Oh aye, Hardaker, Gildart, Hastings and Farrell would definitely be sat in the stands

Well I'd only take Walmsley from Saints, he'd transform our side and at the same time leave you lot battling for mid table obscurity, double win

Bateman?

Bringing on the kicking tee presumably

Other than a new basketball based username every 6 months, you aren’t partial to making things up are you?



You’ve clearly got this one wrong

















French is injured

I wasnt going to post this as I dont believe a word of it but this came from a new neighbour...

He claims that we are struggling to free up cap space for Williams so he will be joining Wire on an 18 month deal before joining us at what would have been the end of his Canberra contract

If that’s true wow just wow.

Cap space where and on who? Unless Clubb is going to be revealed on marquee money

Like i said, i dont believe a word of it. How we cant find £75k is beyond me. i guess we will see eventually

There's no way wire would sign him on only an 18 month contract. Although i do think he needs a find a club(anywhere!)to play for until the end of this season or he is not going to be playing at the world Cup and that will make our slim chances practically anorexic!

Even if we can't, there's plenty of sides who would love to have him for the 2nd half of the year. We're talking what, 14 or so games??

All hypothetical numbers, but if say Wire offer him £80k for this season and £200k for the next, but he can only get £50k for this season at another club before coming to us, surely we could pay him £230k for the season after?

There's only two reasons why he won't come. 1 - we don't think he's worth what Wire offer him, or 2 he's doesn't want to come back.

If Wire offer him £80K for the remainder of this season then it will count as £160K on their cap theoretically, presuming we're at a halfway point.

But GW will still only walk away with £80k.

My point was more towards him not signing for us this season because we can't afford him. If there's other teams willing to take him for 6 months, then we can recoup any potential losses to GW in his 2022 deal with us.

There's been talk of that being one of those 'spirit of the cap' things like we were docked points for in 06.

Possible grey area, but one that I think other fans are pulling out as a bit of last straw.

We've seen other instances of players going to a team for a short spell, before they go to their next club. Not the same situation, but Taylor springs to mind as do Burgess going Roosters > Souths > Wigan.

Kinda shows how much of a mess the SC is. We aren't back loading his deal & we aren't paying him off the books. We're just talking about taking him on from 2022 and not for 2021.

GW will have a total deal value in his head i.e if what he wants either PCM, or total final amount. Whatever that value is, Wigan just need to get to that figure or closer to Wire.

I understand that but his cap value will be £160k. They will have to shed some players to fit him in for this season.

Are we talking about one team in particular here? I'm a little confused?

A few teams have expressed interest in him for this season. So i guess there are teams out there who do have that space and can bring him in.

All I'm saying is that for 2022, we "sort him out" to make sure he's not out of pocket and as a goodwill gesture to make sure he doesn't jump in bed with Wire.

Surely if we pay him a wage that will fit under the cap for this season as long as he is a marquee the following season we could pay the difference in his value over the course of his contract. The idea that such a poorly thought out idea as the marquee player is should be constrained by changing moral restraints is ridiculous. In that case the value of all players should be set by the Super League.
In fact the whole sport could be changed into a fantasy SL format with all players being given a nominal value and clubs being awarded a nominal wage pot forcing teams to change the playing squad as the season progresses. This could also allow for the draft that some are calling for and the redistribution of talent towards those clubs who do not produce their own.
Of course I am being facetious but I cannot be the only one who thinks that the sport as a whole needs a plan.

Nope

More complicated than that

To be fair I can understand their point with deferred payments (if that is indeed how they interpret it). If you sign someone for a quid for 6 months now then £239,999 next year, I can understand them saying that his cap value is £160k for both years (ie 6 months of £80k then 12 months of £160k).

Totally agree on that one.

That being said, it's muddy waters if he goes to another club for 6 months.

Forget the cap for a minute.

Why would wire want to sign him until the end of the season and then let him go to wigan?

If they're going to sign him then I expect they will want to do it for several seasons.

Add to that another question - if he signs an 18 month deal at Wire, why would we want him after that? He'd be 29ish and we'd have to sign someone to cover on a 1 year deal.

Also I read another Hooper article earlier that's part dig/part speculation that Williams might be going to another side in the NRL.

Can't help but feel that this will be one long saga.

He's on 'holiday' in the Gold Coast, apparently, he may well be staying in the NRL

Agree with your last sentence, maybe there is still rumbling over the being released to sort out before any announcement of where and when he may be going. But the one thing I will say all the different rumours are getting boring now, he said she said etc

Perhaps he's learned from his good mate, Budgie, who was all ready to come home until he realised there were nicer places in Aus, and so from the moment he got back here was whingeing about going down under again.