withers millard and leuluai confirmed

[ince warrior]

jinkin jimmy posted:

mike binder posted:
Barratt is due in over the next couple of days could be flying now as we speak

I was told by our coaching staff he wouldn't be here until January. :conf:

In that case, I hope he settles a bit quicker than last year's signings.

[lucky 13]

we only have 16 to 18 players in squad if we had kept godwin,'' and i wish we could have'',we would have one player less and still be short on bodies although i'm not jumping up n down with these two we have to let nobby do what he has too, sure he and ML would love a team of brits with a few top imports like we would ,but it will take time and when these wigan(british) lads make good how do we keep them here on low sallery's ,unless the cap changes ,ashton and the likes will not play most of their best years in a cherry n white shirt,like godwin and robinson, faz they will go to other clubs be it union or league sad but true.say it again look at leeds great youth team won everything ,four years later team has broken up why?maguire big money to stay sinfeild burrows the same ,walker calderwood mathers gone replaced with imports probably as good but cheaper

[Sutty]

I think that no matter who Nobby had signed during the closed season, that there would have been certain fans who were not happy with his choice of players coming in.

Although I am not jumping for joy with the signings, I can see why we have signed these players.
Withers has been there and got the t-shirt, granted he is past his best but he has got plenty experience and it will do Ashton no harm at all to learn off him for a couple of seasons. As long as Ashton is our primary fullback.

Leuluai is still only 21 and has already played representative rugby for NZ. He is the 2nd youngest player to have ever played for New Zealand. Admittedly he has struggled with injuries for the last couple of seasons but he is still young enough for them not to have any impact at all on the rest of his career, providing that he receved the correct physiotherapy. He has pace and is a good distributor who should compliment Barrett well.

Millard is probably the most dubious of the signings. He is well past his best but probably still has something to offer. He will play a totally differnt game to Higham. I envisage him being used in the same way that Leeds used him and Diskin to such great effect. One of them is a nippy scrum half who will make breaks from dummy half and the other is a good distiributor who will probe and put the props and second rowers through gaps in the oppositions defence.

I would have liked to see Godwin retained and also bring in some more class players in other positions but we can't have everything at once. Don't forget that Hull offered Godwin a much bigger salary than he was on at Wigan, also he will be their first choice hooker. How many people on here would stay in their current job, no matter how much they liked it, if they were head hunted for another company and offered a much bigger salary? I know what my choice would be.
I think that a lot of the posters are forgetting that this is Nobby's first full season in charge and we have also got 2 very high earner in Vaeliki and Richards who we tried to offload but nobody else would take them.
I think that when these two players go at the end of next season we will have a big chunk of our salary cap back and then we will hopefully start to see Nobby truly shape the team in the way that he wants to.
I think we will do quite well this coming season and will probably finish 3rd or 4th IMO, don't forget we can't have instant success any more like we did when the club was rejuvenated in the 80's.
Patience is a virtue and we should reserve judgement on the new signings and their performances. After all, don't forget they haven't even played a game together.

[Bear]

Great news, i think with the contracts they have signed are good and which is good

[DaveO]

Sutty posted:
Although I am not jumping for joy with the signings, I can see why we have signed these players.
Withers has been there and got the t-shirt, granted he is past his best but he has got plenty experience and it will do Ashton no harm at all to learn off him for a couple of seasons. As long as Ashton is our primary fullback.

There are lots of players who have got the t-shirt but they are not the players needed by the club. Wigan need a prop more than Ashton needs a mentor.

I would have liked to see Godwin retained and also bring in some more class players in other positions but we can't have everything at once. Don't forget that Hull offered Godwin a much bigger salary than he was on at Wigan, also he will be their first choice hooker.

He won't be first choice hooker until 2008 and it was up to Wigan to offer a young player who had progressed a suitable wage on a new contract to retain him. Had Wigan done so I am convinced he would have preferred to have stayed here. Hull will not have offered him silly money and probably did not have to in order easily beat his Wigan salary (speculation but then so is the implication he is on mega bucks at Hull).

I do not think for one minute Wigan have signed Millard for any other reason than he is costing them less than Wagga and all this talk of him being a different type of player or experienced is just trying to make the best of a bad job.

It was a conscious decision by Wigan not to offer wagga enough to make it possible for him to stay. Why Wigan did this is most likely down to the salary cap which given it has been in force several years now is pretty pathetic management of it.

Dave

[Sutty]

I wondered how long it would be before you dissected my post. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and they were mine. Whether the releasing of players and signing of new players is purely down to poor management of the salary cap is only know by the top brass in the club and their accountants.

Like I said in my post, I am reserving judgement on these signings and if they do a good job for us, then all well and good, if not, then the management will be deemed to have made another poor decision.

