whithers and lui lui

[rugbymadbabe]

what the?! i have just heard that it has said in the guardian today that we are going to sign whithers and lui lui today. lui lui meh fair enough lets see what he can do but whithers now i have always disliked him but why oh why bring in, in my opinion a half rate full back wen we have a super one in the making i hope to god this is not another bricoe insident where we let a damn good full back go.
ur thoughts...

[GeoffN]

rugbymadbabe posted:
what the?! i have just heard that it has said in the guardian today that we are going to sign whithers and lui lui today. lui lui meh fair enough lets see what he can do but whithers now i have always disliked him but why oh why bring in, in my opinion a half rate full back wen we have a super one in the making i hope to god this is not another bricoe insident where we let a damn good full back go.
ur thoughts...

Not all that keen...but:

In Nobby We Trust!

[ancientnloyal]

I hope Withers will be a low earner! We could be seeing him play centre etc... or could that be ashton next season?

[DaveO]

If we sign these two the team coached by the GB coach will have NINE overseas players in it.

This is a joke.

The overseas players will be

Fletcher, Bailey and Barrett - the genuine Aussies
Richards - "Irish" (but really an Aussie)
Hansen, lulu, DV and Feka - "south sea islanders" (but really NZ'ers)
Withers - "English" apparently (but of course an Aussie in reality).

Nine overseas players is six too many.

I can't stand Wakefield for their reliance on overseas players and it seems we are going the dame way and I would not be surprised to see another Kolpaxck signing such as a prop added to the squad before next season.

Dave

[Martin Taylor]

rugbymadbabe posted:
what the?! i have just heard that it has said in the guardian today that we are going to sign whithers and lui lui today. lui lui meh fair enough lets see what he can do but whithers now i have always disliked him but why oh why bring in, in my opinion a half rate full back wen we have a super one in the making i hope to god this is not another bricoe insident where we let a damn good full back go.
ur thoughts...

From what i can gather, Withers will spend more time on the bench and he has been brought in to help Ashton develop and offer him an experienced head to turn to! Don't know why Rads can't do that role though!

[Mike]

Despite being born in NZ, Hansen has lived in ENgland for 15 years and represented England at lower age levels. Without the temptation of the stupid mid-season "Test" match this season, he'd probably still be looking to break his way into the GB side.
I think its a bit harsh to put him in the overseas bracket.

Lets face it, despite being GB coach Noble has never baulked at signing a solid overseas player over a more risky UK player. He always goes from solid pros rather than flair players, and there are so many more of them from Aus.

THe only way to prevent this is to stop the clubs making these Kolpak signings by changing the rtules of the competition. SUrely the salary cap is illegal - a court challenge could remove it. WIth the support of all the clubs, a similar illegal gentlemans agreement could be put in place to strengthen the overseas quota. I'm sure support could be gained from all sides because they would all be in the same boat. Maybe it would be too vunerable to a challenge from an individual player, but I would have though that he would have to have a sponsoring club to take the case to court?

[DaveO]

Mike posted:
Despite being born in NZ, Hansen has lived in ENgland for 15 years and represented England at lower age levels. Without the temptation of the stupid mid-season "Test" match this season, he'd probably still be looking to break his way into the GB side.
I think its a bit harsh to put him in the overseas bracket.

But where else can he now be put? He is an NZ international so he must be considered an overseas player from now on. He won't be turning out for England/GB any time soon and so you could argue we have kept him at the expense of Tickle.

I am sure on playing ability many would say OK to that but it still means we favour players who do not qualify for GB over British players.

Lets face it, despite being GB coach Noble has never baulked at signing a solid overseas player over a more risky UK player. He always goes from solid pros rather than flair players, and there are so many more of them from Aus.

I know but don't you find it ironic that we could end up at least as bad as Bradford on the overseas player front and running Wakey a close second?

WIth the support of all the clubs, a similar illegal gentlemans agreement could be put in place to strengthen the overseas quota.

I am pretty sure Millward has put forward this idea. Can't remember if he was still our coach at the time. I think he was. If so eeven more ironic that Millward wants to limit the overseas players in our league and our coach who is the GB coach could be coaching a Wigam squad with more overseas players in it than ever before.

Dave

[waterside glens]

bring in a kolpak limit.When relagation goes i think we'll see more british players in each team.Plus with crowds going up surely more kids will be taking up the sport and that could have the knock on effect of having talent that normally would play football/union playing league

[GeoffN]

I've suggested before that I'd like to see some sort of allowance made within the salary cap rules to encourage the use of GB qualified players; perhaps something like only a percentage of their salary counting towards the cap total if they would be eligible to play for GB (or France, in the case of Catalans).

[Fraggle]

GeoffN posted:
I've suggested before that I'd like to see some sort of allowance made within the salary cap rules to encourage the use of GB qualified players; perhaps something like only a percentage of their salary counting towards the cap total if they would be eligible to play for GB (or France, in the case of Catalans).

I think that idea was also mentioned in ML's article, if someone had made the national team then that was rewarded in the cap as well. Although that was based on actual selections rather than eligibility to play for the international squads.