This type of idea has been floated for a while now could we now link up with the Warriors;

[urlhttp://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10892276[/url

The inner cynic in me wonders if this is just a by product of the supposed 'done deal' for Sam but I really hope it's more than that!

I'm defo in the camp that thinks that in some areas our academy players have it a little too easy with the best facilities, top coaches and playing against what are sometimes weaker opposition.

If this comes through then the chosen few who go over to NZ aren't going to have it easy. They'll still receive top class rugby coaching but they won't have it all their own way. Travelling to the other side of the world and forcing themselves well outside of their comfort zone is going to test them in a way nothing else can.

They will see the intensity step up, they'll have to look after themselves away from the massive support network of friends and family they have in England. It's going to turn some of our young lads into men.

It works the same way for NZ Warriors as well as everything i've said above about support networks and comfort zones apply to their young lads.

Good news for the junior that go there, however given the current state of the SL U19 competition, how much will the NZ juniors learn from this from a skills perspective ?
Potentially would this mean us using overseas quota spots for U19 players ? I am assuming that it would be the better juniors that would come over, and as we have seen over the last few weeks, these are exactly the type of players that can prove a blessing during an injury crisis.

I don't see what we'll gain tbh. They will get first pick on any of our top players and we'll get what? The money isn't in the game here to allow us to bring any of their best players over so we may get the odd cast off if we're lucky.

We seem determined at the moment to actively encourage our players to go to the NRL. Our youth system is top class but we will hit a brick wall if 4 or 5 of the more experienced lads walk out the door each year. We're in danger of being RL's answer to Arsenal, developing youngsters to a top class level but then selling them on as soon as they're hitting peak form meaning you always end up starting again.

Leeds annoy the life out of me in a lot of ways but I'm bloody jealous of Hetheringtons attitude to the NRL threat in comparison to Lenagans.

Our youth system is world class but the competition outside of a few given sides is ridiculously poor.

We need to find a way to challenge some of these both on and off the field. Playing academy games for Wigan and then going on loan to Leigh or South Wales is proven route but it's nothing compared to what's being suggested here.

Getting out of the Wigan bubble for half a season, seeing a new way of playing rugby whilst getting challenging yourself is an excellent thing for us.

Maybe it will be as successful as our partnership with Saracens.

Actions speak louder than words, Heatherington is all mouth and trousers.

He's a clown but Leeds have managed to keep a winning team together for years and years. We won one grand final in 2010 and since then we must have lost 15+ players.

Lenagan is a legend at this club, I don't doubt that but I feel he's leaving us too open to these raids.

Just posted that on the other forum

Players left since 2010:

Phil Bailey
George Carmont
Andy Coley
Paul Deacon
Stuart Fielden
Brett Finch
Martin Gleeson
Gareth Hock
Ryan Hoffman
Thomas Leuluai
Jeff Lima
Feka
Mark Riddell
Joel Tomkins

Players in the exit lounge:

Lee Mossop
Pat Richards
Sam Tomkins
Chris Tuson
Harrison Hansen?

Leeds have not had to compete with lots of money in Aus and Onion for "years and years", and his key players are too old to interest anybody now. Lets see if he can hold on to his younger players, and/or bring in major signings in the current climate and the future..Time will tell.

Why don't the league just chuck their heads in create an English team in the NRL, send everyone's promising youth products over there, turn our league in to an amateur one so the likes of Woolston, St Pats, Parkside etc have an equal chance of winning the league as Wigan, Leeds and Wire?
Salary cap at it's best, no one can complain about competitive games, because if you CAN'T make teams equally as good you CAN make them equally as crap.

Lets see how good Gary's resolve is when they come knocking for Watkins and Hall.

Don't doubt the sleeve

When the American settlers shared their turkeys with Indians, i bet the Indians thought, 'hey these guys aren't so bad after all'.

HY, do me a favour. Go and look up IL's history, his qualifications and business dealings. If you think you are better placed to run a large organization, and that he is some naive fool who is easily made an idiot, you can clearly see something in this man that i can't.

Whoever signs L.Tomkins, will there be another link up between clubs? I mean Sam and Joel go and they link up with both, he's got form.

We'll probably keep hold of the 3rd best Tomkins for his whole career

I've underlined the only three who I think we've missed. All the others were either at retirement age, or wanted to go back home or weren't that good anyway, or ruined their careers through off-field idiocy (and even Brett Finch would be questionable under some of those terms). I'm not touching the 'exit lounge' because we don't yet know which of those will be going and which won't.

We're all dejected by the Sam story - more so than maybe anyone at Wigan ever imagined - but this laundry list of disdain is nothing more than stilted propaganda designed to win the approval of the 'we always look on the downside' crowd who populate the other website.

You could pick most teams in Super League and draw up a list of players who've left in the last two or three years, and it would be similar to this one - a couple who you regret having lost, the rest who you'd simply shrug your shoulders about.

In case you'd forgotten, the team we're left with after being so so heartlessly stripped of star talent is still top of the league and still in with a good chance of winning trophies.

There is negativity and negativity, but his example is taking the absolute p122.

