I am struggling to get excited.

The Wigan players who left have simply not been replaced, the rules of the competition mean that it isn't really necessary to get excited until June and the Communist Cap continues to strangle the sport.

I'm sure I will watch the games when they come along, and indeed want Wigan to perform well.


But part of me is thinking "Why bother?"

Do you enjoy rugby league or are you not bothered about the sport and just support Wigan?

There is obviously no right or wrong answer just curious.

They don't exactly come with big reputations do they RG like Matty Johns, Greg Florimo, Mark Reber or David Vaeliki do they?




Oh wait.....hang on a minute.

Of this perceived mini recruitment crisis I think there is a certain amount of Rose tinted memories knocking about.

Tommy and Carmont were outstanding players without doubt and Smith and whoever replaces George have a major task on their hands.

Lima and Finch though are another story completely. In their first season they were outstanding but in my opinion their form dropped off significantly last year. Lima lost his impact and was significantly quieter, Finch at times showed sparks of genius but most of the time especially when it counted he was poor.

Taylor I anticipate will go on to be regarded as one of the best Props of his generation and I feel he will improve our team on Lima of last year from the off. Blake is a tough one, but again whilst he may not have the pedigree of Finch, in the big games, when it counts, I doubt he will play as poorly as Finch did for us last year.

Smith and Tommy are two different style players. It's not that long ago that many on here were saying that Tommy was a hooker and not a scrum half.

Smith will bring a much better kicking game, but doesn't hit as hard as Tommy in defence.

Green will add something we have lacked for ages in the halfback position and that is pace, he too has a good kicking game.

Taylor I'm looking forward to seeing play, he is a big athletic prop with a very good offload.
I would however have liked us to have signed an experienced centre and prop (Joel Moon would have been the ideal centre fit)

I just can't wait for next Sunday at Leigh to get the show on the road.

Part of the issue is that we haven't brought anyone over from the NRL. There's no real surprise package. Things may have been different if we'd signed Green from Canterbury rather than HKR.

Personally I'm looking forward to seeing Taylor but I'm a little disappointed that we seem to be going with Hughes as a centre rather than Gelling/Thornley but that may change as the season progresses.

I was discussing this the other night with a mate saying how good RL was 10 years ago.

Now I'm looking forward to the season but not half as much as I used to

The centre spot is the concern, but it could also be a nice surprise just as Goulding has been the last few years. I would have loved us to splash the cash on a big name NRL centre, we MUST be under the cap significantly and have the cash to spend, but I am also open to seeing how any of those 3 run next year.

I expect 1 of the 3 to really make a go of it.

Shaun Wane appears to be going for players who are far bigger than their predecessors. Lima leaving who was around 5'11" being replaced by Taylor who is 6'5", that's a massive increase in size. Prescott is back and he's 6'3", Thornley was brought back to replace George and Iain's 6'4" or 5".
There is concern about the halves but as has been said Green has real pace where Finch had none, Smith has a kicking game where Tommy had none.
Green and Smith may not be as good as their predecessors but they will both bring something to the team which we did not have. Behind the massive pack that should be on the front foot in most games our new halves will have plenty opportunity to show what they can do. I don't think they'll disappoint.

Years ago Maurice at the end of every season had a clear out of our younger players, many who went were given very little opportunity if any.
This was followed by announcements of the signing of NRL players, some of whom were great some who wern't worth the plane fare.
When IL bought the club he stated that it was to be his policy to bring through as many Wigan youngsters who were worth their place. We now are begining to see the benefits of this. From the U20s who won all those GF's we have so many now in the first team squad. IL was perceptive in that he saw the way the game was going and clubs would stand or fall by their youth development.
Our youth development is serving us very well indeed.

Given the circumstances in which RL in general and SL in particular are now in Wigan are very well fixed. We have a club that is very well run, making a profit, winning trophies, have an eye for the future with the youth set up and have the best marketing people in the game.

Fixtures out, squads announced, season tickets bought and really looking forward to the new season with the new signings and seeing how the team improves over last season. Bring it on!

Ideal world would have seen us retain George for 1 more year as a mentor/back up centre who would play if required. Other than that I am really happy with our squad and cannot wait till the start if the season.

