He got injured in one of the pre-season friendlies or reserve games.

I just can't see Sutton as a starting prop in the NRL. Well,we'll see, I suppose.

Signing a prop from the lower leagues is nothing new for Wigan. Even with a plethora of world class talent in our 1991 squad we nipped over to lowly Rochdale and signed Neil Cowie. He didnt do too bad did he?

To be honest, I don't think Wigan do this enough. Other clubs have had much success signing players from the lower leagues where we rarely do these days.

Fully agree. It’s been frustrating to see teams like Saints, Wire and Leeds have success with guys like Walmsley, Hill and Hardaker whilst we never seem to look that way. There doesn’t seem a better time to be looking at the Championship either because the league is stronger then it’s ever been and lads like Bullock have been impressing against full time professionals with very good pedigree at higher levels.

I'll give you FPN though I suspect many had never heard of him before he signed. As to the general point I am not suggesting we max out the overseas quota for the sake of it as many clubs did in the past but given IL was one pf the main proponents of the marquee rule that we actually make use of it assuming Sam T is off and we have a slot available. Sport is supposed to be entertaining and I'd like to see a signing that didn't give the impression the club's motivation was always cost first.

It may be cost effective to bring in developing players but it's basically boring if this a repeated time after time. I also wonder what the motivation is to[i bring in[/i developing players when we supposedly have the best production line going. They just get in the way of the home grown talent and you still don't know how they will turn out. I don't put this potential signing from Barrow in that bracket and as someone else said this seems like a Neil Cowie type of recruit.

It certainly doesn't help these lads who bloom a little later than others.

Hill was at Wigan until he was 16 and then the club let him go along with Stef Ratchford, both deemed not good enough by dean Bell and ironically Shaun Wane.

Hill clearly seems to be a late bloomer and maybe this lad from Barrow can be the same. I saw a picture of him from his Wigan days online when he was a winger. He was like a pipe cleaner and he must now weigh about three times as much.

So was Tommy Makinson, but I don't think that was Wanes call, Brian Foley?

You bring up a very interesting point there in your second paragraph re why we’re bringing in developmental players when our production line is supposedly the cream of the crop, it almost contradicts that statement altogether. With two developmental props in our ranks currently, bearing in mind Navarrete looks to be ‘graduating’ soon; are we saying our academy props aren’t up to scratch?

As for your first point again I’m inclined to agree. Fans want to see big name signings who then kick on for the club but it falls back to the fact that the approach we’re taking now is working. Would IL/SW want to change a winning formula? Even so I think SW would be far too stubborn to change the approach. On the flip side using Walmsley as an example, if Bullock turns out to be as good as AW; would we complain at another developmental signing? Probably not.

There’s pro’s and cons to either way and for me I’d like to see a balanced approach whereby we are in for and signing big names but we’re keeping a keen eye on the future whether that be the academy (my preference) or developmental signings.

We have four or five excellent props in the academy. Byrne, Partington, Kibula, Barnes, Kilner, Havard. Also Jack Wells who sadly has missed all the season so far.
However they are very young, hopefully the reserve league gets fully implemented next year to allow them do develop further.

On that point the reserves are at home tonight v Bradford Bulls at Robin Park, kick off is at 6 p.m. Bradford beat them earlier in the season.

To a certain extent Wigan (as are all clubs) are stuck between a rock and hard place because as I said before without a decent reserve grade it's very hard to get a young prop up to speed for SL. So buying in one a bit more physically mature may seem to be the answer but then if you do that, why even bother with the production line in the first place?

Long term the answer is for IL and other more enlightened chairmen (which means NOT G Hetherington) to keep pushing for a proper reserve grade to be established. In the meantime the club will just have to recruit such players on a "needs must" basis.



I also want to see a balanced approach. I can see sense in this signing despite the fact it potentially blocks the progress of academy players but when the club does recruit from outside it also needs to make use of the marquee slots it was very much in favour of (or just even offer a decent wedge) so it can attract some top players. I don't think anyone will have much of a problem with this signing in isolation but if as rumoured Bateman, Gildart, Sitton and Sam T are all off and it's this sort of player we recruit without going after equally good or better replacements for those leaving I think it then becomes an issue. Not just because some will want to see a star player just for the sake of it but I think the club would be gambling on being able to keep the standard up. I don't think the winning formula would continue unless the standard of SL plummets even further but even if that is what happened it would mean Wigan were, by accepting players who were just "good enough" for the competition around them, were contributing to its decline.

