the Wigan Club also announces the signing of three of Wales' most promising young players. 18 year old Centre Rhodri Lloyd, Prop Forward Gil Dudson and Back Row Forward Ben Flower,

A bit about Lloyd here. www.walesonline.co.uk/sports/par ... -28508278/

A bit about Lloyd here. www.walesonline.co.uk/sports/par ... -28508278/

[urlhttp://www.wiganrl.com/WContent.aspx?id=6616&type=1[/url

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"A bit about Lloyd here. www.walesonline.co.uk/sports/par ... -28508278/'" Sounds promising. Im happy with them 3, lets hope they kick on and all become quality players for us. Theres some words in that article i could even dream of pronouncing

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"A bit about Lloyd here. www.walesonline.co.uk/sports/par ... -28508278/'" Sounds promising. Im happy with them 3, lets hope they kick on and all become quality players for us. Theres some words in that article i could even dream of pronouncing

Did anyone know about the Rhodri Lloyd signing, or was it a surprise to everyone? I've never heard of him to be honest. I wonder if it puts to bed the rumors about Gelling signing for Wigan?

Sound like 3 promising, young signings

I wonder in a years time or so if Lenagan is planning to play a game in Wales. If marketed correctly and these 3 in the side it could be a big hit

There were some rumours on here last week about signing a young Welsh centre, but the name Lloyd was never mentioned as far as I am aware

I sincerely hope not hopefully IL has brought Rhodri Lloyd in to start of in the Acadamy and see how he develops there. IMO we are lacking a centre what has happened to the Wheeler rumours? Id be happy if we brought in this Anthony Gelling but somehow now after this signing I cannot see it happening although sources down under suggest its a done deal.

Anyways Welcome to Wigan Lloyd, Gil, and Ben its good that Wigan are trying to open the door for young Welsh Talent hopefully more to follow in the future.

Thats was Lee Williams the one that was mentioned earlier in the week.

Ben Flower said "When you talk to people about Wigan they recognise them as the number one side and I am really looking forward to putting on the Cherry and White shirt."

That's what you want to hear!

Would have thought at 18 Lloyd would be in the 20s this year and the remaining vacant squad number will go to Gelling.

I must say whether Gelling comes aboard or not, the average age of the Wigan team must have fallen dramatically considering the age of those that have left with those we have just signed.

Some might say the quality has also. But some times you have to take a step back in order to two take forward. Replacing experienced seasoned pro's is never easy. But I'd much rather we replaced them with much younger players, than recruit players who themselves will need replacing in a couple of years time.


Your probably right.

I think there will only be Fielden, Carmont and Finch over the age of 30 at the start of the season.

Three names I hadn't heard of both we were linked to them but I will be 100% behind them and hope they prove to be great additions to the team.

Lets compare that to Warrington.

Brett Hodgson - 33
Lee Briers - 33
Adrian Morley - 34
Michael Monaghan - 31
Gareth Carvell - 30
Trent Waterhouse - 30
Ben Westwood - 30
Mick Higham - 31
Paul Wood - 30
David Solomona - 33

Joel Monaghan - 29 (30 in a few months)

That is an ageing squad and I am glad we are not in that position.

We are clearly trying to make the squad turnover sustainable to years to come.

Amos Roberts

Has a team ever lost as many first team players as us replaced them with youngsters with potential and then gone on to compete for trophies? I see this as a bit of a transition period and it may be good in the long term but we may see some hit and miss performances in the short term.

So be it i say.

the future of our club as never been more exciting IMO..the players we produce and god knows who we unearth in wales is making me very excited about the coming years at Wigan RL

I think we'll still be up there competing. A lot of this squad were present for the GF win and even more for the CC win so it's not like we've undergone a complete overhaul of the whole first team. We still have top quality players in the squad

But I'd have any one of those in this current Wigan squad

Good spot, so that's four and all off contract at the end of the coming season.

I agree. I was hugely disappointed by the loss of Joel, but all this I feel is very positive.

It's hard to imagine that as recently as 2006 I was thinking that relegation might be the best thing for us, as it would allow us to rebuild the club from top to bottom. Now we seem to have managed that anway, and have won three trophies in the meantime.

As others have said, we might take a short term hit but in the long term this is smarter than signing three 30 year old mediocre overseas players on big pay packets who will take one season to settle in, play fairly well for a couple of seasons then retire. The centre issue I find acceptable because they obviously planned to continue to develop Joel as a centre and let Hock replace him in the back row. If you take away the right centre from any SL side I'm sure the replacement wouldn't be much better than Goulding.

What I don't understand is why they never took the chance to debut any of Powell, Mellor or Logan last year against the lower placed sides. It was obvious at least one of them would be needed to replace Deacon. We can't have McIlorum playing 80 every match, and sticking Lockers at 6 so Leuluai can give McIlorum a breather is far from ideal. Hopefully one of them will prove to be good enough to make the 17. Having said that, I would still rather us have signed a half/hooker instead of Lauaki, or just kept O'Carroll.

Still some quality players in that lot and im sure given the chance most would love it if we could sign one or two of them.

I would have quite a few of them as well, that only backs up my point.

Most of these are their best players and are all close to either coming out of their 'peak' or retiring. A dangerous position to be in.

This season should be another good one for them, but after that could be very tricky. Like I said, its not a position I would like Wigan to be in.