We seem to have gone off topic. No more please.

Yes

Because it would have been brianha Taylor or Deante Wright or one of the other hundreds of disproportionate Police killings that would have triggered it.
Its a time bomb thats been waiting to go off and George Floyd was the straw so to speak. Its too nuanced a conversation to be held on a simplistic one line back and forth basis but surely events of the last 6months in this country have shown that full blown racism, casual racism and other forms of bigotry haven't gone away.
Me personally, my family, it doesn't affect me that much, but with only a little bit of research, a little bit of open mindedness, a little bit of empathy, I can see that it does affect a lot ofnother people.
I don't consider that I "Have to put up" with any of it, as I say i feel that Galloways can sell their pies and also send out a message that they or their staff feel is necessary to support a cause without feeling enraged. They can put a jar on the counter for cancer research, the local scout club etc without me telling them that I'm not interested in what their interested in I just want to buy a pie and if they don't stop doing it I won't buy a pie. Of course you don't have to buy a pie, but that's up to you, if you want to put a donation in, buy a flag pin etc that's OK, if you don't you don't. But stopping buying a pie even though you agree that stopping cancer or supporting the local.scout hut is a good thing is a bit "i really don't know what word to use here, but I'll go with strange"".
But thats ok

What I would say is that the rates of disproportionate black deaths at the hands of police, racism on twitter, homophobic hate crimes, etc etc etc is still happening.
You can view that as the campaigns aren't working so what was the point
Pr
You can view it as iys still happening we must try even harder

I know which one I'm behind

Apologies
I was writing my reply whilst you posted this
Consider me done

This is mainly for people who frequent the other site to take back as they seem to be taking the transcripts literally, but please note there was maybe 5/10% missing from the transcripts

On the GW contract situation
Its again more complicated than IL said we offered GW this, yet we haven't got enough money so its a contradiction

He explained that with GW counting only 75k on the cap we could have fit him easy, of the ring fenced money for a half back is a non trained player then of that player costs 150 the whole amount counts
Coupled with Hastings going doesn't mean the whole of his money is free as some may have ben allocated for contract increases for younger players etc its a rather more complicated situation than "it doesn't just add up", which, only stands if we knew the exact figures each and every player is earning this year and what they will be earning next year.

I'd be more worried why Williams didn't want to come back.

Years ago we were the club that thw best wanted to play for and the academy products only left if we wanted them to leave.

Then we turned into a club where our academy products left to join the NRL/Union but we always had first dibs on them, always brought them back - Sam Tomkins, Joel Tomkins, Lee Mossop, John Bateman, Joe Burgess.

Have we now turned into a club where players leave and don't want to return? Will Ryan Sutton and Oliver Gildart ever come back?

Williams can talk ‘fresh challenge’ all he wants but he’s gone for one reason only IMO.

I can’t see Sutton coming back to the UK full stop. I read he loves it over there and saw talk of citizenship and the like. As for Gildart, as and when he comes back I’m not sure I’d go for him. It depends where we stand at that time in regards to three quarters but his value for money these past two seasons has been awful. He wouldn’t be cheap and he’s admitted he’ll carry a shoulder problem through the rest of his career. I can’t help be a bit cynical about how he’s managed games (or lack of) this season. That probably harsh but it feels like he’s trying his best to avoid anything major before next season.

M_ _ _ _

Not many are saying it doesn’t add up because of Hastings salary.

You’re probably refer to a post I made where I highlighted a few contradictions. To summarise, the club saying the cost of Covid and reduced Sky money will hit the squad but then saying they offered Williams the biggest deal in 149 years of the club.

Doesn't mean we aren't still operating within our budget.

Don't forget that we've had a salary cap for 20+ years so until the marquee rule there wouldn't be that many 'huge' deals. It could literally be £1 more than Hastings (or whoever)

I am not talking about the salary cap and the details around marquee, home grown dispensation etc.

I just think its a contradiction to say our Squad will take a hit financially because of Covid but then offer Williams the biggest contract the club has ever given.

I appreciate signing Williams may have resulted in not signing other players (And there be an overall salary saving), but that would be at the expense of the squad, which I am sure we all agree has lots of holes for next year.

Budget and salary cap are two totally different things.

Due to the salary cap though, I would say that ""the biggest contract in our history" isn't actually as big as people are thinking.

