joe burgess

[cpwigan]

I personally think Lockers will be monumentally difficult to replace. The success of the way Wane wants his teams to play is very much dependent on Lockers and whilst I see some fabulous young loose forwards I cannot see one anywhere that does what Lockers does. IMO, the day Lockers retires is the day Wane will have to change or die by his coaching sword.

[PaulC]

I personally think Lockers will be monumentally difficult to replace. The success of the way Wane wants his teams to play is very much dependent on Lockers and whilst I see some fabulous young loose forwards I cannot see one anywhere that does what Lockers does. IMO, the day Lockers retires is the day Wane will have to change or die by his coaching sword.

I'snt lockers going to be moving into coaching staff anyway?

I think he will take a long long time to replace

[cpwigan]

He is Paul and I totally agree. He makes our halfbacks and the rest of players looks 20-50% better when he plays.

[josie andrews]

I've watched Sean from being 16. I've always sang his praises & often been shot down for it, but never once did I waver in my belief that he would be one of the better players to wear Cherry & White.

Even told him when he was 18, that he would become captain of our great club & he has been an outstanding captain, one of our best ????????

Will be a very sad day for the team when he retires from playing.

[DaveO]

Dave, we cannot compete with the offers NRL clubs make young players financially. Sydney City offered 4 times the norm in SL to Burdgie and to Ryan Sutton. We managed to keep Sutton but I daresay the reasons we retained him were others rather than pure money.

Who cares what the "norm" (whatever that is) is? It is about the actual amount of cash on the table.

Are you seriously suggesting if Wigan offered an exceptionally talented young player a contract of £100K (which is what Edwards signing on fee was worth roughly back in 1983 for comparison) an NRL side would offer £400K?

That is $AUD 768K which is more than Sam Tomkins, the 5th highest paid player in the NRL.

A salary of £100K is $AUD $192K. So to beat that this would put them into the kind of wages seasoned pros or players at least 4 years older are on and would also make a bigger hole in their salary cap.

You are talking the kind of money Brisbane offered Mitch Garbutt to move from the Storm here, not the kind of money waved at junior players.

[Panchitta Marra]

I've watched Sean from being 16. I've always sang his praises & often been shot down for it, but never once did I waver in my belief that he would be one of the better players to wear Cherry & White.

Even told him when he was 18, that he would become captain of our great club & he has been an outstanding captain, one of our best ????????

Will be a very sad day for the team when he retires from playing.

Here here Josie, a legend at our club.
Not a player to be found with a bigger heart for Wigan than SOL.

[Owd Codger]

Dave O, Edwards was signed at a time when Rugby League was professional and Union was 'amateur'. I am in no doubt that if Union had been fully professional at that time, Edwards, like a few more prior to 1996 would have defected to Union without hesitation. You only have to look at the number of players from that era who are now involved in Union ie. Edwards, Lydon, Ford, Farrell etc and all because there is now more money in Union than League.

I don't see how that is relevant. In 1983 Wigan were competing with the likes of Wire for Edwards signature. Today it is the NRL clubs who are the main competition.

With young players they simply can't command the type of wages that made it impossible for Wigan to match an offer made to Sam T so what I am saying asking is will Wigan do what is necessary to retain (or sign) young players of exceptional talent when they can actually do so?

This would most likely mean paying someone like Hampshire considerably more than other young players of his generation just as Wigan paid Edwards more than any other 17 year old on its books at the time.





Will it accept it needs to do this or will some self imposed wage structure mean he is allowed to leave?

If it is the latter then I think we are in serious trouble.

Edwards signed for Wigan at a time when Union was not as professional and financially strong as it is now and there was a situation in our game where players got contracts based on what they wanted and which many clubs including Wigan could not afford.

Why do you think that Wigan ended up with debts of £6.5 million in the mid nineties and a salary cap was introduce.

Do you honestly believe that if Union had been a fully professional game like it is now at the time Edwards was 17, he would have signed for Wigan and remained loyal to our game

[No straw damn us]

Dave, we cannot compete with the offers NRL clubs make young players financially. Sydney City offered 4 times the norm in SL to Burdgie and to Ryan Sutton. We managed to keep Sutton but I daresay the reasons we retained him were others rather than pure money.

Who cares what the "norm" (whatever that is) is? It is about the actual amount of cash on the table.

Are you seriously suggesting if Wigan offered an exceptionally talented young player a contract of £100K (which is what Edwards signing on fee was worth roughly back in 1983 for comparison) an NRL side would offer £400K?

That is $AUD 768K which is more than Sam Tomkins, the 5th highest paid player in the NRL.

A salary of £100K is $AUD $192K. So to beat that this would put them into the kind of wages seasoned pros or players at least 4 years older are on and would also make a bigger hole in their salary cap.

You are talking the kind of money Brisbane offered Mitch Garbutt to move from the Storm here, not the kind of money waved at junior players.

If you were IL how much would YOU have been prepared to pay to keep Burgess? And then how much do you think the agent of Hampshire, Williams, Gildart would have asked for those players to stay?

[DaveO]

Dave, we cannot compete with the offers NRL clubs make young players financially. Sydney City offered 4 times the norm in SL to Burdgie and to Ryan Sutton. We managed to keep Sutton but I daresay the reasons we retained him were others rather than pure money.

