Wigan will reveal today that their coach, Stuart Raper, who announced last week that he is leaving at the end of the season, is instead departing with immediate effect.
Raper, who has won the Challenge Cup and taken Wigan to a Super League grand final in his two years in charge, had already said that he was to return to Australia this autumn for family reasons. But since then, Wigan have lost another game, at home to Widnes on Saturday, and he has effectively been pushed out of the door early.
His assistant, Mike Gregory, will take over for the rest of the season, but the news of Raper's accelerated exit came on the same day as one of the candidates for his job, Tony Smith, turned down a new contract at Huddersfield Giants.
Smith turned down the club's offer of a contract extension for the Super League 2004 and 2005 seasons. Giants' chief executive, Ralph Rimmer, said: "Tony Smith has held talks with the club over the last few weeks during which he had sought a significant rise in the playing budget for season 2004. He aspires to a much larger playing budget than our salary cap will provide for next season."
Danny Orr's arm injury, sustained in Castleford's Super League match against Bradford at the weekend, is not as serious as first thought. It was feared Orr, who will join Wigan at the end of the season, had broken his arm but it is only a hand injury that should keep him out of action for five weeks.
from the independant
Raper sacked
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chorleywarrior
- Posts: 63
- Joined: Sat Jan 11, 2003 8:59 pm
Re: Raper sacked
I'm not at all surprised,we all know what Lindsay is like seen this many times before unfortunately.I feel sorry for Raper but i think the 1st half against Widnes was the final nail in his coffin,the team were pretty awful and they won't tolerate the fans booing the players off the pitch!Would have been nice to have said goodbye to Stuart and i'm sure many other fans feel the same but unfortunately it does'nt always work out that way.I for one wish him well!
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wolftown warrior
- Posts: 412
- Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2003 4:52 pm
Re: Raper sacked
i got to admit, that this whole raper saga has totally left me with a bad taste in my mouth..
wigan have not handled this very well at all..
firstly neither party should have anounced that raper was gonna leave come october, that got the gossip mongers started straight away.
& then to see mr smith up at huddersfield turn down a new offer at huddersfield just has master plan written all over it.. even if he isn`t appointed as wigan coach next year, the way in which wigan has handled this whole situation is in my eyes dissapointing..
& if last fridays loss to widnes was enough to sack someone, shouldn`t he have gone after the giants game?
the whole season has taken 5 steps back.... god knows how the players & staff must feel..
shambles, on this.. just as it seems we were getting some stability...
wigan have not handled this very well at all..
firstly neither party should have anounced that raper was gonna leave come october, that got the gossip mongers started straight away.
& then to see mr smith up at huddersfield turn down a new offer at huddersfield just has master plan written all over it.. even if he isn`t appointed as wigan coach next year, the way in which wigan has handled this whole situation is in my eyes dissapointing..
& if last fridays loss to widnes was enough to sack someone, shouldn`t he have gone after the giants game?
the whole season has taken 5 steps back.... god knows how the players & staff must feel..
shambles, on this.. just as it seems we were getting some stability...