Jay Pitts has been one of the players who has avoided criticism and been quite consistent. He seems well respected amongst his team mates. It made we wonder why Mash selected Ashurst as captain rather than Pitts who had previously captained London. He seems much more vocal than Ashurst and has coaching experience.

Maybe he wasn't sure he'd play regularly with signing Proctor. Pitts proved him wrong.

He'd be my captain.

For all intents and purposes he is the captain, he's the one speaking to the rest of the team behind the sticks, he's the one who puts in the consistent performances irrespective of how poor we have been, he doesn't need the formal title to perform as a leader.

Jay has been our best and most consistent performer this season and is slowing no sign of slowing down. Hope we offer him a new deal.

Yes offer a new deal but avoid 3 year deals as it often gives players too much security and they take it easy. I think this has happened with Tanginoa. If another club offers a longer deal and the player prefers that well tough.

Early frontrunner for player of the season, only one at times that seemed to care

Got to admit i was wrong about Pitts could not see why we signed him .Agree about player of the season , Think after Leeds game we got a lot who care .Holding my breath to see if it was a one of ,or a big step forward

How dare we give a player some security.

Maybe the club could adapt a zero hour type contract, only joking MC..

Thereis nothing wrong with a win bonus

You can't pay your mortgage on a win bonus.
That's why the changed to fixed contracts.

Well they wouldn't be the only people on the books at WT on zero hours contract

Well as I suspect you already know, that’s not why the game switched to fixed term contracts.

The switch happened because of the Bosman ruling and subsequently Kelvin Skerrets test case involving his move from Hunslet to Bradford.

As for players being able to pay their bills, they’re no different to anyone else in the modern world. They have a skill set to offer and they secure employment due to that. No different to a self employed tradesman building houses for a large house builder like Barrett’s. A players career is shorter but they can earn much more if they’re good enough. They can learn a second trade for life after sport but some also have an advantage as they can also set up a business and/or buy properties with their higher disposal income.

I’m not advocating’Zero-Hour contracts as they’re by and large a bloody evil way of treating a work force.

You may be right but I don't recall it that way.
The Bosman ruling is about transfer fees.
The rule being that you can't charge a transfer fee for a player who's contract has ended.

What I'm saying is a player on a win bonus scheme would find it hard to get a mortgage. Just as someone who is self employed does. Your accountant has to make a case and it's hard if your income fluctuates. Someone salaried can just say the have a permanent job.

So the players union pushed for this change.
No one would take a contract at Wakefield based on win bonuses.
Paid a basic and then have add ons for winning I guess is like a sales commission. That might work but would cist us more.

The Bosman ruling was about player registration or player freedom!
Prior to the ruling a player’s registration in Rugby League was owned by the club in perpetuity.
It allowed clubs to hold a player forever or demand a transfer for a player, prior to the ruling there were no contracts just registrations and match terms such as winning money, losing money & an agreed value for a draw.

Many players found themselves out of favour or unhappy with the club who owned their registration but they were owned by the club and couldn’t move whether they wanted to or not. In effect, and I know of numerous cases of this, a club or coach could completely freeze a player out of the game by not playing a player but also refusing him a transfer thus meaning the player couldn’t play anywhere.

In other cases the club would ask for a transfer fee that was ridiculously high in order to stop a player from moving. You have to remember that most players of the time were signed to a club for nothing so held no value on the clubs books.
The RFL brought in a rule that meant the Club could not ask for a preventative fee by linking the value of that fee with the value of payments made or offered to the player.
e.g. you couldn’t offer a player 20% of his worth in wages but then ask for 10X his worth in transfer value.
This system prevailed even after the advent of the Contracts system and still exists today.

Agree that no player would or should take a bonus only payment system, obviously a basic salary topped up by performance related bonuses would be what I think is preferable. I’d also have a percentage of player payments set aside and only payable upon the successful completion of the contracts term. That would disincentivise players from being poached mid contract by bigger clubs. Of course if all parties agreed to a release under amicable terms then the ‘loyalty bonus’ would be paid.

But the loyalty bonus would cost us more.
If Cas offered someone £50k a year over 2 years paid monthly and we offered tge same terms but say £10k paid at the end, they will always take the Cas offer.
The loyalty bonus would have to be over and above tge contract.
The contract itself protects us from someone being poached. They can't leave unless we agree to terminate the contract, probably for a fee. The RFL wouldn't register them.

To clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that one club did this in isolation, it would have to be a game wide adoption.

Contracts don’t protect clubs against other clubs or agents from tapping up a player, we’ve seen that a hundred times.