
Luckily we have plenty of wing cover-will he be preferred over Tafua, Lineham and Kershaw as first choice winger? Time will tell.

If he's the best winger then of course he will.

I seriously doubt that. He won't instantly get in the first team, but he will go straight into the reserves as opposed to being shipped off. They will want to blood him in the first team as soon as possible, up to Murphy then to shine. That's the difference between SL and the NRL, you are only as good as your last game - we say it, they mean it.

Agreed, so long as his attitude is ok.

All the same, the Lineham revival is most welcome.

Dont forget big Jorge

The biggest impact if this transfer goes ahead is that it could give SL clubs an excuse to increase the salary cap under the guise of stopping the drain of our better players to the NRL. This would certainly be the worst case scenario for us because we can’t reach the current threshold so our player options will be further restricted.
We wouldn’t be alone but based on our current financial strategy we would face the biggest deficit with the problems that this brings.

What is the difference between this player going to the NRL and Croft. The situations appear to be exactly the same because I may be wrong but I don’t think we receive any money from this transfer. I guess we will have to pay to retain his registration should he return but for Croft his agent is a parasite, why?.

Here we go

The answer is blatantly obvious, think about it.

Being offered a gig in the NRL is about as good as it gets for a young player.
Never mind the prestige, salary, climate, experience etc and on this occasion, any half decent employer would allow a person to leave with their blessing.
Although disappointing to lose an excellent young player, you just have to let the lad go and hope thet he fully realises his undoubted potential.
There are no guarantees on the playing side but, for life experience and development, it's the chance of a lifetime.
It will be exciting to see whether he makes it out there and I certainly hope that he does.

Precisely, the point I didn't make clear enough, it seems, is that we have four very good wingers, so let the best two play, whatever combination.

I honestly thought that tackle would alert top Union clubs - the way he not only brought him down but put himself in a position to dominate the tackle that would've allowed him to win the ball either by mauling or via a penalty if the tackled player held on. He's got the skills and attitude to make it to the top in both codes, I'm pleased he didn't go to the dark side.

I for one am delighted he's seized the chance of a lifetime while disappointed that we've lost two superb wingers in successive years.

No please enlighten me because you are usually enthusiastic to show your wealth of knowledge Trinity wise.

whilst i agree with that the obvious does seem fairly self evident, as far as we are aware murphy is going to see out his contract and has even directly approached by a top aussie side, very disappointed but good luck to him.

croft and shaw appear to have been trying to go to other uk clubs without said clubs compensating the club for the money and time they put into developing them, quite rightly the cub stood there ground.

i think the other obvious difference is that murphy is the best winger prospect in the uk game right now, croft looks at best a journey man player and really shaw is literally an unproven academy player

Firstly, no transfer has happened yet, so you don't know any details, but the dev contract deals with RFL member clubs.
So Roosters would have to pay to break his contract, but to take him once contract ended is just a new contract negotiation. No development agreement in place.
If he's on a 2 year contract then no point retaining the clause as it will be over by the time he goes somewhere he that would need to pay.

I guess in theory, Sts could get Roosters to sign him on 2 year contract, pushing us to release him from his dev contract and then Sts do a deal with Roosters to release him from contract.

Nothing to do with Trinity much as you'd love it to be, it's the rules of the RFL.

The Croft/Shaw issue was that the agent, refused two deals. He did so, from what I've learned from two sources now, by convincing the lads that other clubs would be interested, hence the idea put on here that Wigan were after Shaw, they clearly weren't. Hence both players have now had to play in France and Australia because they can't go anywhere in the UK, unless someone pays the compensation and nobody wants to and never did. I believe Trinity are quite flexible on the compensation, but we still deserve some and thems is the rules.

Murphy, if the story is true, has already refused our offer and negotiated a deal, in principle at least, and thus at the end of his contract being a free agent he can go to Australia if he wants. Australian clubs do not pay compensation for Academy players.

So Murphy and his agent have followed the rules and made a decision - Croft and Shaw are basically doing time until they are free agents again - meaning their SL careers should they have one are at least a season behind. Murphy if this is correct has done it to the book, it just happens that his decision means we get nothing, had he gone to Saints we would. However all the compensation in the world wouldn't make him joining another SL team palatable imo so that's why most sane fans are happier with this outcome, though keeping him would be far better.

Croft/Shaw - agent acted poorly, now they are stuffed

Murphy - agent acted correctly, he's possibly in clover

They could be the same agent for all I know but this time he's wised up, but I doubt it is.