He was in Canberra to sort out his contract details. That Hooper fella is just making stuff up to justify his narrative.

Did that really happen, or did he say something along the lines of having unfinished business in Oz.

Not sure what the absolute aversion is for lads to want to try their arm in Aus? Let's face it, if you're at that level it's a the place to be. Look at someone like Graham or Burgess, their way of life is a million miles away from what they'd have here.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... 746044.amp Williams released.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... 746044.amp Williams released.

No he didn't, and certainly not in the way some like to portray it.

I don't understand it.

There's a list as long as my arm of ex players, many of whom have brought success to the club, that get snide remarks from our fans. Are some people really that fickle, or black and white?

Important to remember we're still sadly in the middle of a pandemic with little income for clubs. People often talk about the salary cap as if its the only financial issue at play. Ultimately it will probably come down to whether one of Wigan or Warrington's benefactors are willing to fund the signing and whilst it would be amazing if one of ours does do that, I don't think there should be any criticism if they don't. If Simon Moran throws the vault at George then so be it. Many fans on the cesspit of Twitter won't see it that way of course.

On the Hull site, one of our fans has posted saying of a rumour that Canberra might be signing Josh Reynolds from us next week.

If this is the case, there’s no way Adam Pearson would be selling without having another player lined up. So Williams would be a natural signing. I appreciate, he might want to come home to the West of the Pennines. From a salary perspective, if Reynolds did go, we’d have no problem fitting Williams within our cap.

He’s allegedly ruled Leeds out because it’s not in the Northwest so can’t see him going to Hull

Closer to the beach in Hull to be fair

More likely Austin to Hull to replace Reynolds then Williams to wire

The Wire defeat today could work against us. The rugby league live lads made a good point about how difficult it would be for Wire to get Austin to leave the club with a chance of a Wembley cup final on the horizon but it could be easier now, especially if a big club like Leeds offered him a decent deal for a few seasons.

I think we're all guilty of looking at this too deeply.

This looks like it will all come down to money and that, imo, paints GW in a bad light. Let's not forget that Wigan signed a deal, knowing he'd be NRL bound with 12 months left to go. Yeah it worked out for both parties, but Wigan did him a solid there.

Potentially signing with Wire is a FU to Wigan imo.

It could be another Shaun Edwards situation

I don’t begrudge any player getting as much money as he can from the game. These aren’t footballers and a gap in our deal to Wires of say 30/40k is huge and he’d be daft not to take it. I’d like to think if there wasn’t as much as that in the offers that he would come to us but ultimately the only way I’d be disappointed in the lad himself is if both clubs put the same deal on the table and he still went to Wire. Even then he could have his reasons for doing so. We joke about it always being Wires year but with Powell in charge they’ll go well over these next few seasons IMO and he might think his chances of success is better with them then with us.

Each to their own I guess, but imo, If someone is good to you and does you a favour, you don't throw it back in their face later.

We seem, as a sport, obsessed with telling lads to make as much money as they can. What ever happend to establishing a legacy at a club? I'd rather be a Radders and stick with a team that either stood by me or gave me a shot, than someone who chased the £.

I get your POV but I just don’t think lads can afford to work like that anymore. In football it really gets on my nerves when you see a lad and on 250k a week pushing for more money or choosing a transfer based solely on who will pay the most but these lads are on anything from 20k a year, up to the big earners like Williams who I guess will be looking at around 300k a year. In relative terms 30/40k is huge and would be tough to turn down when your career is so short.

I’ll also go back to the point that it may not just be about money for him. He genuinely may believe Wire are better placed to win things. He may also think Powell and his tactics can get the best out of him.

Who knows. I hope he does have that place in his heart for Wigan to walk away from more money at Wire. I don’t think Wigan should go OTT on an offer for him tbh. He’s a very good player but you could get comparable quality for less. Somebody like Sezer would be a very good pick up but the things Williams brings that somebody like Sezer doesn’t is that he’d be here for longer and he’d not take up as much cap space (even though he’d cost more).

I think there's a fine line between being smart and greedy.

If I was IL (easy to say when it isn't my money btw) I'd be making GW a competitive offer.

The money on the table might be less than Wire, but I'd also be reminding GW on how we got to this situation. We got there because the Wigan club gave him the opportunity. We picked him over another great prospect in Hampshire and gave him the platform. We also let him chase his NRL dreams too. The club have been good to him and now we again want to welcome him back and build a team around him and Smith. It's time to give a little back & you know what, Radders, SOL and Tommy are proof that we'll see you right after your career is over too.

