I think he has had 2 spells behind bars, no chance of him getting a visa.

Just a thought with no substantiation but.......

If IFL is going to bring in a new head coach ( which is almost a certainty ) then does anyone think this is why IFL has said we will go with the same squad again given the amount of players that are off contract the end of next season.

That way the new coach will spend 1 season assesing what he has got before deciding who to keep and who to let go so that the team becomes his team. iE minimal changes but the players that are brought in are the new coaches players and not those of his predisesor. In that way the team will become the new coaches team very quick rather than a sqaud of players chosen by his predisesor.

I think it's self-evident that our main recruitment plan for next year has been affected by the visa thing. Clearly it was going to be Carl Webb, but that's now not going to happen.

My reading of the rest of our proposed recruitment is that it wasn't going to have been extensive anyway. IL may be interested in seeing what a new higher quality coach can get out of our underperforming squad, and I don't think that's a bad idea if an offshoot of it is that yet more youngsters are brought through and given a chance.

If IL was serious when he said that from now on we're only interested in overseas buys if they're from the top drawer, then I'm in favour of this policy. But at present, we do need a strong prop, and - whatever the reason - that's one area where we've currently failed.

He Never said we were'nt sigining anyone.

Would i be right that he said we havnt signed anyone yet. That may be because of the 1st Sept transfer deadline. That doesnt mean we havent agreed terms with a player for a contract to be signed after this date

I think it's well thought if we do say bring in McGuire for 2010, it allows him to look at everybody and maybe even try a few kids, so come the end of 2010 it's his decision as to who we keep and who we let go plus with a year under his belt any weaknesses in the team he can spot and then patch in preparation for 2011.

A lot of these signings being mentioned such as Webb and Moi Moi are never in a million years going to get a visa, so for me Lenegan is doing the right thing by not wasting his time or getting the fans hopes up by announcing them as signings but eventually failing to get them over here due to visa problems.

If Lenegan does not get his finger out and bring in McGuire quick he will end up at Newcastle Knights. Just released there coach early and they happen to play Melbourne Storm tomorrow when a deal could be done.

still to agree terms with darrell griffin.
not there yet!

Given Hudds success he may decide to stay put then. When is his contract up at Hudds?

im not sure when his contract is up mate...

as obvious as it sounds its all gonna come down to how much money were prepared to offer him, so who know's whats gonna happen.

think hes keen to come though thats the impression i get.

He said we haven't signed anyone yet and the reason he hadn't signed a Prop was that he couldn't get value for Money.

At that point a disgruntled fan said "You told us we had the Money to sign someone but now your telling us we can't afford anyone" and IL got a bit Irate.

He said "We can afford someone but he CHOSE NOT to as signing a Prop for example on 200k a Year could potentially mena not being able to Keep and Pay 4 youngsters on say 50k a year".

He then said that "If" we choose to stay with what we have this year for Next then this will allow him to Keep and upgrade the contracts of more juniors than originally planned.

He Never said we "Wouldn't be sigining anyone" or gave an impression that we weren't likely to sign someone.

I think he was just playing his cards close to his chest and as he said "We aren't going in over the odds for Back End of their career players i.e 30/31 year olds with possible Off the Field problems or potential injury risks if that puts at risk the Junior development".

PS

I am not agreeing or disagreeing with him BTW just getting frustrated at Inaccurate reporting of what was said.

Thanks Juke. i wasnt at the forum and so can only go off this board.

Hopefully the deal will be done or very close to being finished and for obvious reasons of not disrupting the end of the season we haven't announced it yet, what I would say is if we have signed McGuire when is the right time to announce it?

If we are going to sign Griffijn then excellent but who next year is he going to take the spot of, for me both Presscot and Coley deserve there starting place and the impact that Feka brings is immense so I can't see us leaving him out, that only leaves Fielden and If Noble is in charge there's no way he'll be dropped, however if Mcguire is in charge then he'll have no favoritism towards any player so that'll be an interesting call.

So say we dont make any new signings but get mcguire as coach and lam as assistant, would be interesting to see wha these two can do what noble couldnt with a squad of:

1. Phelps
2. Roberts
3. Gleeson
4. Goulding (no signs of carmont resigning yet)
5. Richards
6. Sam
7. Leuluai
8. Prescott (would love it if he was given the number


9. Riddell
10. Coley
11. Hansen
12. Joel
13. Lockers

14. Feka
15. Fielden
16. Mossop
17. McIlorum

18. Farrell
19. Ainscough
20. O'Carroll
21. Pryce
22. Thornley
23. Davies
24. Tuson
25. Vievers

Carmont is staying on next season.

