If a player says they don’t want to play for you there’s very little point signing them. Perhaps we have negotiated a fee with Warrington?

It is disappointing that after treating a player so well we get let down though I don’t really begrudge Williams chasing the money in a short career.

The club need to treat this as a lesson and have no more NRL get out clauses in contracts. If you sign a deal you honour it.

There was a time when that statement was so true but now to try and get it to work you need to include two players who haven't even signed for Warrington yet plus a kid who was signed to play for the reserves, played twenty minutes for Warrington's first team before being released on loan for for his contract to run out.

Also somewhat ironically you try to throw this old chestnut out in the week when England name a squad containing as many Warrington Academy products as it does from Wigan's Academy.

I'm surprised Wigan have let him go to Wire without demanding a fee, if that is the case.
When Iestyn Harris signed for Bradford after his stint in Union, Leeds received a large fee due to him breaking a similar agreement.
I agree with the post above, this decision says a lot about Williams. Allowed to leave his contract early to go to Aus, gets homesick so breaks his contract with Canberra, then reneged on his agreement with Wigan. Not a good look.

The fact of all this I Williams doesn't want to play for the club so why bother with him . Allow him to make the mistake of going to wire. He will soon realise it never becomes the year of the Wolf's!!!



Bye Bye George

Agreed.

Are you claiming Toby King as well?



Ryan Sutton and Oliver Gildart would also be in the squad usually.

Christ alive there’s not half some bitterness and delusional posts on this thread.

Players are allowed to sign where they want. The “come back to us please” clause is pathetic and it always was, I’m glad we’ve been burned by it. GW achieved everything with Wigan and gave us loyal service throughout his time here. Alongside money he’s probably looked at the direction Warrington are heading in and the direction Wigan are heading in - both massive ticks for the Warrington club.

I hope some posters remember their posts here when we snare a clubs star homegrown player who left said homegrown club years earlier to reject said hometown club to sign for Wigan. It seems to be fine if we do it but anyone else and the player was never any good anyway. Hypocrites everywhere.

That's just the way it works when you support a team always has and always will

Some toxic comments on here. Short sport RL and he's clearly had a better offer. The agreement was probably something as daft as Wigan has first refusal, unless another club offers more, then up to the player...

Give your head a wobble. Everyone in the week accused me of not being in the real world and needing to look at this from a business POV. Imagine if this happened in the real world and you broke any other kind of contract that you'd signed.

The club (by the sounds of it) had a legally binding deal, which they could have taken him to court over. Someone mentioned the Harris Leeds/Bradford deal. Another example might also be Solomona too.

It looks like the rat has been very lucky that they club haven't claimed damages over this. Reading comments like yours & others about how it 'appears' the club is on a decline, people not renewing season tickets, plus the fact Wire are a competitor means the club would have a pretty strong case.

We should 100% have taken him to court. Just like Leeds did and just like Cas did.

The rat, really?

And what would taking him to court have got us? A moral victory? This letting our players go to the NRL and making a deal so they come back was ridiculous to begin with. This was always going to happen eventually.

The club doesn’t ‘appear to be on a decline’. It is on a decline. We’re targeting championship/low SL standard players using them to replace top level SL&NRL players, continuing with a coach who is worse than Ian Millward and patently didn’t do enough/can’t afford to bring back GW. Doesn’t read like we’re surging up hill that does it?

Rather than wobbling my head it’s about time you got your fingers out your ears, mask off listen and look as to what’s going on. If IL and KR don’t invest heavily in the coaching staff as well as playing squad somewhere around 5th will be our level next season.

In what alternative reality are you trying to suggest that Toby King isn't a Warrington Academy product

It's about enforcing contracts and not being negligent as a business.

The place I work for have a standard clause in everyone's contract about not going to a competitor for a min of three months post employment. I can't just ignore that, I've signed the contract and I'm bound to it. If I did, the firm will take me to court over it - not because of a "moral victory", or even because they'd want me back but because it protects their business and defends their position.

If I have any type of contract, I can't just end it without either paying an exit fee or having some kind of repercussion. Regardless of if I've got a child on the way, or have found a deal that's more beneficial to myself.

It's pretty basic adult stuff this.

Thank you for proving my point on the reputational damage too. The club tried to sign GW, but not signing him now means people like you think "we only sign championship level players". If we'd have signed GW that wouldn't have been the case. Let's also not talk about the irony of you moaning about the level of players we sign on a thread about us trying to sign GW. The fact we were in for him, is hard proof of the players we're trying to sign.

The club obviously thought GW wasn't worth what Wire offered him. That's not a club on a decline, it's just simple business. We're negotiating with other players at the min, what happens is Bibby says he wants a £1m, by your logic we'll just pay it with no thought of if he's worth it.

