Ricky Stuart's amassing a Barmy Army in Canberra and the Raiders want to make their ties to the Old Dart even stronger.

They're in early talks with Wigan about playing a pre-season trial against the English Super League club ahead of the 2020 NRL season.

The Raiders are considering taking their recruitment of English players to the next level, having already signed about a third of the national team.

Now Raiders CEO Don Furner said they could look to the future and bring the next generation of English stars to Canberra as well.

"Names keep coming up and we keep looking," he said.

"We're looking at some of the younger guys too. I've spoken to a couple of clubs about going to that next level down and looking at some younger guys and giving them an opportunity at 20s.

"It might be a faster development pathway for them and they go back and play at their club. So we're looking at that as well."

Are Wigan fans concerned about this. The Canberra club are sugar coating this news as a reciprocal arrangement between themselves and Wigan, when in fact they are manipulating the Warriors into a position of being merely Canberra's feeder club.

Wigan have always had the best conveyor belt of young, homegrown talent in English Rugby League, which Canberra want to now steer in the direction of the Australian capital city. Very sinister indeed.

I’ve two words for Canberra, the second one is off.

What a joke, what’s the point in us even having an academy if we are signing up to play cuckold to Canberra?

Are things that bad down there that their policy is to pick-pocket our youth? I see no benefit to us whatsoever.

Maybe we could pick up some or their fringe players? Agree a pre-season friendly with them, which would bring money and give our lads a good test. Learn from their coaches about how they run a pre season (bearing in mind we have started poorly nearly every year for about two decades). Realistically NRL teams cherry pick our top players anyway, I don't see this making it any worse.

You can bet that Canberra will get the best out of any arrangement thats for sure.

I'd tell them to @$@€ off!!

We could use the game as a warm up for the WCC

Love the way the Aussies always make it sound as if taking our best players is somehow doing us a favour.

We need to stand firm on this. Enough is enough.

Canberra are definitely looking at some English lads around the 16/17 age bracket. I know this for a fact. Not heard any young Wigan players names mentioned though. That will all change if you link up with them though I'm sure!

On the flip side though, you may be able to bring across some 19/20 year olds on loan deals from Canberra who aren't quite ready for NRL but would slot straight into Super League?

I personally don't have a problem with them taking our players I'd sooner that than a fellow super league team taking them,its not impossible you only have to look at catalans and the way they can attract star players due to the good weather and the good exchange rate over there

How’s the weather in Canberra Ricky?

As I put on another forum, it’s like inviting the wolf for dinner. Leneghan would be stupid to even consider it.

havent we been here before with the NZ Warriors 'relationship' a few back.
in hindsight it just looked a way for NZW to get Sam, but that was all that happened. We didnt get any decent players; they didnt get anyone else.

I think this will go the same way. Its no going to restrict Canberra recruitment to just Wigan, and its not going to stop other NRL teams from making offers either.

Looks like mts being made out of molehills to me

I cant see it making any practical

I personally agree with every word you say i don't understand people sometimes its if they are scared of what will happen in the future,does nobody remember when we used to cherry pick who we liked in the late 80's early 90's from everybody else as far as I'm concerned you reap what you sew

This sort of thing will stop us seeing and nurturing players like Andy Gregory within RL here in the UK. Not good, and what is in it for us ?

Andy was at Spotland last Sunday, Rochdale Hornets ground . He had been doing an 'after dinner' speech.

I don't really agree. We aren't telling the wolf anything he doesn't already know. Canberra don't need to be physically in the UK to poach our players, or anyone else's. Of course we can't welcome anyone taking our young talent, but I have often thought about the pool of young Aussie talent just bubbling under the NRL, who might well find a couple of seasons in first-grade in SL would set up their careers. It's always nice to see an Aussie come over who's well under 30. Like Bevan French.

We’ve been down this path before with the NZ Warriors and apart from them taking Bell, Betts & later Tomkins I didn’t see much coming the other way!

Waiting for those special fans to say it's good for the British game when our youngsters go to the Shangri-la of RL.
I've said it for years, It doesn't, It might make the odd international game a little bit tighter but let's face it We don't see British whitewashes like we should be doing if our players are gaining all this RL experience and knowledge from the land of the arrogant ones, The only British players we see coming back are failures, I doubt we will ever see Sam Burgess or Bateman back here in their prime, Maybe one last season on big money before returning to the land of milk and honey, Poop on Canberra and poop on the NRL

I honestly think you must be on another planet.

We all understand why it happens. Why that means we should be okay with it, I can't imagine.

I see. So Canberra are doing this to pay us back for some imaginary offence we committed 30 years ago.

That makes it okay then.

I really don't see a problem.
Do you not think that the Aussies already identify players from over here?
Do you not think that they watch all the Superleague games?
Do you not think that they subscribe to and watch not just Wigan t.v. but all the other clubs up and coming academy players.

I KNOW they do.

I know that there are a few academy players from different clubs, including Wigan who are on "the radar" of Aussie clubs.

From an England perspective, the more players we have playing in the NRL the better.

From a Wigan perspective, we need to keep our best talents. By all means send someone like Partington for 2 years in a swap for a Hamlin (minus the drugs) and I don't think we lose much but not losing our best players like we have been.

We have had numerous tie ups with other clubs, both union and league, and even with other sports but I cannot , for the life of me, remember any lasting benefits for the club. It is not likely that we would be able to attract young Aussie talent as they will not meet the representative criteria and Aussie clubs seem happy using the Queensland and NSW competitions as reserves. I wonder what young Lam thinks about his decision to stay in Aus this season. I could see Canberra doing well out of any link up but I am not so sure about us.

Yes but other clubs don't put their players in the shop window like we do.

Nonsense. Every single player in RL is in the shop window. When you play for the biggest name in the game though it carries more weight when you perform well.