Course you did

There are plenty who would be, Jon.

Without a crystal ball how would the club have known they'd need a replacment for Hock? Maybe they'd have still had time to try and get Gilmour in(but why would we want to in all honesty, a good player yes but he's 32, not as good as Hock and would be holding the likes of Joel, Mossop and Farrell back) but Fa'alongo was signed up a couple of months ago for them.

Soliola is a good if injury prone player but he's more of a centre and we don't need one. I've said before we need to get away from a mentality of wanting to sign everybody.

Hulls signings are poor imo. Long is well past his best and injury prone, Fitzgibbon is well past his best aswell, O'Meeley is another who's past his best and struggling with inuries and Tansey is average.

I want new signing as much if not more then the next man but they have to be right and i can't say i'm dissapointed to have missed out on any signing made by a superleague club upto now.

We need new players but they've got to be the right ones. I'm not confident we'll get them at all but just because of this we shouldn't go out and sign any tom, dick or Harry.

I know, neither are clearly "Wigan Class". Would much rather we stuck with reserve grade players and missfits.

We cannot judge yet but i would be much happier personally if we had announced there signings as it stands. Time will tell though. Personally think Hull's 2 Aussie signings are pretty good and would be exactly the type of players we need.

I don't entirely agree with that. I wouldn't say the Wigan team is full of 'reserve grade players and misfits'.

But there are plenty of fans who'd come down on IL like a ton of horsesh-it if he'd signed players like those.

Personally, I'd have liked to see O'Meley, though Aus posters on TotalRL seem to think that he's finished.

I read somebody saying O'Meleys knees won't hold up to playing full seasons and that the heavy pitches won't do him any favours.

Steveo likened him to Mark Carroll(another Aussie prop) because like Carroll he's been making boasts in the Aussie press how he's going to terrorise superleague defences. When Carroll got over here he was a marked man and got battered from pillar to post...............I wouldn't be suprised if the same happened to O'Meley.

This time last year all Wigan fans wanted the club to sign Jason Ryles. The aussies on here said he was done and he's gone on to be truely average for Catalans. That should teech us a lesson.

Random Male wrote:Go on then, show us the post because all I can remember from you is bull$hit rumours that NEVER come true. So you are saying Hall signed for Bradford MONTHS before it was announced? Methinks not. Think again!!!!! Sunday 26th January 2.06 pm on the bulls site. WWW.RLFANS.COM Forum Index -> Bradford Bulls - RedAmberandBlack.net Manly Author Message Tricky Dicky Bronze RLFANS Member Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 4232 Location: Wigan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:06 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Manly play Leeds take a good look at Glenn Hall Manly's no 12. You have agreed terms with him for 2010. "WE ARE THE WARRIOR RACE, THE TOUGHEST MEN IN THE TOUGHEST SPORT" - BRIAN NOBLE. Bullseye wrote: Certainly looks that way. I remember somone on here saying we'd signed this bloke way back earlier in the season, who was that? He had good info. Anyway Hall looks like the front rower we're missing. Now we need to re-sign Lynch too. Then some smart recruitment in the backs needs to occur. It was a Wigan who first said that we had signed Hall for 2010. I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying. Michael Jordan Bully_Boxer Bronze RLFANS Member Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 3337 Location: Odsal Stadium -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:54 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- redeverready wrote: It was a Wigan who first said that we had signed Hall for 2010. Tricky Dicky wasn't it?

Random Male wrote:Go on then, show us the post because all I can remember from you is bull$hit rumours that NEVER come true. So you are saying Hall signed for Bradford MONTHS before it was announced? Methinks not. Think again!!!!! Sunday 26th January 2.06 pm on the bulls site. WWW.RLFANS.COM Forum Index -> Bradford Bulls - RedAmberandBlack.net Manly Author Message Tricky Dicky Bronze RLFANS Member Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 4232 Location: Wigan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:06 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When Manly play Leeds take a good look at Glenn Hall Manly's no 12. You have agreed terms with him for 2010. "WE ARE THE WARRIOR RACE, THE TOUGHEST MEN IN THE TOUGHEST SPORT" - BRIAN NOBLE. Bullseye wrote: Certainly looks that way. I remember somone on here saying we'd signed this bloke way back earlier in the season, who was that? He had good info. Anyway Hall looks like the front rower we're missing. Now we need to re-sign Lynch too. Then some smart recruitment in the backs needs to occur. It was a Wigan who first said that we had signed Hall for 2010. I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying. Michael Jordan Bully_Boxer Bronze RLFANS Member Joined: 03 Mar 2005 Posts: 3337 Location: Odsal Stadium -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:54 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- redeverready wrote: It was a Wigan who first said that we had signed Hall for 2010. Tricky Dicky wasn't it?

I assume you're going to show us your post when you announced hall as wigan's new prop for 2009?

Unless I am mistaken I am sure IL has said Wigan only want to sign class players for any quota spots and that for next season we are looking to sign two overseas players.

So if he doesn't sign any or the ones he does sign are not class, isn't he leaving himself wide open to criticism?

There is plenty of debate over our 2009 overseas signings,Roberts and Riddell, on the forums. IMO at best they fall into the "solid pro" category not the class players category. Do we want two more like them? Not in my opinion.

When IL came back from Oz in the interview he gave he said they went out with certain players in mind but on further investigation decided not to pursue those players. Fair enough, must have had his reasons.

He then went on to discuss the possibility of signing younger Aussie players who had not yet gained representative honours. I think his reasoning for that was they would be easier to sign before they got into SoO or International RL. Something like that.

I was truly mystified by that statement given how many young players our club produces. Why would we want such players here? They have not got good enough to gain rep honours so aren't they just another young player? What do they add to our side? Certainly not experience.

Recruitment up to now has IMO been all over the place with players recruited in positions not a priority seemingly simply because they were available. It has taken IL all the time he has been here to come around to saying he needs to recruit a prop (when at first he was adamant we had enough of them on the books) and what he said on his return from Oz did not inspire me to think he was targeting the class players a diminishing number of none federation spots means we should be recruiting.

As I said in another thread the standard of compeition in SL isn't that good. We are poor but are 5th and 6 points behind Hudds who aren't that great a side themselves. A couple of class players at prop and half back would see us easily in the top 4 and possibly challenging for the top two provided we employ a coach who can get the team to play for more than half the season.

IL needs to deliver those players for 2010 (and preferably a new coach as well) as that was a date he set for recruitment getting easier otherwise he will get some flak and it will IMO be justified.

Dave

None of which proves what I said to be incorrect.