Who cares what the "norm" (whatever that is) is? It is about the actual amount of cash on the table.

Are you seriously suggesting if Wigan offered an exceptionally talented young player a contract of £100K (which is what Edwards signing on fee was worth roughly back in 1983 for comparison) an NRL side would offer £400K?

That is $AUD 768K which is more than Sam Tomkins, the 5th highest paid player in the NRL.

A salary of £100K is $AUD $192K. So to beat that this would put them into the kind of wages seasoned pros or players at least 4 years older are on and would also make a bigger hole in their salary cap.

You are talking the kind of money Brisbane offered Mitch Garbutt to move from the Storm here, not the kind of money waved at junior players.

If you were IL how much would YOU have been prepared to pay to keep Burgess? And then how much do you think the agent of Hampshire, Williams, Gildart would have asked for those players to stay?

Why don't people get what I am talking about?

It is like trying to get blood from a stone on this one.

I will try again.

In the past if an exceptional talent turned up, Wigan bid for it.

I used the example of Edwards and the signing on fee Wigan used to lure him here.

What I would like to see happen now is if we have an exceptional young player on the books the club recognises it is going to have to pay him a contract higher than other players of his generation.

How much that is, I have no idea but what I do know is if it tries to pay them all the same because they are young players it will have no chance of keeping exceptional ones.

Some players are better than others and can command higher wages.

What I also do not believe is that NRL clubs are going to make our junior players some of their highest paid players.

So in my opinion it is not impossible to offer a contract that would put them off signing one of our young players whereas it was impossible to compete for Sam Tomkins (supposedly the 5th highest paid player in the NRL).

NRL clubs pay to their salary cap. The do not have infinite capacity to fling money at whoever they want and when you see what some established players earn in the NRL it shows you that Sam T salaries are the exception not the rule. They are not going to offer our junior players $350K a year.

However if we insist on a pay structure that said we start contract negotiations with a Hampshire level of player at £40K a year you are inviting him to look to the NRL were beating that would be no issue and once they start looking then the idea of leaving is sown and it will be even harder to dissuade them regardless of improved offers.

[JUKESAYS]

Who cares what the "norm" (whatever that is) is? It is about the actual amount of cash on the table.

Are you seriously suggesting if Wigan offered an exceptionally talented young player a contract of £100K (which is what Edwards signing on fee was worth roughly back in 1983 for comparison) an NRL side would offer £400K?

That is $AUD 768K which is more than Sam Tomkins, the 5th highest paid player in the NRL.

A salary of £100K is $AUD $192K. So to beat that this would put them into the kind of wages seasoned pros or players at least 4 years older are on and would also make a bigger hole in their salary cap.

You are talking the kind of money Brisbane offered Mitch Garbutt to move from the Storm here, not the kind of money waved at junior players.

If you were IL how much would YOU have been prepared to pay to keep Burgess? And then how much do you think the agent of Hampshire, Williams, Gildart would have asked for those players to stay?

Why don't people get what I am talking about?

It is like trying to get blood from a stone on this one.

I will try again.

In the past if an exceptional talent turned up, Wigan bid for it.

I used the example of Edwards and the signing on fee Wigan used to lure him here.

What I would like to see happen now is if we have an exceptional young player on the books the club recognises it is going to have to pay him a contract higher than other players of his generation.

How much that is, I have no idea but what I do know is if it tries to pay them all the same because they are young players it will have no chance of keeping exceptional ones.

Some players are better than others and can command higher wages.

What I also do not believe is that NRL clubs are going to make our junior players some of their highest paid players.

So in my opinion it is not impossible to offer a contract that would put them off signing one of our young players whereas it was impossible to compete for Sam Tomkins (supposedly the 5th highest paid player in the NRL).

NRL clubs pay to their salary cap. The do not have infinite capacity to fling money at whoever they want and when you see what some established players earn in the NRL it shows you that Sam T salaries are the exception not the rule. They are not going to offer our junior players $350K a year.

However if we insist on a pay structure that said we start contract negotiations with a Hampshire level of player at £40K a year you are inviting him to look to the NRL were beating that would be no issue and once they start looking then the idea of leaving is sown and it will be even harder to dissuade them regardless of improved offers.

Maybe because they have different opinion and think you're wrong?????

End of the day it may not have only come down to money.
If it were me I'd go too, but everyone's different.
I KNOW that to beat Sydney's offer Wigan would have had to, after less than 15 or so appearances made Joe one of the top earners at the club. The knock on effect of that for the junior system coming through could be disastrous imo.
Quite rightly there would be a dozen players banging on the door and any kind of squad financial planning would be out the window.
That's what led to the mid 2000downturn imo and did us no good long term.
The days of uncle Mo working out that signing Hanley and getting xyz back immediately through increase in gates is long gone.
investing private investment to sign an Edwards won't work either as its not about not wanting to give them extra money, it's about the consequences of doing so (or not doing so).
Even if wigan had matched his offer how does anyone other than himself know if he'd have gone or not?
Good luck to the lad, wigan move on, hopefully we meet again having both progressed to where we want to be.