Whelley Warrior wrote:Andrew0604 wrote:WW can you tell me which union club he switched codes to play for please? My memory must be faltering as my understanding is he left because Dorahy wouldn't allow him a day off each week to spend time with his baby son in London
I Only made comment to the effect that if Union had gone fully professional in ten years or so before it did, Edwards and indeed many others in the Wigan teams of the time would not have been hesitant in switching to Union and more money.
As for Edwards actually going at the end of his playing career to be near his son, many including myself assumed that once his son reached adulthood, he would have returned to our game without hesitation,, but he has not and the reason is simply the fact that he is on more money in Union than what he would ever get in our game and hence his non return to our game.
Edwards was one my favourite players and fully deserves being inducted in our Hall of Fame in respect of his playing career, but at the same time, I have enough sense to know that where money is concerned, loyalty to Wigan would go out of the window if more money was to be made elsewhere and facts have proved it correct.
WW you seem to forget that when Edwards almost literally had the world at his feet on his 17th birthday, he chose to accept Wigan's inferior offer to play for his home town team.
Also, in 1997, his proposal to combine his parental responsibilities with continuing to play for Wigan showed that loyalty had not gone away.
There is no evidence at all to "prove" Edwards would have taken the Rugby Union dollar at any stage of his Wigan career. And the fact he continued playing League for London and Bradford until injury forced his retirement in 1999 suggest he also had loyalty to Rugby League.
His coaching career in Rugby Union came about because there were not sufficient vacancies in Super League, as others have pointed out.
It would be interesting to see what he could do for Wigan, but I do worry that it is over 15 years since he was involved with League, and all coaches, however talented, have a shelf life.
He chose to sign for Wigan because at the time, there was more money in our game than what was in Union which was a Amateur game with no proper leagues, no home and European cup competitions and money like it has today and a situation where Union players came to our game for money. As for Coaching, it had nothing to do with any openings in our game, but more to do with at the time, being near his young son in London and the only way he could do that and remain at the top in any code of Rugby was to be involved in the Union game with a top London Union club like Wasps.
Like I have said before, we were very fortunate to see him play in our game for all of his career as a result of Union only going fully professional at the time he retired from playing, but I am in no doubt whatsoever that if Union had been fully professional at the time of his playing age, he and some others at Wigan like Lydon, Ford etc would have no hesitation in defecting to Union like Robinson, Ashton, Andy and Owen Farrell have done since.
For Edwards to come back to League would mean him taking a big drop in income and I doubt that he will ever do that, would you?
