On saturday he might attract a new fan club the french rugby union

The only solution may be to adopt your club's policy - and develop no players that anyone is interested in.

come off it, Everyone is simply moaning because of a pure hatred for Rugby Union, and nothing else. I dislike Union just as much as anyone else. But he is still a Wigan player and will be regardless of what happens at the weekend, and if he wants to play in a one of yawnion match then let him. He could fail miserably and union will want to come no where near him, or he could play brilliantly, show Union that a league player can just walk into union in a one off game and tear a team to peices, then continue playing for wigan with even more Rugby supporters, be it union or league, following him.

Lack of commitment to Rugby League??? In what way?? What Rugby League event is he missing out on to play in this one off match, You're just upset because he is going playing a sport that you don't like and have something against. And therefore that means he is disrespecting the sport that he has played all his life???



If he just so happened to be a good footballer and was going playing a one off footy match we would of had no where near the reaction that we are getting here.

I just can't see what we gain from this bizarre little arrangement.

Very, very strange.

I hope he plays for them and tears it up. The Barbarians will probably include him a lot more than the current England team did.

Sam is probably the only player that if he did go to Union I would start watching the sport as he has the potential to run rings around them.

Will he be wearing Cherry and White socks when play for them? Or will it just be white England socks?

Wonga!

Yeah we never do that.

I reply with Iestyn Harris to you the other week.

You didn't answer back.

Talking of Harris didn't he do this as well, want to play union in the off season when he was contracted with us. Alex Murphy was our Director of Rugby and lets say he was not accommodating to the arrangement!

That was the beginning of the end of the relationship between Harris and Murphy.

Its disgraceful that Wigan have done this, the fans are still reeling that we lost Joel to RU and now we go and let our top player go and guest for them.
Mr Leneghan you should be ashamed

I think the timing of this is awful, weeks after Joel decided to wakl away from Wigan and only a day after Sam had an awful game for his country in League.

Also, i cannot see what Wigan will gain from this deal apart from the obvious financial one.

well said.

Yeah. There's always an exception if you go back far enough into the past.

Great publicity for Wigan, great publicity for Rugby League, great publicity for Sam Tomkins.

Everyone's a winner, dont understand what the fuss is about myself.

Would you get the fuss if he gets injured?

That'd be great publicity for us.

Me neither - what's the upside??

I THOUGHT Sam was NOT alowed to speak to union.

about a contract?

Leneghan is a business man first and foremost, he will be getting compensated massively for this.

Sam will be leaving in 3 years, Wigan RL will carry on without him. Some people need to get used to this, I hope he has a blinding performance on Saturday!

You will remember most of it was handed out after the ARL/NRL war as well then to keep them Wigan players not ARL or NRL players. He didn't give 'em the money and then send them off to play in the league he had just prevented them joining. That is is real parallel here.

Back in the 80's and 90's before SL came along and before the game went fully pro players would do an off season in the ARL and we would see the likes of Kenny and Sterling over here. That would never happen now even if it could (if we still played in winter) because both leagues are fully pro and its accepted that players need an off-season and full pre-seasons preparation. You also won't see any NRL side letting its players play other sports because they fancy it either because that would risk injury. That is just how it is in professional sport and what IL and Sam are doing is just unprofessional.

No he won't. Just how much do you think they are going to pay? My guess is they will pay insurance for Sam and nothing more. What is your guess?



What he does in three years is up to him. What he does now is what the debate is about.

maybe we should get everyone who has his name on their shirt to burn the kit outside the ground as a public demonstration of their displeasure

The RFU will be insuring him.

Or maybe everyone could just boo him?


oh, wait a minute

He could have been injured playing in the Four Nations but nobody bothered about that.

Poor form from Sam and IFL. This just looks like the RFU taking the p1$$ and Wigan pandering to it. The training camp will be interesting in terms of how the rah rahs take to Sam. Do they spend the week telling him how great it is in front of 80k people watching a ball going back and to over your head and earning mega bucks for it, or do they think "who's this upstart that hasn't even played our sport before coming in here when there are experienced international full backs still at home. Makes a bit of a mockery of whatever the selection process is.