Tomkins signs for Saracens , time to increase the salary cap.

WHY!!!???

If Wigan want to pay him more, they can. They just need to release someone else, who will most likely go to another SL club.

Wigan have better players in their reserves than many fisrt teams have at their disposal.

We can't go back to the 90's where money-bags Wigan sign up all the best talent (and then bust themselves doing it!).

Sam will be following him in the not too distant future as well.

It was ever thus - money talks.

Law of the jungle, Shudds sign all our players RU sign all wigans!
On a serious note, Wigan will be well recompensed for Joel and will probably get him back for nowt in three or four years time.

Source?

Thought Joel was the more behaved of the two, if Sam goes I can't wait!

It's not a great thing that he is going (if) as he is one of the rising stars of our game.
He is replacable but we shouldn't just let them go without mention.

However, if they splash the cash and he wants it then there is only so much we can do.

As for salary cap being raised, it would be better if it was higher, but only if everyone (or most) could afford. The way to beat this kind of signing is to make all clubs able to compete with the big money. That way players will not be tempted.
We can't just make some able to pay as that will ruin our game and we can't just allow them to go as that will reduce the pool.

That is what setting up Super League was all about, and unfortunately why we are being forced to build a good business and good stadium rather than a good playing side.

Then you are mad!

Sam is the single most talented player this game has seen in a generation in this country. We should be fighting to keep these in our game and not allowing them to prop up a broken code!

I find it quite saddening that people think it's ok to boo a player - it would not have happened to Gregory or Edwards or Hanley - and they were all 'competitive' players, but people had more respect in those days!

Should I be begging S.Tomkins to stay after laughing at Blanch when he was injured or when he stuck two fingers up or when he acts like a first class knob? there's others just as talented as him who don't act like a professional ar$e such as Lomax, Charnley, Roby.

As RL supporters, I don't get this need to try to put and down the other code, I personally enjoy and respect both forms of Rugby, so why is it a broken code then mate?

I don't think "we" should be fighting to keep them in the game, but if they are so values by their club Wigan should.
The salary cap is there for clubs to use as they see fit, however, as the bulls found out you can't keep all the best players on the best wages forever.
Perhaps there is an argument for increasing the salary cap, but it's there for the benefit of everyone not just Wigan, otherwise we will end up where were before.

presumably they will play him in the centres in union? If so, you'd think there are better options available for that position.
Having said that NZ play SBW on the wing - league players going across are pretty limited in what positions they can play in general due to the "technical nature" of the game, so i guess they have one of the centre positions in mind for him - probably inside centre a bit like Tindall, big but not particularly fast or skillful.

And it doesn't happen to Gaskell, Lomax, Briscoe, Charnley, Jones-Bishop or any number of other talented young lads that are capable of making opposition teams looks daft.

I think this particular phenomenon has more to do with the personal qualities of the player in question than the fans.

Edited, quite reasonably I think.

There will be a big reaction saying the Salary Cap should be raised but the question I ask is why?

Wigan could pay them the same that they are being offered and release some of their other players to go to other Super League clubs. This would actually make the competition stronger because it would spread the talent around different Super League clubs thus evening up the competition and doing what the Salary Cap was intended to do.

So its Wigan responsibility to provide players for all of SL.

No, it's wigans responsibility to stick to the salary cap, the same one everybody else has, and to keep a competitive side.
If they have too many players earning too much money they have to sell them or pay them less, if someone else then chooses to pay them more than Wigan can, that's business.

Very difficult for any sane or rational person to argue with any of that; that won't stop plenty of Wigan fans mind you, who will be calling for exemption from the cap for the whole Tomkins family.

The rumour around Wigan are that he has been offered around 400K a season. Am sure NO team in Super League could afford to pay him that much.

They could pay him that but as I said they would then have spend the rest of the cap wisely. We managed to put a squad together on less than 1 million last year so we would have had plenty of room to offer him 400k if we had wanted to.

I very much doubt he is on that much a season. I'm sure Eastmond is on less than half that. One attraction about Union is that even if your initial contract isn't that much (in Union terms) you have the potential to earn a lot more with future contracts. Of course all that depends on how you adapt to the game. The time has come to accept that we are down the food chain regarding finances compared to Union. League players are seen as cheap gambles by Union clubs, everyone’s looking for the next Jason Robinson. This in part is due to the salary cap that is imposed on the Premiership teams. A lot of Premiership clubs just can't compete with the money rich French teams so they have to start looking outside of the game for next best thing. I expect the raid on league talent to continue for the near future, not that we can complain, we did our fair share of raiding Union in the past.

Losing Eastmond, Tomkins and it seems Sam Tomkins is a tragedy for the game.

It sends a message that any young League player with a bit of talent can only aim towards union. We will become a feeder code.

The international pool of players available to our code is tiny, there are 3 who will walk away and leave us so much weaker. Until we get a credible International comp then our code will always struggle.

I am all for the salary cap, but I think clubs should be allowed to protect home grown products and exceptions made for Academy products, as long as a club can prove they are able to support this without getting into financial dificulty.