Let it not be forgotten that we signed carvell under a bit of a cloud as well, did we not?

aye www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... igham.html

aye www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... igham.html

for those accusing the club of unprofessionalism; two similar scenarios:

Dr Koukash unsettles Adrian Morley and puts in a cheeky bid to sign him early into Morley's last season.
Club tells Morley "you are contracted until the end of the season" Morley says "ok" Koukash leaves it at that and gets him for the following year.

Leigh owner unsettles Mickey Higham and puts in a cheeky bid to sign in the middle of Higham's last season.
Club tells Higham "you are contracted until the end of the season" Higham cries like a baby and is at risk of unsettling the camp.
The Leigh owner comes back with another bid which is accepted and accuses Smith and Agar of something, and it all ends up looking a bit unsavoury.

Adrian Morley acted like the pro everyone knew he was, but bizarrely in the Leigh owner there is a bloke on the scene that has made Dr Koukash look professional...

get your player, unsettle two squads, (us and London)and pay your money but just STFU..

Yes, and then didn't Carvell do the same with Bradford after he left us ?

Anyway, Mickey has gone and I think Moran took the correct decision from a bad set of options. Personally I don't like the way Hingham did it though, he was a Wire player, half way through a difficult season, and with Clark injured and Dwyer out on a 12 month contract. But it's all water under the bridge now, the club needs to work out how to get a backup hooker into the squad. Even if Dwyer can hack it at SL level he is supposedly still contracted to London for the rest of the year.

Exactly - not sure what the club did wrong in any of these cases. Or perhaps there is something I'm missing.

These events were triggered by Highams contract being halved for 2016 with no option for 2017 I believe.

May have triggered it, but neither Leigh or Higham himself had no right to discuss a contract for 2015 without first asking for permission from Warrington.

And me. The club had no choice in the end but to accept. Not sure how that reflects badly on warrington.

Carvell went at the right time - although I disagreed with it at the time.

Hodgson was disappointed with his grand final spot going to Ratch.

Not 100% sure what happened with woody. These were all players towards the end of their careers unfortunately, the club has to decide when the right time for them to now on is. I'm not sure they've made many mistakes with that, or handled it badly - unless there is something I don't know....

The 50k could pay for Gidley to come over early

The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

How many Super League games has Carvell played since he left us?

Rubbish ,I'd suggest you read the rules specfically times of a season when you can approach a player without involving the club.

Wow. I am to determine from that either Smith or Agar released the rumour to force the issue?

I'd suggest you give your head a shake.... You can discuss contracts for 2016 and beyond, but discussing jumping ship midway through a season, without first telling his present club, equates to poaching and is illegal.

I'd suggest the £50,000 is as much about keeping this out of court, rather than being anything to do with Higham's actual value, which at his age, and the length of his contract he has left, probably was worth the value of a 6 or 7 year old Ford Fiesta.

it all started when smith gave mick a letter in front of the other players after they've just finished training to tell him hes got permission to speak to other clubs which mick and hes agent did then leigh went to Warringtons board to ask about signing him this season to which there replie was yes but they want £120,000,so like any transfer leigh haggled and Warrington excepted a bid which for a lad at 34 is alot of money,the trouble with smith he thinks he runs the club when the truth is its the people that pay the wages that do that

What if the discussion went "We want to sign you for 2016 Micky, but we have an injury problem at hooker and need to sign a quality player in the position now. We intend to do that, but that player is likely to want a contract beyond 2015. Micky, we will not be able offer you a contract for 2016 unless there are developments in the situation."

Says everything that needs to be said without offering a contract for 2015 imho.

Bobby maybe we gave Tony Smith the high 6

.

Well said Charles.... TOP MAN/CLOWN !

With everything falling into place with Higham, Wood, Joel rumoured off this year to catalans. Who are we gonna bring in for replacements? Surely we must sign at least 2 more bodies surely along with gidley.

Is Dywer the answer and can he become a class hooker? We as Warrington need to be in the mix all seasons now for silverware, but you need to have the quality and experience. Looking at the squad now, there is not much experience. For me we need more bodies.

Surely with the gravity of the situation it would be 'Big 12's' ?

My thanks to Mickey for all that he has done for us in the P&B.
Im very disappointed that Mickey is leaving us but fully understand his reasons.
He has to do the very best that he can for himself and his family.

Good Luck to you Mickey and thanks for the great memories.

I would have no issue with Leigh approaching Micky about the contract for 2016. It's the approach for 2015 which is 'illegal'.

Micky went to warrington asking for a release from his contract following an offer from Leigh. I'm not that bothered now, it's done with and allows Dwyer to step up. It's all ended on a sour not from Leigh and Micky in my eyes though.

The whole affair smells worse than a Spanish bar's toilet at 6 am

Pluses
We've got £50k for an old man

Minuses
Higham has behaved poorly
Leigh have behaved poorly
The affair has been leaked/drip fed to the media. The media only reports RL when it's bad news/controversy.
The whole thing reminds me of a certain alcoholic scrum half from the 1980's, who's leaving was "engineered" in not the best of circumstances. The only difference being, we were at the top of our game at the time, and the short bottomed lover was key to our fortunes. Higham is a key player, but NOT vital, but a loss to our club, all the same.

And as for giving him a send off, I'll give him the two fingers nearest to my right thumb. A Leighther would still HAVE 3 fingers.
left



A player's reputation tarnished, all for sentimentality. Shame, really.

Personally, I'm disappointed that Tony reacted in the way that he did through the press. He's normally much more professional and would give the old standard response "wish him all the best and thank him for the services etc etc"...

Instead, he got personal - and this came across as bitter and unprofessional in the reports on SportingLife.com and in the papers. We are all human and sometimes passions run high, but in the future I hope we learn to react more professionally as a sporting organisation. It doesn't matter what Higham did or said behind the scenes; let that be [ihis[/i problem.

I hope this hasn't unsettled the camp too much and that we can now move on and rebuild for the future. The one thing we have been missing this season is a old 'steer' that Monaghan or Briers would have been in the past. I'm looking forward to Gidley providing this next season...