In our squad we have some absolutely fantastic players - individuals who would be selected for and perform admirably for any team in either code - and we are on the brink of a new season. The forthcoming season will give us moments of triumph and heart-break. We will see exhilerating rugby from our team and from other teams. We will laugh together in the stands and we will grumble over the errors, mistakes and missed opportunities until the bell for last orders rings in our ears. Nothing has changed. I love Wigan and have done since my father took me to my first game back when we were a relegated team. I truly hope we will earn some silverware this year, but if we don't then I will be a happy supporter simply because I will have been thoroughly entertained from start to finish. I'm sorry but I cannot find it within myself to get miserable and jaundiced about the future simply because we might not have recruited to the demands of some supporters. We watch a sport. We love that sport and we love our team. My life would be incomplete without it.
God, I'm excited - bring it on!

When Tommy came to Wigan (in the wake of the Moran disaster) he wasn't this great NRL star that had come to save us. He was just a half decent young half back from Harlequins, in fact it was Moran who came to us from Quins with a much bigger reputation having performing well the previous season.

I thought Tommy blew very hot & cold under Noble and it was only in his final three years under Maguire & Wane plus cementing himself as a World Cup winning international did he perform consistently well thus elevating himself to be become arguably a world class player.

Will Blake Green be a Tommy or a Dennis Moran? Not sure yet, (the previews look promising) so hopefully the former. But let's not crucify the lad five games in if he's not killing it out on the field straight away.

With Matty Smith, he thrives on the back of a strong pack and has talent without doubt. I do think he's a confidence player though.

I think its mainly down to people finding other things to do rather than post on forums.

Its been getting quieter and quieter for months, a lot of regulars who would post non stop all day seem to have dissappeared.

other than that, most subjects have been done to death, leading to lack of interest. Its that simple.

This! A thousand times this! Don't care about the perceived "quality" or about league games not meaning much, I can't wait to sit down and watch some rugby league again!

Agree with a lot of this too. For me round about when FInch & Lima both announced they were off they really stopped performing. Was more obvious with Finch for me, we needed him to step up when Tommy was injured and he really didn't deliver, instead relying on the same play (usually the flat pass to Hock) over and over again

Normally me neither, but it's the direction that the sport I love is going in that's the problem.

If it carries on, we won't have a rugby league to watch.

For the first time in 15 years, I nearly didn't buy a season ticket. I eventually bought my two then a few hours later even rang up to cancel them, then a day later decided to buy them back again and give it one last year. If it's just as bad or worse next season then i'll just pick and choose my games in future.

We're going to lose some big names no doubt, but we need to keep producing and getting behind the new guys. Only way we can hope to grow from here on.

Simples +1

But this is still a shrinking economy.

If we produce one generation of good players after another - only to see them go to another competition before we get the full benefit of them, then we never actually gain any ground. Eventually we are literally nothing more than a seedbed for someone else.

The bullish attitude of 'so what if he goes, we can always produce another one!' can be made in a strong, broad-based and wealthy competition like the NRL, but from our lips it is hollow bravado.

For me, British RL is now facing one of the biggest crises in its entire history. Unless some way is found to attract a lot more investment into the British game - and soon! - we are in big, big trouble.

Thats a fan of the current league champions and you wonder why it doesnt work in London and Manchester!!

I agree.

The real issue is that the RFL seemingly think that RL is a finite ring fenced bubble that cannot or will not expand or contract from both a supply and demand perspective.

They seem to think that the attraction of the sport to potential professionals will remain the same, despite artificial salary restraints which will at best limit the duration of stay for the best players and at worst act as a deterrent to them ever taking up the game in the first place.

From a fans perspective they seem to think that RL fans are like sheep and will turn up to watch their team despite the ever dwindling standards on display. This is true to some extent, but you are not going to improve attendances by "dumbing down" the relative standards on display on the park.

From a business perspective, they lack any form of coherent plan. Simply trying the game out in Wales in the hope that it might "stick" is not the answer. The answer is not where to put a team, but to get the basics in place to improve the product so that the team has a chance wherever it is placed in the country (and I firmly believe RL needs to have teams away from it's heartlands if it is to survive as a professional sport).

As for the people who want to ditch Sky...........deary me. Why on earth would you want to ditch the best chance you have of marketing the sport nationwide?


So much for the reason why "This board" is not populated from a "game wide" stance.

As for Wigan, well IL seems to have gone even further in terms of not spending the CC money (as highlighted before). SW seems to have learned nothing from last year. "This year we are more strict"

The thing is the SL competition only really gets important around July/Aug time, and realistically we will have to wait until the CC semi's to see if there has been any improvement.

And there's me believing all this time that Leeds were the SL Champions

Go easy on him.

He's never forgiven us for 'pinching' the Quins chairman.

And as a Wire is clinging to the distant dream that they won the league in 2011. When we all know, that nobody outside of biblical times has seen the Wire win the league.