This player could be an AW MkII or he could be a flop and that is true for any young or lower league player untried at SL level so I don't think the club can put all its recruitment in that direction while also hoping the home grown players will fill in the gaps.

But it's basically the chairmen's decision whether or not to run a reserve team, which means apart from ourselves and Wakefield, none of them are sufficiently enlightened.

To me, it's the RFL's responsibility to "enlighten" them, whether that be with financial incentives or some other way. Sadly, we also lack a responsible RFL at present.

It was one part of the old franchise system that worked, IMO, whereby points were gained from having a proper reserve/academy structure.

Is Bullock a project signing? Yes he’s stepping up a level but that’s about it. Yes we probably think we can improve him as a player and rightly so but he’s a 25 year old prop who will be coming to play prop,he’s not a union novice or Ozzie kid who couldn’t get a gig the NRL.

On another note,has anyone seen enough of him to make a judgement?I think everytime I see a prop come from the lower level I think of Hill and Walmsley but for those 2 there are plenty of failures,including Hopkins who came with a big rep from Leigh fans and never got a look in.

Joe Bretherton who is still only 22 made his return from injury last night in the reserves. Wigan beat Bradford 54 - 10 and he played very well. Lets hope he stay injury free.

Nobody is actually answering the original question here..........Project Players Yeh or Neh.........its a Neh for me because I dont think Wane is a good enough "coach" to take these projects to the next level. Only successful projects I can think of have been Ben Flower, Tony Clubb and Anthony Gelling (ish)

There is a list of negative / poor projects - Andy Powell, Sam Hopkins, Rhodri Lloyd, Karl Pryce, plus many more.

Wouldn't Boston have been a project player? Wasn't Offiah? Rhodri Lloyd wasn't really as he came to Wigan aged 16 and played in the academy. I'm in the Yeh camp, but obviously some work and some don't.

Rhodri Lloyd was signed from South Wales Scorpions in 2012 by Shaun Wane and played 8 first team games over 3 years whilst being constantly on loan. Forsyth will end up this way too!

Yes 1 or 2 have worked I admit that but the majority dont and the player's career gets disrupted more by it and they appear to be always Forwards.

Billy Boston was a project from Rugby Union that was a success but in modern day Rugby League it wont work to that extent. Offiah was not a project signing for Wigan, he may have originally come from Rugby Union but during that era a lot of clubs look at Rugby Union players to sign.

Forsyth went well last night for the reserves. Bagged a hatrick

How was Karl Pryce a project?he was one of the brightest talents in league before going union.

DaveO mentioned on another thread about the problem with giving players the 'project' tag as many are established players and are quite simply signings like any other, or they are promising players who any team would be chasing.

What qualifies as a 'project player' exactly? Flower was considered a project player but isn't he just like any other signing? He was still young for a forward when we signed him but had a few years experience playing for a team lower down the league. In that respect how is it that much different to us signing Scott Taylor? Is it just that Flower wasn't as highly rated? All teams sign players like that.

Rhodri Lloyd doesn't count as a project player - he was simply an academy signing. We signed him as a teenager, he came up through the academy to play a few first team games and has become a decent Championship player. That's what happens to a lot of our highly rated young players. Gabe Fell and Jamie Doran are former U19's players of the year who are now playing at the same level. Rhodri Lloyd was just a promising young player signed from another club - just like Joe Brown, who we signed last year from Bradford.

To some extent some of our 'projects' are just the club trying to get the most out of the salary cap by getting enough players in so we can have depth without having to use 18 or 19 year old forwards every week, or providing depth in a position where there isn't enough.

Well, yeah. As I see it, a project player is one who is no longer a youngster, is seen as having future potential, but not yet ready for the first team.

The biggest problem with that concept is the lack of reserve games (yeah, I know, Rogues and I, and others, keep whinging about that!) with which to turn that potential into reality.

This means, in essence, that they must be seen as ones who primarily need training and fitness, rather than game time, in order to to convert them.

A 25 yr old "project player" suggests that it would be money down the drain. If they are not ripping trees up by their mid-20s, then its highly likely they've found their ceiling.

Had he been 21, with the potential of 10 years of return then maybe, but spending 2-3 years bringing him to a standard where you might get 4-5 good years from him doesn't float my boat.

Do we count Zak Hardacre as a project player?

How about considering him a 25 year old squad player who takes up minimal salary cap.