As fans of the club we all have our own preferences of who we would like to sign and not sign, as well as players to retain and offload. If we could do the job better, or even as good as Nobby then none of us would be sat in our offices now, or wherever we are all typing messages on this forum.
Be patient and see how they go on before saying they are not the right signings for us. Maybe we should be more easy going and just wait and see what happens.

[DaveO]

Sutty posted:
I wondered how long it would be before you dissected my post. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and they were mine.

Did anyone say you weren't? If we all agreed with each other this board would not exist.

Whether the releasing of players and signing of new players is purely down to poor management of the salary cap is only know by the top brass in the club and their accountants.

So is Waggas wage at Hull but it doesn't stop people using it as the excuse we didn't offer him a new deal.

Like I said in my post, I am reserving judgement on these signings and if they do a good job for us, then all well and good, if not, then the management will be deemed to have made another poor decision.

As fans of the club we all have our own preferences of who we would like to sign and not sign, as well as players to retain and offload. If we could do the job better, or even as good as Nobby then none of us would be sat in our offices now, or wherever we are all typing messages on this forum.

Do you really believe that? All fans have their opinion on players - its part of being a fan. To say "if we could do the job etc...." is a cop out. It is basically saying the coach knows best so we mere fans (different) opinions must be wrong. If we all agreed with how the club does things this would be a very boring place.

Be patient and see how they go on before saying they are not the right signings for us. Maybe we should be more easy going and just wait and see what happens.

As I have said previously it isn't just how good (or not) these players turn out to be that makes them not the right signings for us.

Dave

[Exiled Wiganer]

DaveO,
I always enjoy reading your posts and find myself agreeing a lot of the time, but I don't follow your stance on Godwin. I understand from what i have been told and read, that he liked the idea of being number 1 hooker at FC, and was offered more money to go there.
You assert that we should have offered him more money to keep him, and say he will have to wait till 08 to be number 1 hooker at FC, and that he would have stayed. i can see how this might be yuor opinion but it is based on an assertion which only deals with the money point. He may have to wait a year to step out from Swain's shadow, but there seems little prospect of his displacing Higham, who is younger and likely to stay with us, so it makes perfect sense for him to jump ship. His position therefore differs from Orr, where all parties seem to suggest he was pushed out. Which we agree could come back to haunt us.

Once he had jumped ship, we had to find a reserve hooker, and went for one whose play contrasts with Higham and who is at the right end of his career for us to ease McIlorum in. It seems to be rational to me.

I know I'm labouring the point, but I think you said I was being naive, when all I was doing was advancing an alternative view.

[DaveO]

Exiled Wiganer posted:
DaveO,
I always enjoy reading your posts and find myself agreeing a lot of the time, but I don't follow your stance on Godwin. I understand from what i have been told and read, that he liked the idea of being number 1 hooker at FC, and was offered more money to go there.

He won't be first choice hooker until 2008 and from what I can gather the "more money" side of it ought not to have been beyond the reach of Wigan.

You assert that we should have offered him more money to keep him, and say he will have to wait till 08 to be number 1 hooker at FC, and that he would have stayed. i can see how this might be yuor opinion but it is based on an assertion which only deals with the money point.

I just don't think he had any desire to move but at the same time he could not carry on earning a small wage given his experience and talent.

He may have to wait a year to step out from Swain's shadow, but there seems little prospect of his displacing Higham, who is younger and likely to stay with us, so it makes perfect sense for him to jump ship.

It does if you assume a regular slot in the first 17 regardless of where it was (bench or starting 13) was not what he was happy with.

My opinion is that given we can only have 20 players earning over £25K is we could have paid him enough to stay without breaking the bank and that he was happy doing his job be it from the bench or not.

Why do people assume he wanted the starting hooker slot at Wigan?

His position therefore differs from Orr, where all parties seem to suggest he was pushed out. Which we agree could come back to haunt us.

Orr will be one motivated player against us I am sure but why we could not afford to keep Wagga is disturbing because if Noble/ML think Millard is a better back up hooker then it is very short term thinking.

Once he had jumped ship, we had to find a reserve hooker, and went for one whose play contrasts with Higham and who is at the right end of his career for us to ease McIlorum in. It seems to be rational to me.

Well I don't think he jumped ship in the sense that he had little alternative but to leave if he wanted to earn some money as a pro player.

As regards McIlorum given we have given Millard a two year deal then McIlorum has at least two years to waiy before he can earn over £25K because surely the club isn't daft enough to give three hookers a 20/25 slot?

I know I'm labouring the point, but I think you said I was being naive, when all I was doing was advancing an alternative view.

Well I don't think you are labouring but no offence was meant if I did say so.

Dave

[Wigan Watcher]

Reading through the posts, and I must say against most people I will look forward to seeing Ashton in another position other than full back, he may even surprise one or two people and prove to be better in another spot. I have doubts over him ever becoming great at full back.

I called for him to be moved some time ago and perhaps Noble has listened to me.