Maybe Wilkinson would have been a good signing about 5 years ago, but now? you've got to be kidding. The pinnacle of Rugby Union is the international game, playing on an international stage with the international media taking a serious interest.
Players used to come from union to league mainly for the money. Now that they earn more in union why would they bother? It's hardly rocket science.
Until we have a serious international set-up then no decent union players will ever consider making the move across. That would mean taking a gamble on young union players and i'd rather see the money spent on nurturing the players we already have...

Saying something at a forum (not even on the stage at the forum) to a few people is very different from the superleague show. ~ there must be at least two dozen watching that



He has had loads of opportunity to talk about this on air.


Whatever the reason and what ever the timing...
IT IS PLAIN STUPIDITY.

I reckon a lot of people would be curious to see how some Union players would go in SL but that's got to be about as far as anyone's willing to consider it. The idea that each club should be given a directive from the RFL/SL is just bonkers.

Thing is, even if the big money was on offer for these Union lads to give RL a go, surely there's got to be a suspcion that most will be coming for exactly that reason, and not - as they did in the past - for the challenge of playing the game.

...Out of curiosity alone tho, I'd like to see Joe Worsley playing SL.

The RU can keep Worsley, he's hugely overrated.
Ben Cohen would have been a good'un to have on the wing in his prime and so too Josh Lewsey. Lewsey would have been an awesome full back.

[iThere is nothing to stop RL clubs going for these players now. The idea there should be some sort of salary cap subsidy so we can discount part of their salaries is stupid. If without such a subsidy it is deemed the salary cap is too small then it needs increasing. But the notion an RU player who has never played the game can get higher wages than an RL player just because the RU player signed from the other sport is ludicrous. You may as well tell all the young RL players to go and play union first then they can come back on a higher wage.
[/i
Dave'"

they only ever came for the cash.

Seems the type of player we would go for,

Past his best
Wants a bag full of cash
Injury prone

Dont even joke about it mate

It's either laugh or cry and I know which one I'd prefer

Well if were going for RU players i'll take the irish fullback Kearney please

The player he was after was Andy Powell of Wales in the off season. Powell was coming off contract at the end of the union season. Powell is more than likely the best handling forward in union. Also hes big and agile for his size.

Hes a better player than any loose forward or second row we have. Wilkinson was a rumor started on here. As for O'Driscoll hes one heck of a player and would better any SL side.

Noble's suggetion re union players is not as daft as people think. It would give the game a massive publicity boost as well as letting union know it can also be raided.

Someone mentioned that if we took 50k off then union would take 200k off. Union in England is not as financially viable as people might think. Half of the clubs are now struggling financially and most of the other clubs need owners with deep pockets. Dont be fooled by the International side getting massive gates part of that is used to finance the premiership in union. Also the RFU had said it will now stop signning league players as its costing too much. I can see a time where a European league is formed with some of the English clubs going into it. Similar to what hapened in Wales when clubs were forced to merge.

Union in Wales is run by the WRU and its they who make up part of the players contract to keep them in Wales.

Our problem is that to keep clubs like Castelford, Wakefield etc alive we must play the game by their spending rules.

Nobles problem is that hes not using our own talent never mind unions. Put Ainscough on the wing and let Pat go to full back. Apart from Webb hes the best SL full back. If were not gonig to put the ball out wide then why waste Richards out wide. As for Tomkins well Nobles future i think hangs on his decision to play him or not. Either way if this decision goes wrong then Noble might be in a precarious position.

Come on Nobby, get real. Next you will saying you will have to pick players from the Reserves because the first team are not up to it.

Wigan's top five try scorers of all time were all former Union men.
Billy Boston, Martin Offiah, Brian Norgren, Trevor Lake & Johny Ring.
We haven't got wingmen in RL remotely close to their ability.
Boston never played for Wales and Offiah never played for England. Two of the best wingers to play Rugby League.
We should go for Union players and no need for those in 6 nations who are on TV and have high salaries.
There are plenty around in the GP clubs who would be very good at RL and affordable.
The RFL/SL clubs have never come to terms with Union professionalism and it's about time they did.
When I started watching Wigan we had Boston, Saints had Vollenhoven & Leeds had Lewis Jones.
Now we've got Roberts, Saints have Gardner & Leeds have McGuire. FFS!
Noble is right!

Whatever happened to your Winger that left WIGAN and went to SALE - someone called ROBINSON - Did he make it in UNION

I agree with you, but I take other posts on board too. It would rankle with our home-grown League lads if clubs were granted financial dispensation to spend a lot of money on Union boys. Only if such a move was brought in alongside a dispensation to pay extra money to players signed from our own Academies would this come close to being viable. As well as encouraging our clubs to develop their own talent, at the same time they'd be encouraged to raid Union for other British talent. I'd love such a situation to come around, but unfortunately it would mean the salary cap was half way to being ditched, which wouldn't suit the vast majority of our poverty stricken SL.

Maybe a more realistic project would be to set up a system whereby our clubs are granted dispensation to pay extra money to existing SL players who are being targetted by Union. We used to do something similar, and it enabled us to keep hold of Radlinski, Cunningham and, for a time at least, Farrell. It would certainly have enabled us to keep hold of Chris Ashton. And before anyone tries to claim that this is now a thing of the past, I'd respectfully remind you that young Thornley is already being courted by Sale.

As is Sean Ainscough.

You don't half talk some rubbish at times. When Boston and Offiah came over they were not International players and were involved in an amateur game.