They’ll weigh up the benefits I’m sure when it comes to deciding how high they’ll go. Him costing just 75k on the cap is huge ‘if’ we have they money to get up to what it will take. Having a quality halfback for at least 4-5 years is also massive, especially for me when I’ve been bemoaning the fact that the squad is constantly see players come and go and feels messy and complicated even further by the extended pre season breaks the two overseas lads got.

On the other side of it they’ll have to consider they don’t over pay to a ridiculous degree for a lad that is a very good player but not that good that you write blank cheques. They also need to make sure they don’t spend that much on him that we don’t get the couple of powerful forwards we desperately need. To sign Williams and blow the budget on him, to then play him on the back of what we have would be pointless. I’d rather Sezer and a couple of powerful forwards than getting Williams and Nathan Mason.

The "we" in that context is largely Shaun Wane, though, surely?

No. Wane picked him over Hampshire, IL signed the deal with the NRL break clause. There's others too...

Wane obviously had a big part to play, but to discount the other people at the club who have got him to where he is is wrong. The junior coaches that helped him develop, the s&c coaches who got him in shape etc. The "club" set him up. He took all that and did well, but as the saying goes - don't forget who helped you on you way up.

Go ask Darrell Goulding, Chris Melling, Liam Botham, Paul Prescott, Joe Mellor, Luke Davico, Phil Clarke what they think of that theory. All either had to retire early or had injuries which saw them dropped like a hot stone to the Championship. It's a short career, not brilliant money for most players and it could all be over in the space of one tackle. The club won't retain them out of sentiment and these guys have themselves and their families to provide for. I've absolutely no criticism for any of them who go to whoever is offering the best salary. Having said all that, I'm sure if the club have treated him well, he will factor that into his decision. I'm with the earlier poster in that I'd be disappointed if he went to Wire for a few grand more, but we will never know whether that's the case.

wasnt there a fund set up to stop people leaving for Ru, Radders was one who took the cash from there to stay along with Cunningham, yeah he wasnt about the £.....

I don’t understand the falsely laid belief that because “we made him” he must come back here and pay [ius [/iour dues. Let’s just get one thing straight here; GW owes us nothing, not a shred of loyalty. That’s not said in bad taste either but it’s a stark reality some need to start opening their eyes too.

We “made” Faz. We “made” Jason Robinson. They ran for the hills and the £££ when RU came calling. Rads only stayed because of the aforementioned fund of which he made a pretty penny. IIRC Faz left not long after the ‘wives paid hundreds of thousands of pounds’ as a cleaner debacle was uncovered.

These players have short careers, don’t get paid nearly enough and put their bodies through an incredible amount on a daily basis. I don’t begrudge any player chasing the money. Generally they’re at the bigger clubs who win trophies and therefore the 2 go hand in hand, it’s a win/win for GW. If I were him my decision would simply be down to who is paying the most between Wire and Wigan. If St Helens were in there I’d even throw them into the mix.

I want GW back at Wigan as much as anyone but as NK says we can’t break the bank for him to play behind a powder puff pack without the spare cash to sign the props we do desperately need. It’s not an easy choice to make for IL/KR.

I guess this is in response to my comment. Well, all I can say is that we all hear different stories. I certainly can’t confirm that when I hear tales about how difficult and irritating a certain group of friends have on occasion been behind the scenes at our club, it’s absolute fact. But I don’t think players should always be given the benefit of the doubt just because they have sometimes done great things on the field.

Do I want to see George Williams back? We’re going to need a halfback and he’s a great talent. I doubt he’d perform at his NRL standard if he returned, because no one seems to. Even a Trojan like Bateman is a shadow of what he was, but we’d look ridiculous if GW went somewhere else.

For me the biggest priority is finding a new coach. Lammy’s time here has been devastated by the Covid crisis, but even though we have a good win/lose ratio on paper, we all know that our current performances are full of glaring weaknesses.

As a matter of priority, we need a Graham Lowe-type coach. Not necessarily a revolutionary innovator (though that would be nice) but a disciplinarian, and this ties in with what I said before. Someone who will whip our boys into shape and get the best out of them (much as Madge did with Noble’s underachieving team), and ensure that they are all committed to the Wigan cause for the duration of their contracts whether they want to be or not.

The longer this goes on without an announcement, the more it reminds me of what happened with David Myers. I believe Williams will end up with Wigan, even if we have signed him.