Just because your place of work would chase you through the courts, doesn’t mean Wigan should. I also never said GW didn’t sign purely for money so why you’ve tried to put a strange Bibby comparison in there is beyond me. You might want to start reading and taking in what I’m saying properly.

If GW hadn’t have left Canberra we’d still be targeting Championship/Lower SL level players (another part you conveniently missed out). Him becoming available meant we targeted a genuine world class level player by absolute chance which didn’t come off. You can try and spin I moan about the level of players we sign or try to sign all you wish but the fact remains; with or without GW, signing Thornley, Mason, Miski to replace players such as Hastings and Gildart with the likelihood of French joining them out the exit door, whilst not targeting the type of forwards we need will not win us trophies but will send us to 5th.

You, for some bizarre reason, clearly believe the club isn’t on the decline. My logic is clear; Wigan wasn’t an attractive proposition for GW both in terms of potential future success and in all likelihood financial terms. With a coach like Lam, his potential future team mates and a lower wage on offer why would he choose Wigan? If we had a decent coach and a good set of team mates to play with even with a lower wage he may well have chosen Wigan.

I’ve said it multiple times we’ll move on with someone else, probably Smith & Field. We won’t know any different given he’s been gone for nearly 2 seasons and the money we would invest in GW can go elsewhere like where it’s needed.

Why shouldn't we take him to court? Should Leeds not have taken Bradford to court, or should Cas not have done what they did to Solomona?

Also your direct wording was "[ididn’t do enough/can’t afford to bring back GW.[/i". How do you know they couldn't afford him? What if they could afford him, but didn't think he was worth it? Hence my comment about Bibby. There's a world of difference between not being able to afford something and not wanting to pay more than you should.

I'm not even going to bother with the rest. As plenty of people have pointed out - you, me or anyone else have no idea who we're targeting. There's only been one target that we can 100% be sure about and that's GW. The rest are rumours and speculation. I'll happily have an opinion once everything is complete, otherwise it's pretty pointless.

You don't sound very confident about this "legally binding deal". Maybe any agreement was as legally binding as the one Wigan had with Shaun Edwards.

Depends what you class as a "product of" considering he was signed from another club's academy. I wouldn't be surprised if he spent more time in Huddersfield's academy than Warrington's considering it wasn't long until he was promoted to first team.

Quote ="Wigg'n"Depends what you class as a "product of" considering he was signed from another club's academy. I wouldn't be surprised if he spent more time in Huddersfield's academy than Warrington's considering it wasn't long until he was promoted to first team.'" You do know that it is Toby not George who has been selected for England? https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... ld-6869764

Quote ="Wigg'n"Depends what you class as a "product of" considering he was signed from another club's academy. I wouldn't be surprised if he spent more time in Huddersfield's academy than Warrington's considering it wasn't long until he was promoted to first team.'" You do know that it is Toby not George who has been selected for England? https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... ld-6869764

Slating of GW over this is ridiculous…

1. Possibly better money at Warrington.

2. Certainly a better (and new) challenge at Warrington.

3. Great opportunity to raise his rep further in a different environment.

4. Chance to work with a coach who I personally think coaches a side in such a manner that GW would run riot if all goes well.

5. Maybe/almost certainly not really a signing we (IL/KR) wanted or needed to make for loads of reasons (big wages regardless of what others were offering, squad investment more important in other positions, etc etc).

I don’t believe for a minute if it didn’t suit our agenda we wouldn’t make more of a fuss about the breaking of this “agreement”.

Watch him sign for Leeds now!

Wigan have allowed Williams to sign for another SL club. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/57534630

Wigan have allowed Williams to sign for another SL club. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/57534630

Having first option isn't a legal binding agreement that he must sign for us. It just means we speak to him first. The legal bit must be in the last week because as i believed it he was a 95% signed sealed and delivered Wigan player but Warrington stuck a huge 11th hour offer into him. It must be something to do with that. Who cares anyway, we have much bigger problems than a vastly overrated HB.

Quote ="Paul Youane"You do know that it is Toby not George who has been selected for England? https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... ld-6869764'" Fair point I did but always thought Toby was the older one for some reason.

Quote ="Paul Youane"You do know that it is Toby not George who has been selected for England? https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... ld-6869764'" Fair point I did but always thought Toby was the older one for some reason.

Who wins? No one. Other than for some bitters to grin on the couch and go “take that ye little barstool” if we got the ruling in our favour? Nah.



I don’t, like you don’t. But if you look at who we’re being linked with, who we’re letting go and what coach and back room staff we’re still running with the “can’t afford him” comment rings true. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. Unlike some I’ve no qualms about saying I was wrong about something. Your comment about Bibby is still a bizarre comparison however way you want to try and spin it now and you know it.



Sound.

I let him off the hook. Not for the first time I’ve saved him his money.
Although if he’d had pm’d me for a bet, I’d have raised the stakes.