Re: goulding gone

[cpwigan]

"He understood where he was in the pecking order. If Darrell's playing out of his skin, he's always going to be picked, but it's very tough to be at the top of your game all of the time.

So Daz at his best is better than what we have no matter how well they play, even their best.

Maybe he just wanted to say something nice whilst saying his performance level means he is down the pecking order now.

It is in black and white Mark whatever spin we want to put on it / however we want to interpret it.

[morley pie eater]

A testimonial is a reward for loyalty in my book, not to compensate for a salary reduction!!
Penny pinching of the highest order as far as I can see. We HAD the capability to win pots consistently, and more to the point, predictably, for the next four to five years but for the shedding of quality players.
Some gullibles will swallow it like a bare hook but all the spin that comes out the Club can't deny what anybody with half a brain can see is happening.
A Youth system is mean't to supplement and replace your existing players over a period of time, not to throw them in at the deep end and expect them to swim!!!

Can I put in a word in defence of the "gullibles" using my "half a brain"?

I read and value all opinions/views on this forum and from the club. I don't agree with everything from any source, and accept that my views are often based on guesswork and limited information.

Go back to the Uncle Mo's glory days in the 80s and 90s. We dominated by being a team of full-time professionals against part-timers, spent more than we could afford leading to virtual bankruptcy. I loved winning all the trophies, though did get a bit bored of uncompetitive matches. (Remember the biggest cheer in the cup semi at Burnden Park was when Gilly scored for Bradford!) I therefore agree in principle with the salary cap as a means to having a more competitive league.

But do we level up to the best standard, the worst, or somewhere in the middle? Two factors stop us levelling up to the best: money and players. British RL is a minority sport and doesn't produce enough quality players to support a high-standard 12 team league (let alone 14). Neither do we generate enough income to allow 12 teams to pay players what they're worth. The consequence of this is that we can't compete with Union or the NRL and will lose top players.

Realistically, one choice is to let Wigan spend what they can afford (say £2.5 to £3 million) on players wages, with the majority of other clubs trailing behind - say Wakefield at £1.25 million. [These are purely made-up examples to illustrate the point.] We go back to the glory days, but the game as a whole stagnates, Sky drop their money, players still leave, Wigan fans get bored of winning by 50 or 60 points most weeks.

The only realistic alternative, it seems to me, is to accept that we level to the middle. In these circumstances what should Wigan do? One option is to spend within the cap (tough on players who deserve more), have a big squad with a few experienced leaders, plenty home-produced young lads, and sign some cheaper hopefuls from lower clubs, hoping 50% of them turn out to be worth it, and giving scope for posters on the forum to complain about the Andy Powells and Sam Hopkins ...

Because this seems reasonable to my reduced mental capacity, it sometimes leads me to different judgements than some more cerebral posters of IL's decisions, harsh as these may be on some individual players' ability to pay their gas bills.

IMO all RL players are worth much more than they are paid but unfortunately, and until the sport generates more income, we are where we are.

[cpwigan]

Of course Morley would have realized that the crowd cheered Gilly because he was a Wigan legend and he had been interacting with the crowd on the day, pretending to cry etc. I remembers fans cheering some amazing RL, I remember a fantastic coach adapting how his team played to make the most of Gene Miles talents. It was never boring, it wasn't even boring when we put 50 on Bradford a week or two later.

Some fans want to wave a white flag and say yes you put your body on the line and deserved more but we cannot afford to. Sound like mill / mine owners exploiting child labour. Alternative we can say how can we make this fantastic sport even more marketable so companies / the media / general public want to pay enough for it to get even better and become the sport it should be and pay players what they deserve instead of telling them they are living the dream and should be grateful.

Did you ever take industrial action Morley to get a better salary / final pension despite being told by the powers that be we can not afford it

[Exiled Wiganer]

Are you suggesting that Morley is to be put in the same bracket as mill owners for expressing a (to my half brain) cogent argument?

[Wandering Warrior]

To suggest a player should supplement his salary with a testimonial shows disrespect and contempt towards the player concerned if that, as appears to be, is the case!
Are we to assume the next player to have a testimonial will be flirted in the same manner? Who is it by the way, Micky Mac?
Forgot, he's on a long contract!!

[cpwigan]

Are you suggesting that Morley is to be put in the same bracket as mill owners for expressing a (to my half brain) cogent argument?

No I am stating that his comment is hypocritical given his profession fought for better working conditions, better pay and a handsome final salary pension scheme yet he wants others in another profession to work for unfair imposed incomes that cannot approach what they are worth / deserve. It is an argument often made by the wealthy / the advantaged (not PME) to justify unfair treatment in the past, in the present.

I personally believe the concept that RL should never aspire to progress and develop somewhat defeatist and very negative. I prefer to argue any organization / activity should be pro active and actively seek to excel.

Waving a white flag and accepting your lot is not an ideology I can accept or share. Thankfully, others with money and influence felt the same when I was growing up and left a fantastic legacy for the town of Wigan.

For a glinting period we nearly matched / surpassed the Australian RL team and our players became nationwide stars / players that young boys wanted to replicate. After a lengthy period it started to go awry because 1) A new stand became incredibly expensive 2) Some of the gang of 4 moved on/aged 3) The remainder became embroiled in a self harming fight with DW for control of the club and of course 4) the SL war.