RU players of the level they were at are now earning wages at least as comparable as to what RL could afford to offer so what is the incentive to switch? None I would say. Unless we adopt the ludicrous notion of over-paying them compared to comparable RL olayers already in the game



But suppose we did find another Offiah in the RU ranks and got him to play RL? What do you think would happen next? Well I will tell you, RU would simply poach him back again.

Star players in RU routinely earn salaries of £250K so it would be no problem for them to get their ex-players back if they felt like it.

But Noble wasn't on about signing unknowns anyway he was on about the O'Driscoll class of player and that is a none starter given what they earn and can achieve in their sport.

So just what is the point of signing a more average RU player? About the same as signing an average NRL instead of a top class one like Barrett player IMO. None.

There are hundreds of kids playing the game who if given the chance would love to play RL professionally I am sure. Noble is barking up the wrong tree and should be supporting moves to limit overseas players and develop British talent. Given his seeming lack of faith in his own teams young players it comes as no surprise he favours trying to find ready made alternatives.

Dave

He would never come as we could not afford him, £50K subsidy or not.



Que the French:

[urlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/my_club/london_wasps/7893734.stm[/url

Given the RU salary cap leaks anyway and Wasps are concerned it is too restrictive there seems plenty of money to pay to their higher salary cap and if that isn't enough the French do not operate a cap so even more money is available to top players. That may leave second string RU players occupying the top spots in English clubs but then they would still be earning more then we could pay.

Dave

The biggest threat to union now is the French. If the cap gets increased or removed then clubs like Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle etc will go bankrupt quickly. They are now getting England players as well as southern hemesphere players.

The problem is if clubs go bust there are no other clubs that can step in and run a full time pro outfit in the premiership. That will leave a large number of players used to a salary with no club to take them.

10 years ago in Wales we had approx 8 proffesional clubs. Now there are 4 regional full time sides. That means over half the players who were paid to play full time were either let go or stayed with the clubs but are now amateur.

Its quite ironic the french having a free run to sign whoever they want as only 1 of the french side made it out of the pool groups to the knockout phase of the Heineken Cup. Also France dont have as many pro clubs as England have so the international money is divided between a smaller number of clubs. The best union player Dan Carter took a 5 month contract with a french side. the money they are using will i thnk eventually force England to only have 4-5 professional sides as they cant maintain the domestic game by using international money.

An approach was made to Powell as he was until last season mainly regarded as a sevens player. Last season he improved greatly in the international scene.

Its mentioned in todays express that english rugby union is hampered by having a salary cap of £4 million! how can they compete with the big spending french rugby union! If this number for the premiership is correct rugby league is never going to compete with that. Noble is talking rubbish!

If this number for the Premiership is correct, but they then act to widen it even more in order to compete with the French, it won't matter what Noble says - Rugby League will cease to exist.

Had Union been weaker it would be a good idea based on the reasons above. As it is, I don't see how clubs can afford to bring in an international player. If they earn 300k in Union, how much would it cost for them to defect? I would imagine at least double probably triple...

Even then, Union are likely to counter the move.

That means that clubs could only realistically pick players who aren't good enough to be internationals or taking a punt on young players who haven't proven their potential yet.

I am not sure how it could ever possibly work.

Noble's idea of one Union player per club would not affect youth development. It is separate.
The fact is Union players can make it in League in terms of ability and those I mentioned proved it. Quite a few on here believe that Union players would never make it. How wrong can you be!
Money makes things different very obviously but why would Union take a player back who they never looked at in the first place. Perhaps he wasn't suited to Union. They miss an awful lot of talent, especially England.
When our leading clubs have financial turnovers of £5.5-7m a year the salary cap of £1.6m is a massive under investment in player development.
Once that has been addressed we can have far better youth development and look around Union for that one player per club. We can quite easily do both provided the resources are made available. The Super League clubs will not increase the £1.6m in the near future so we will continue to struggle in player development.
The fundamental reason we do not have sufficient British players being developed is financial under investment by Super League clubs.
The World Cup showed us that we do not have enough players to chose an Intl Squad from and subsequently not enough Intl class players.
We are told the RFL are to publish a report into England's failure and it will be interesting to see their recommendations as how to increase player production. That's if they make such recommendations which I very much doubt.

it basically says better players get paid more, if a club wants to sign an RU player on £300k a year, its no different to going and spending £300k on a Barrett or Lockyer or Thurston

the problem is the risk, and in that area what noble said has a lot of validity

Shane Williams maybe an outstanding RL winger, he could come over and be the best in the world,

he could not, it could take him a year to learn the game, an SL club under the SC simply cannot take that risk, to start the season £3-400k below all the other teams because it is taken up by a player still learning the game would be disasterous for any SL club,

which is why they dont do it, it isnt down to their wages, we can compete for most players, its the risk they represent,

just as an aside you could put out an entire 3/4er line of england players who havent come through the RL system, and it would probably be the best england backline of the past 5 years,

we have brought through 0 world class three-quarters in SL, our best centre of the SL era was an RU player, our best winger was a Gaelic Footballer,

facts are we need to address that fact, and also start competing for the players who have the natural ability in those positions, at the moment RU get most of them

or players in between, players with natural talents in who maybe better suited to RL than RU, Varndell would probably be more suited to RL, but he is probably on £100k in RU, which would be a big risk for an RL side, Armitage is in a similar position, there are players like Doherty and Ashton who could be tempted back, Ojo Monye and strettle could make fine RL wingers

there are plenty of fringe RU players who maybe better suited, but no one can ever take a punt on them because it simply costs too much under the SC,

how much poorer would our three-quarter depth be without Raynor and Senior?