I like to think I’m a reasonably sensible poster and try and stay pretty level on criticising the club but I’ll also try and be honest and my honest thoughts at the moment are that things just don’t stack up somewhere. It could well be that we’re too honest and the other two clubs are finding ways around the cap but the squads just don’t compare from an experience, proven quality and international caps standpoint.

None of those figures were ever mentioned at the fans forum!!!

Can either of those sides win a game missing 10 players?

I feel we have gone for depth as opposed to quality but with constant injury issues we spend most of the season missing our quality.

Correct. What was said was people need to understand that the youn players wages have to go up to keep them. Rads used kpp as an example. For Wigan to get kpp on a new deal it will be 4 times his current salary. Imagine Wigan saying no where not giving younthat, then he leaves. And the Lenegan gets in in the neck for being tight which is a complete fallacy unless your stupid or blind.

So we can only presume that havard,byrne,partington ect.. have had similar deals and hallsall,mcdonnell,hanley,oneill ect.. will be upcoming. We could just let all these go and buy journey men, then complain about that.

Lets all be happy as from now the person holding us back has gone.

New season soon be here with a new coach eager to impress.

Ok so i'm reading between the lines and joining a few dots. But what was said at the forum was that the young lads all want 100k deals or will leave....we've given said young lads upgrades recently. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what said lads are likely to be on.

As for another poster's comment on Byrne, that he'll be a great player....hes about the worst front rower ive seen at wigan since ricky bibey...Ball retention is as poor as Paul Prescott's was....but at least prekie was probably the hardest runner in the team and had a reason for it....Bryne sometimes starts off going backwards...he's wakefield standard at best!

Depends on your opinion. Personally i think its clear the issues are a lot deeper routed than lam. i actually feel sorry for Lam. He's been made to coach with his hand behind his back, had signings forced on him, ended up with no pack, no choice over signings, no investment to bring in new blood when we've been decimated by injury, then been held accountable because he hasn't been able to work wonders with it!!

What Edwards said was timely when you apply it to Lam's situation. Wigan don't really want a head coach......they want a lad to take charge of training whilst they make all the decisions, then someone to blame when it all goes pete tong!

no it wasn't.


KR: This is probably a little bit of education – we offer a traditional contract when a player comes to the end of his Academy contract; it’s a two-year contract with a one-year option. Most players get that kind of deal. After that third year, we then have a choice to make. Do we let them go or do we pay them what they what they should be paid on an open market. These players have all got managers now and the managers are trying to get the best for them. We’ve opted to pay them what they’re worth. So, if you look at the likes of Ethan Havard, Liam Byrne, Morgan Smithies, Oliver Partington. We’ve chosen to keep them on and develop them more so in two to three to four years’ time, they’ll be the corner stones of our pack.

Now, I’d like to ask you the question, is that the right thing to do? To retain these lads? Or should or should we be letting them go knowing that we we can’t afford to pay them? What would you do there? Do we do we retain them or let them go? We’ve got conversations that we will need to have with Kai Pearce-Paul soon, you know, Kai’s obviously set the Super League on fire this year, but his manager will come knocking very, very soon. And you will still get the same Kai Pearce-Paul, but his salary might be four times more. So, if I’m sat where you are from a Wiganer’s point of view, you don’t see the fact that we might have to pay him three or four times more. You just see the one player and that’s the challenges that we’ve got to overcome.

We believe we’ve got the history of developing and promoting our young players. That’s what we build our cornerstones on. It’s something I’m extremely proud of that other professional sports look at the development of our players and the fact that two thirds of our squad are homegrown, it’s unique in sport, and it’s a business model that we’ll stick to and that’ll always drive us forward. But it’s very important that you understand that when a player signs a long-term extension is great news, it also means we’re going to always start having to pay them properly. And that’s something that has worked for us in the past, but you need to understand.

Except those that he asked to sign and then never played.

He did mention that agents will come knocking asking for 100k but I think it was more a figure than confirmation than Byrne, Smithies etc being on 100k.

I’d be shocked if players like Havard, Byrne, Smithies are on more than £50k a year at present.

Most deals for young players tend to go up year on year.