Lockers, Joel and Mr T are all off contract at the end of this season. Not sure about ISA if he is this year or next.

There will be a hefty chunk of the salary cap tied up in those 3 players.

Will they stay or will they go? If so who replaces them. We can not afford to lose 3 forwards with that amount of experience all at once.

Read somewhere that Tommy Lulu was off contract as well

Think they'd got the Leuluai one wrong. He signed for three seasons iirc.

As for Lockers, Joel, Isa and Tautai, I'd keep them all. I think Lockers and Joel may be looking at reduced deals though because I don't think either are worth absolute top money anymore with some injury clouds hanging over them.

Does all of Lockers salary count against the cap?

Quote ="The Whiffy Kipper"Read somewhere that Tommy Lulu was off contract as well'" As far as I remember, there was no time limit, his signing was for as long as he keeps playing, with a guaranteed coaching role whe he retires. www.rugby-league.com/superleague ... gn-leuluai

Quote ="The Whiffy Kipper"Read somewhere that Tommy Lulu was off contract as well'" As far as I remember, there was no time limit, his signing was for as long as he keeps playing, with a guaranteed coaching role whe he retires. www.rugby-league.com/superleague ... gn-leuluai

Cooper Cronk is reportedly wanting to go to Sydney for personal reasons, I wonder if we could we persuade him to go via Pemberton

Joel is getting some unfair stick this year for me. I think he's been one of our most consistent forwards and is really proving why we brought him back. Definitely worthy of another 2 seasons.
Tautai is probably the most improved forward in SL and it'd be a shame to lose him.
Lockers is still in a class of his own and if he feels up to it, it would be crazy not to re-sign him. We're a far better side when he's in it!!
Tommy was 2 years playing contract followed by a coaching role.

I'm more then happy with Joel's performances. He has looked good this year now he's fit and he's carrying his extra size well. It's defensively he's impressing me as much as anything. He battered Walmsley a couple of times on Good Friday and he's really throwing himself about.

One thing I think we could do with is the ability to rest him at some point. He's playing more minutes then I'm sure they'd like him to at the minute.

I'd resign all theee simply because, number 1 it's always good to keep a settled and successful side together and 2 there's not many available players who'd be an improvement.

TT offers great value, even on an improved deal. Lockers deserves the right to call time on his own terms and Joel has bags of experience and is in decent form.

It has been mentioned that FPN and TT are leaving at the end of the season.
If that is correct then I'd re-sign Lockers and Joel.
We have a very young squad and need all the experience we have.

Keep Lockers if the money is right, keep Tautai if at all possible, I'm less concerned about Joel truthfully

Ok,Joel has been much improved on previous seasons but for me I'd let him go let him try his luck elsewhere a bit too injury prone sadly and that surely must play an important part when coming to contracts given the state of the squad an its injury crisis's over tyhe last few years.

Lockers will be at Wigan when im put into the ground in future decades to come so he's going nowhere at all

FPN leaving. I wasn't aware of that. Thought he signed a 3 year deal last year?

Joel injury prone? You could throw that at 90% of the team at present!

Joel has a future as a prop. He is bigger, more mobile, hits harder and has better ball handling than most of our props.

Lockers is an absolute must keep for me. I wouldn't mind keeping Joel but equally I wouldn't be too upset if he left. Tautai though much improved, I'm not overly keen on keeping. I do think the old favourite "Our pack needs improving" is true and the likes of Tautai may be a victim of that. I think the cap space for him could be much better utilized on another prop, and in all honesty I could put Ben Flower in that bracket as well based on current form.

Ian Lenagan has already said that he expects Wigan to have a smaller squad next year due to the incremental wage increases of the younger players in the squad.

You could be right there to be fair, will he be happy to spend his games grunting it up the middle rather than playing his normal unpredictable wild-offloading game though?

But as long as they're earning under £20k they don't count on the cap. I would hope that the injury jinx has eased to the extent that we don't need a squad of 40 any more, but the fringe youngsters will still be available for promotion if needed, I hope.

I was referring more since he came back to be fair.

How many are earning under 20k though?

Every U19s player will be.

Might not count on the salary cap but certainly counts on the wage bill!!!

I would guesstimate upwards of squad number 28 or thereabouts, excluding the new deals for Davies and Marshall.

TT in contract discussions www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby-l ... -1-8546253

TT in contract discussions www.wigantoday.net/sport/rugby-l ... -1-8546253