They weren’t going to recruit Williams and a Hastings replacement. Williams was supposed to be the Hastings replacement. They have enough money for one half back and that leaves £73k over. This is what was said at the fans forum.Exiled Wiganer wrote:As I understand it, the club offered a massive wage to Williams - our biggest ever contract offer - and intend to recruit someone to replace Hastings. Plus, we have another 70k to play with. If we use that money to recruit a decent centre, and O’Neill develops, then I think we should be fine.
Full back: French is superb - so stronger than this year if fit.
Wingers: Marshall, Miski and Halsall/Bibby. Given Halsall’s development, stronger than this year.
Centres: Hardaker, Thornley, new one, Hankinsin, Halsall/Bibby. Gildart has phoned it in when he could even be bothered to play for 2 years, so we won’t be any weaker there.
Halves: ? Plus Field/Smith. It all depends on ?, but as noted above, they have shown they are willing to spend big to get someone.
Props: Mago, Ellis, Havard, Singleton, Clark, Byrne. Mago in particular will be better than we have had this year, Havard will be a year older. Potentially stronger.
Second rows and loose forward: Bateman, Farrell, KPP, McDonnell, Smithies, Shorrocks... Stronger for the extra year.
I know there are some things that could go wrong, esp if we don’t replace Hastings and French doesn’t recover, but for my money by far the main factor is who is responsible for our attack next year. That’s what I am holding my breath to hear...
So no we don’t have the money to recruit a centre so we will go into next season with one specialist centre (again) which is stupid and that is Thornely which is even worse.
I have seen the fact Gildart has been poor this season used as an excuse for the signing of Thornley before and you repeat this here by saying we won’t be any weaker.
I am sorry but Gildart having a poor season is no excuse for signing rubbish. It’s a ridiculous excuse for a poor signing and God knows what the motivation is here for giving IL and Rads a free pass on this one.