1- Phelps
2- Roberts
3- Gleeson
4- Carmont
5- Richards
6- Tomkins
7- Leuluai
8- Coley
9- Riddell
10- LMS
11- Hansen
12- Tomkins
13- O'Loughlin

14- Fielden
15- Palea'aesina
16- McIllorum
17- Mossop

18- Prescott
19- O'Carroll
20- Goulding
21- Farrell


Ainscough, Pryce, Flannagan, Tusson out on loan NRL/NL1 or 2 clubs for the season.

I would bring in LMS if not I would keep Bailey on for one more year and try to bring LMS in next year.

Wouldn't be overly upset if we bought Griffin as it would be competition for places but LMS is something special and I would pay a transfer fee I just hope IL has the cohoneys to try to sign him without being scared of being accused of favouritism towards us.

Morley/Burgess/Graham or LMS are the only props I would be really interested in us signing with LMS being the favoured one IMO.

Good.

I thought he would be when Lenagan talked about us having to loan players out to sign any new players.

I can't quite understand where Hock and Smiths money has gone let alone if you added Carmont and Baileys cash to that of those 2.

And I'm glad he is personally. It'd do Goulding the world of good to be taken under Carmont's/Gleeson's wing and to gain valuable lessons off these vastly experienced players.

I for one hope Goulding is the long-term successor to Carmont.

Isn't this Thornley kid meant to be the next big thing at centre? Last I heard we had to fight off Sale RU for his signature...??
BTW - Just how good is he? Heard he's a good 6 foot+, rapid for his size and great handling skills? Surely he should be next in line for an 'on loan' deal? Time it right i.e. 6 months in NL1 (Leigh) and 6 months at SL (Salford) and then watch him slide into Carmonts space if he leaves at the end of the 2010 season.

He is a very good player but IMHO nowhere near ready for SL or even a loan spell in the national leagues. He has bags of potential but he must stay at Wigan for another season or so before Wigan could even consider loaning him out or promoting him to the first team on a full-time basis.

I don't know much about him or Stefan Marsh(think thats his name) but both seem to be regular scorers for the u21's and both are quite highly rated from what i read.

Thornley i've only seen a couple of times but he is a big lad. He must be 6ft 4 but theres not much weight on him by the looks of it.

The plan must be for one of these 2 to take Carmonts place eventually but saying that i presume the club must think K Pryce has a chance of doing that aswell but he would look to have a whole heap of soul searching before he's ready to do that.

I'm struggling to see why we keep him on. IMHO he is a waste of cap space (albeit not very much cap-space) better spent/invested elsewhere.

I just can't understand this mon - 6foot odd and 20 odd stone and quite pacy? He should be ramming through SL defensive lines. He just looks scared.

I'd be glad to be proved wrong - quite happy to be proved wrong but IMO he should be released at the end of the season.

Maybe so but I can't see any advantage in keeping him in the reserves for another 12 months. Scores like yesterday's 66-6 have been a regular occurance for the reserves over the last 12 months. What the hell has he learned from that??? How should he be developed over the next year? Playing in a reserve team winning by 40-50 points each week isn't the answer. The answer is for our top 4-5 players from the reserves play in the National Leagues (preferably a team near the top), then the Academy promote to fill the void in the reserves...and so on!
As IL stated, maybe the odd 1-2 players to get vital coaching experience for our NRL partnership Club. Benefits Wigan as we would also get a young Aussie lad or two on short term contracts (as was also stated by IL at the Forum).

I think the reason they kept him on was because they're fearful they'll let him go and then the penny will drop with the lad whilst at a club like Leigh(or somebody similar) and he'll start to pull his finger out. If he did that a big club would go in for him and maybe they could get the best from him. If a team could only get his attitude to imporve they'd be onto a monster of a player.

We have to hope we're the team that can get something from him. It's going to take something abit different to get that from him and it might be that a change of coach(if it happens) or a loan move to the National leagues will help him.

Like you say how a 6ft 5, nearly stone beast of a bloke can run around like he's scared of his own shadow is beyond me.

Imagine him with Sam Tomkins faerless attitude

I understand and in part agree with what your saying about development but if he were to go out on loan - for arguments sake - to Widnes, would he really push Varkulis/Kohe-Love out of their positions? Not really IMO.

Which is why I think he should be kept at Wigan for another season, play him in a few pre-season friendlies and then send him out on loan.

IF the NRL partnership club thing does happen, he should be sent over there - he'd come back pure quality IMO.