The real loss in recent times is the one almost no-one ever mentions - Michael Maguire, clearly one of the best coaches on Earth, and someone we'd never even have had if it hadn't been for Ian Lenagan. Let's look at some of the guys his predecessors got in. Denis Betts, Andy Goodway, Eric Hughes, Ian Millward. Yeah, f***ing awesome.

Hang on a minute, I post facts and you say I am taking the pi$$. Get a grip.

So how will any young NZW guy coming over here manage with the work visa?
We already have one in Gelling and his visa situation is a mare.
The NZW younger players are of no use to us whatsoever.
The only ones we can use will be those who are good enough to play first team every week. I'm not sure that's the kind of link NZW may be thinking about.
That's of course if there is a link!

It's a fact that those players you listed have all left since 2010. It is NOT fact that their departures amount to the disastrous picture that you are trying to paint, or that they could all have been avoided had someone with more nous been in charge.

Rabbiting on about 15+ players leaving is a melodramatic soundbite. It also ignores the other FACT - that we still have a very good side, the majority of whom are young and eager to prove themselves instead of old and looking for reasons to go home.

I don't doubt we are a good side and I am pleased we are top of the league.

However, if you care to go back to my post, you will see that someone asked how many players had left since 2010 and I answered the question factually. I did not add any comments that were negative. My only comments were factual. I therefore find your remarks inappropriate.

The problem isn't the 15+ lads that have left but that if they keep leaving at that rate it will catch up with us.

There are only so many years we can see 4 or 5 players walk out the door before it effects us. Our major attacking threats are Tomkins, Charnley and Richards and 2 out of those 3 won't be here next year.

If anyone thinks linking up with a league who constantly talks down SL, is blatantly arrogant saying 'unless players play in the NRL they are more than useless', we can't bothered with an international this year, blah blah blah is good then you need your head looking at.
Australia is quite happy to be the rugby version of American football, they don't care about the wider game, they only care about themselves.
As daft as it sounds union has been more respectful to SL than the NRL has of late.
They'd quite happily cherry pick every good player and leave us amateur, they don't care.
If anyone thinks NZW would actually benefit Wigan i think they are the naive ones, tell me again all the benefit you're getting from Saracens, free tickets to watch Joel?

Hasler being blatantly arrogant when they signed Graham, it was obvious how good Ginge was, head and shoulders above anyone in SL, awesome for England yet being talked down when he went over YET who is regarded as the best prop in the NRL at the moment?

The only reason i prefer our players in the NRL is because we don't lose them to the other code.
Look at the British press going all coy over Izzy Folua now, or Sonny Bill a while back yet these guys are ten a penny in our game and still we don't get the recognition we deserve.

NZW will throw big contracts at any Wigan academy lad who they think looks the part and any of their lads who looks the part will never fly as far as Perth in their life unless they're wearing an All Blacks shirt.

And yet Richards is 31 and is not the athlete he was a couple of years ago, so again it feels deceitful to mention him in these terms.

Why don't we wait and see who we replace these guys with before quoting their impending departure as though it's another nail in our coffin?

I'm as dejected as everyone about Sam, and I can't understand why he is being allowed to leave a year early ... it makes no sense to me and is tarnishing the whole season. Yes, it does make it feel as if the revolution that started in 2010 has now ended. But if Sam wasn't leaving, I strongly doubt that the retirement of players like Carmont, Coley and Deacon, the departure for home of players like Richards, the sacking of idiots like Gleeson and Hock and the loss of players who are well past their best like Fielden would be seen as anything more than the normal chopping and changing that goes on as teams develop.

The other website is ridiculously negative about the current administration at Wigan. One clown is even calling for a return of Maurice Lindsay, who was great when there was no salary cap but was so unable to modernise later that he very nearly got us relegated. I think the rest of us - me included - need to man up a bit. Sam is clearly going, if not in 2014, defo in 2015. It's a massive blow. But we've lost great players before. Wigan will still go on, and it's not like we're struggling to get wins.

I agree Richards isn't the force he once was but he's still a huge player for us via his ability with the ball, his goal kicking and his influence. He will be massively hard to replace but not impossible. As for Tomkins he was always going to go but why now? It couldn't be a worse time IMO. We have a couple of 18 year old kids who ideally, could do with another year or two under him before stepping up and in terms of other options to sign and bring in to the club they look very thin on the ground.

I'd like to point out that I'm not simply whinging here and I'm a massive fan of Ian Lenagan, who has transformed this club but I'm simply worried that we can't keep sustaining these losses. We have brilliant kids yet we don't want to get to the point where that is all we have, kids! And kids that keep getting shifted on to be replaced by more kids.

We need to start making these contracts players are signing mean more IMO. At the end of this season I can take the departures of Richards and Tuson, they're out if contract and we had little choice but its a different story with Sam and Mossop. We have them tied up yet they're going!

I have no issue with these lads wanting a test in the NRL, its great for their careers and development but they're under contract at Wigan and we need them still. They should be working around our needs not the other way round.

The timing feels all wrong to me. I hope Lenagan and Wane (if he's here) prove me wrong. They've certainly allayed by fears of 12 months back so far this year.