The SC has basically brought the bigger clubs, down to the smaller clubs level.

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... codes.html

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... codes.html

£200K for a gingerbread man. Fair play to them if they're stupid enough to pay it.

So at the end of 2011 they could lose Graham, Eastmond & Pryce.
They will take some replacing.
By like who I wonder?

Anyone who's good enough will also be on RU's shopping list.

There's no way Eastmond is worth £200,000, but it would be a damn shame to see yet another promising talent join the ' now we'll never know' crowd.

That said, if the Saints fans themselves don't seem to care - which, thus far, they don't - why should we?

ive heard a rumour that richie myler is going to one of the hull sides on loan for the year anybody else no anything ?

I heard Andrew Johns is coming out of retirement to replace him.

If nothing else, that should teach him some humility.

I wonder what position Eastmond would play in RU. He is a very elusive runner with lightning acceleration, but from what I can remember seeing of him, he hasn't got a good enough pass to be a RU scrum half, neither does he strike me as a RU fly half/stand off. He may become a Jason Robinson type full back - but I do wonder if he is physically up to it.

It would be another tragedy if we were to lose Eastmond, while I agree he is not worth £200k his legacy is. Basically what we are advocating is a year in League can get you top cash in Union, which could be devastating to an already too small pool of British players.

If such a brittle player like Eastmond is worth £200k per season in Union then how much for Sam Tomkins? £300-400k per season?

Good job we tied him up to a long deal (till Nov 2014), but should he play regularly out of his skin till 2014 then we'd struggle to keep him I reckon. Unless we raise his current deal in twelve months time to increase till end 2016.

All these union clubs are just taking chances with our young players who are not proven and are just hoping to strike gold. Our code should remember this when they want to come back if it goes wrong for them in yawnion if i was wigan id offer eastmond £130,000 a season.

If he was offered £130k he could well be the highest paid player at the club.
At present he is injured and not worth it.
He will be considering Union due to the cash of course but there is his injury problem.
Perhaps he's seen how Hape and Big Les have gone in Union.
They were both smashed up in league. Neither could train and couldn't play 80 mins when they left.
Now they are in Union, years later, are still going and Hape is an England Intl.
Perhaps he's drawn to Union as much for a less intense game, contact and possible injury, as well as the cash.
Wigan should stay well away and leave it between Saints and Union.

Thats a crazy sum of money. I told a Saints fan that Sale will be in for him a few months back but they called me an idiot and look now. He's from Oldham and Sale is much closer than Saints is. I'd hate to see another young RL player go but to be fair he would, frankly, be an idiot to reject the Sale offer never mind that Bath one. 150k or 200k to play an easier less intense and less risky game injury wise? He'd get a third of that at Saints now at the very best (Sale's price not Bath's). They will probably be long term contracts too knowing Union.

Its not gonna happen because there are so many teams spending nowhere near the cap coz they cant afford it so aint gonna vote to change the rules to disadvantage themselves. Plus some teams will have such low turnovers that their cap would be something like 1 mil tops. Think Crusaders and Salford theyd never vote for it because their cap would drop.

Unsurprisingly, the usual responses are already starting to appear from the usual suspects. They range from "he hasn't gone anywhere yet" to "he's crap anyway" to "good on him if he can get so much money" to "he's crocked, so it doesn't matter" to "Let him go, RL can't afford to bankrupt itself chasing dreams" (I kid you not!!!!), to "it still isn't an exodus of talent" to "we'll just produce another one" to "we don't need megastars, this will create an opportunity for an unknown kid" ...

What more needs to be said? If other clubs don't care about losing their best players, I just hope Wigan can find some way to tie up their own. Let everyone else do their bit to improve prospects for the game's unknown kids (and for England RU, who will later sign those unknown kids when they too become stars), while we concentrate on trying to win some cups in the short time left this game has to exist as a major sport.

I've not seen or heard any saints fan say "he's crap anyway" but most saints fans are worried that he won't live up to his potential as he's never fit. He's not played much rugby in the last two seasons.

IMO he's not anywhere near worth £200,000 a season and we couldn't justify giving him anywhere near that due to not seeing enough of him at the top level.

What I don't like about the whole episode is, it looks like he is using saints as a stepping stone to a big money move to RU. The feeling I get is , he is totally money motivated which is hard to blame but our great club in the past has had the likes of longy, scully, kc and roby all stay loyal.

While I think he has potential to be great player and would be a loss to rugby league, I wouldn't to concerned as the is also no room for big time Charlies at saints.

I think for the money Kyle is looking for we would be able to bring a top class ball playing scrumhalf.

RU will suite Kyle as he don't look up to the rough and tough of super league at this moment ( that may change).

Only time will tell but if Kyle wants to go for the big money move then saints should transfer list him now and sell.

Just because you read this on the internet doesn't make it true.

Has Phelps signed for anyone yet? He's a bit of a jack of all trades but I didn't think he'd have trouble getting a gig another SL side.

Surely Salford have got room for another ex-Wiganer.

Thought Salford had filled their quota up

I think he's back in Oz, but haven't heard of him being picked up by anyone, either here or over there.

Wow that is shocking given how highly people rated him on here.

I feel sorry for the lad, but I don't think he was ever signed by Wigan to be anything more than a stop-gap.

He was a nice guy who brought a lot of enthusiasm to the team, but some comments on here - about him being the best fullback in the competition, or being better than Roberts (and all on the basis of a couple of gutsy performances) - were a bit on the silly side.

Correct Cruncher. What amazed me the most were these comments about how good he was at fullback even [iafter[/i people had seen Amos Roberts and Sam Tomkins play at fullback. There is simply no comparison and I was dumbfounded that some people could be so blinded as to how so-so Phelps was.

Like you say, a nice lad, full of enthusiasm, but sadly he just lacks the natural ability to play this game at the highest level - certainly at fullback. I do hope he finds a club and has a bright future somewhere else.