Gareth Thomas

[cpwigan]

I have nothing against Thomas but he is too old and not good enough to play for Wigan. More importantly the big selling point of IL for me was the club is run honestly. If the RFL are paying any part of Thomas salary / discounting his salary from our cap then we become as dirty as the other cheating club. I would rather we kept our integrity than sell our soul to the RFL.

[TonyH]

I have nothing against Thomas but he is too old and not good enough to play for Wigan. More importantly the big selling point of IL for me was the club is run honestly. If the RFL are paying any part of Thomas salary / discounting his salary from our cap then we become as dirty as the other cheating club. I would rather we kept our integrity than sell our soul to the RFL.

I would rather we get rid of Thomas and sign Jennings and I dare say everyone on here would agree with me.

[old hooker]

If this happens it will be diabolical.What is going on? We may as well sign Fozzard,Senior and Robbie Paul and make complete laughing stocks of the club

[ugliestjoe]

maybe the rfl are paying wigan to take thomas and harris from crusaders,
1, to educate the the welsh national coach.
2,to let thomas finish his career at a high profile club,and they are paying their wages too ?

just spectators really

[TonyH]

There's already a thread on this

[thegimble]

I have nothing against Thomas but he is too old and not good enough to play for Wigan. More importantly the big selling point of IL for me was the club is run honestly. If the RFL are paying any part of Thomas salary / discounting his salary from our cap then we become as dirty as the other cheating club. I would rather we kept our integrity than sell our soul to the RFL.

I agree with you on Thomas and the way the deal is done. Though i would give Harris a go as asisstant he was put in charge of Titanic after it hit the iceberg when he got the Crusaders job. Nobby got them to a decent standard but all hell was breaking around the fotball and rugby in Wrexham about this time last year re the new ground owners money losing players etc.

[DaveO]

If the move goes ahead and it look like it is then fans need cast iron assurances by IL that games will not be moved to SWales as part of this deal.

Where has that suggestion come from?

However, whatever happens, it shows RL is a 'dirty' sport and quite frankly Thomas is not good enough to wear the Cherry n White.

If the RFL want to offer Wigan a player who does not count on the salary cap it certainly does undermine their support for the concept of the salary.

However it just should not be an issue for Wigan as we simply should not want this player on our books even if the RFL were paying us to take him. He is as you say, not good enough to wear the Cherry n White. That is all there should be too it and if IL tries to justify this signing in any way relating to Thomas playing ability he will have no credibility with many fans any more on what he says regarding players.

Except those fans that would jump in the Dougy if he told them to of course!

[cpwigan]

The RFL started asking for various things Dave, one was to take some Wigan games on the road to Swales. Hopefully, we told them no.

[jobo]

How about this theory.....

Maybe its the Gleeson effect perhaps, we get him off our cap but we have to pay compensation to him. We go to the RFL and ask them if this is possible without going over the cap.

The RFL know full well about the finances of the Crusaders before the season started as been stated by a couple of people on here.

The RFL say no if you pay him off you will be over the cap.....unless you do us a fave by promoting Rugby League in Wales and what better way to do this by recruiting Harris and the most high profile player in Wales... Gareth Thomas.

Wales will be watching what unfolds with regards Thomas career.....Wow hes signed with the biggest club in England. Instant publicity.

What do you think???

You could be right and if true, either IL is making big sacrifices for the sake of RL development or, Wigan are getting some other sort of pay off. Either way, it seems such a dumb move to me but then again, I'm not a multi millionaire successful business man, who appears to make very few bad calls. My season ticket though depends on the outcome.

[DaveO]

How about this theory.....

Maybe its the Gleeson effect perhaps, we get him off our cap but we have to pay compensation to him. We go to the RFL and ask them if this is possible without going over the cap.

The RFL know full well about the finances of the Crusaders before the season started as been stated by a couple of people on here.

The RFL say no if you pay him off you will be over the cap.....unless you do us a fave by promoting Rugby League in Wales and what better way to do this by recruiting Harris and the most high profile player in Wales... Gareth Thomas.

Wales will be watching what unfolds with regards Thomas career.....Wow hes signed with the biggest club in England. Instant publicity.

What do you think???

That Wigan know how the salary cap works and as Gleeson was a Wigan player and we were under the cap with him on theh books getting him off them was never a salary cap problem.

If a club releases a player any compensation agreed with the player remains on the clubs cap pro-rata for the time left on his original contract.

So for example if Gleeson was given (say) £80K to leave and he had two years on his deal left then his salary cap value for Wigan would be £40K per season.

Even if he was given his full wages as compensation (unlikely IMO given the circumstances) it is still no problem because we were already paying him those wages and were under the cap and the RFL would not allow us to go over it by signing another player as the cap is live.