Nevertheless, the halcyon era is one that should never be forgotten or dismissed. Even now, its legacy has resulted in new generations of stars like Sam T who without that period would probably have never played RL. Today, I see potentially great RL talents that will never play this sport. Still we should just accept that and wave our white flags.

[cpwigan]

Here is a question to the accept your lot mob. If we let the Dr loose to spend what he wanted at Salford would it have more impact or less impact upon the sport of RL / RL in Manchester/Salford ?

[DaveO]

"He understood where he was in the pecking order. If Darrell's playing out of his skin, he's always going to be picked, but it's very tough to be at the top of your game all of the time.

So Daz at his best is better than what we have no matter how well they play, even their best.

Maybe he just wanted to say something nice whilst saying his performance level means he is down the pecking order now.

It's another Wane master-class of how not to speak to the press.

On the one hand if Goulding plays to his best ability he will always get picked ahead of the others yet on the other he implies he's down the pecking order. It's a contradiction.

What he has tried to do IMO is put a positive spin on another players loss to the club. He's just too honest to dismiss Goulding as a player but has made a bit of a pigs ear of his attempt to mitigate the loss by "bigging up" the other players mentioned.

The fact he mentioned Hughes and JT as possible candidates for playing centre was just depressing.

[DaveO]

If you and a certain one or two others are so unhappy with things, may I suggest you enrol as a candidate for the proposed fans panel and air your negativity there.

Makes me wonder sometimes if some of you would like to go back to the dark days of the real tight fisted owner and the time when we did have mediocre players, won nothing and all the money from our club was going towards his precious football team to buy better players there.

I think you will find we spent more on players and players wages under Mo and DW than we do now. DW also gave the club the Orrell training ground once Orrell RU went bust.

We lacked success then but it wasn't because of a lack of cash.

At the moment I find it puzzling that a club that prides itself on its home grown talent seems to sell it or let it go quite readily and replace it with mostly recruits from outside the club of a lower standard.

Signing a player like Bateman or Taylor is fine but there have also been numerous flops since IL took over, starting with the likes of Mathers and Pryce and along through the likes of Lauaki and Powell and now the club seems to think Sarge is a better centre than Goulding which he isn't. And neither is Gelling.

If we are talking cheapskate it's signings like those I mention above that qualify for that tag and it's no coincidence IMO most of the cheapskate signings made under IL have been flops or proved average at best.

If you say so , Dave!

We have moved on several players signed under IL for no other reason than they were poor. Are you disputing that there have been some bad decisions on the signings front?

Many of which were called by people on here as poor before they got here so it wasn't hindsight either.

Oh, and by the way, who was it with ML who made Orrell go bust?

The members of Orrell RUFC where their own worst enemies in that little chapter of local sporting history.

[Owd Codger]

I think you will find we spent more on players and players wages under Mo and DW than we do now. DW also gave the club the Orrell training ground once Orrell RU went bust.

We lacked success then but it wasn't because of a lack of cash.

At the moment I find it puzzling that a club that prides itself on its home grown talent seems to sell it or let it go quite readily and replace it with mostly recruits from outside the club of a lower standard.

Signing a player like Bateman or Taylor is fine but there have also been numerous flops since IL took over, starting with the likes of Mathers and Pryce and along through the likes of Lauaki and Powell and now the club seems to think Sarge is a better centre than Goulding which he isn't. And neither is Gelling.

If we are talking cheapskate it's signings like those I mention above that qualify for that tag and it's no coincidence IMO most of the cheapskate signings made under IL have been flops or proved average at best.

If you say so , Dave!

We have moved on several players signed under IL for no other reason than they were poor. Are you disputing that there have been some bad decisions on the signings front?

Many of which were called by people on here as poor before they got here so it wasn't hindsight either.

Oh, and by the way, who was it with ML who made Orrell go bust?

The members of Orrell RUFC where their own worst enemies in that little chapter of local sporting history.

DaveO, If you think IL is no good, why is it that when he appear on the pitch for the resigning of Joel, he was met with a massive round of applause and cheering by the MAJORITY of our supporters. Were you around in the seventies when we were actually a poorly run club under people Gostellow and Baxendale and had teams full of poor players.

Every club makes mistakes, but at Wigan we make more good signings than bad and it is why our club has been and always will be the most successful club in thew history of the game. As for many players leaving each season, that is because we sign so many good youngsters, we cannot keep them all and some go to other clubs. Like Paul Cullen once said, Wigan keep the best and other Coaches pick up the scraps, the Widnes club being a current example The same happens at Leeds on the Yorkshire side where many of their cast offs end up at other clubs.

As for Orrell RU, what are you on about when everyone in Wigan knows that the demise of the club occur with Whelan and Lindsay when they pulled the financial plug on them as a result of the RFU would not allowing the club into their Premier League as they already had one representing the North West in Sale RU in Manchester. Suggest you speak to any member of that Orrell RU club before you accuse them of anything to do with its demise and loss of their ground. Dez Seabrooke in particular, if he is still around.

Finally, if you think that Wigan is so badly run under IL, I hate to think what you your opinions would be if we were a club like Wakefield, in and out of administration all the time.

No wonder good posters like Kittwazzer have thrown in the towel with some of the petty moaning that is rife on here!