I'm struggling to understand why he was allowed to walk away from a legally binding agreement and join our closest rivals to challenging Saints for nothing. We should have received a "settlement" from either GW or Warrington Wolves. Going forward, this makes any future first option agreements worthless as the precedent has been set.

I would imagine the legally binding bit would’ve been on the basis that we would have to at least match financially what he was being offered elsewhere. Then, and only then, should he still have chosen not to sign back would we have basis to push a “settlement”.

I don’t get what the uproar is about, nor the pelters that GW is getting from some of our bitter fans. It didn’t work for us, it didn’t work for him…so realistically it’s best all round that he didn’t come back and play here. Great player, gutted as anyone else that he’s not with us. Yes, he may be getting paid more, but I don’t believe that to be the sole reason for him not being here, nor the sole reason for him choosing Warrington…I would think he’s getting paid marginally more by Warrington on the back of a) them being able to afford it, and b) for the reason detailed in the first bit of my post.

Fully agree

How do you propose that happens?

We had a legally binding contract for him to sign with us. We decided not to use this option as IL/KR didn’t want a player who didn’t want to sign for us.

Ignoring the legal and contractual challenges of this, in simple terms if Warrington said they aren’t paying a fee then we end up with a player who doesn’t want to be here and who has the biggest contract in the clubs history (only taking up £75k on the cap, a marquee spot but costing the club a lot)

Whilst there may be an element of truth to the new challenge, of course it is and he will go down in their history if he helps them to win the grand final.

But you have to accept money played a part, how much in % terms I am unsure.

He was offered Wigan’s biggest ever contract, there are also rumours Warrington are paying him £60k per year more than we offered and also rumours he’s the highest paid in super league.

Money defo played a part.

But when you think of it, other than him being from Wigan, why else would he come back? Warrington are in a far better position than us currently across all areas other than academy. Also has the benefit of being very close to him.

Or he sits in limbo and doesn't get paid by anyone, until a fee is paid. Whilst it's not the same situation, in sure Leeds did something like that with Segeyaro.

OT, but I'm not sure how GW manages to function with so many Wigan fans inserted up his rectum. The love-in from our fans is sickening. There are players (like Smith) who actually play for the club and get more stick from our fans, than a guy who sacked us off and signed for one of our biggest rivals.

I’m tired of the whole GW to Warrington rage TBH. Whether he signed for money or something else or money and something else - why does it matter now? It’s happened, it’s been and gone and it’s high time some of us stopped banging on about it. I loved GW when he was here, I criticised him as well at times granted but as soon as he left that ‘love in’ ended. He stopped being of relevance as he wasn’t a Wigan player.

We should be concentrating on the players we have here and now rather than ones who went elsewhere.

Agreed he’s not on my radar anymore good luck to him

I'm sure some of those were helping his arms up to cup his ears as he celebrated scoring the winning try for his new love against the club who developed him. No doubt we'll see an act of badge kissing next time he scores against us.

I agree with the first point - let him sit out the season if neither GW nor WW were prepared to pay a release fee - thats a lot of £ he'd have lost between July and December.

Sometimes the Daniel Levy approach to player contracts is needed - this was one time where I believe it was.

How on earth would that happen.

Doesn’t officially sign for us but we block a move unless Wire pay a fee.

He either signs for us (via his choice or enforcing legal contract) OR he can leave for another club.

Maybe the club should have inserted transfer fee into the legal part of his obligation to return / first refusal. But you cannot just chuck it in now.

ATEOTD, none of us know what was in the legal document and what it entailed so it's a pointless conversation.

I've said that Segeyaro was an example of Leeds refusing him to sign for another side until they came to an agreement. Granted they are different circumstances, but if a club wants to they can be very difficult.

I don't know all the details of each individual case or specific contract details so I'm not going to say the club should have done x, y or z in any given scenario. However I do feel that the club has become something of a 'soft touch' over recent years. We rarely seem to get the better end of being the nice guys. In fact I'm struggling to think of a single example of where that's worked in our favour.

It does appear that way but it could just be that the times it does come off don’t make the news / rumours / forums.

The weird thing with all this supposed ‘too nice’ stuff by Lenagan and Rads is my partner worked for one of Lenagans companies for years and she certainly didn’t find him a soft touch and nor did the rest of the staff. She thinks he’s as hard faced as they come and people were on edge around him.

Maybe he rolls over because they’re rugby players and he admires them or maybe we just didn’t have an agreement that was worth the scrap of paper it was scribbled on.