Maurice Lindsay

[Ron]

The plight of Wigan RL Club lies firmly at the feet of Maurice Lindsay. Letting so many players go over the past few seasons and replacing them with over-the-hill Aussies, is the reason we are in the mess today. Neither Millward nor Betts can do anything with the players we have today - either because they are not good enough (not trying) or they are too inexperienced; also maybe one or two other reasons unknown to us. Any other SL club or sports club would be screaming for the head of anyone who had got their club into this shambles. Why are we not? Many people have blamed ML for this mess but are not doing anything about it (yes, myself included)! He seems to be getting too easy a ride.

[Fraggle]

Ron posted:
The plight of Wigan RL Club lies firmly at the feet of Maurice Lindsay. Letting so many players go over the past few seasons and replacing them with over-the-hill Aussies, is the reason we are in the mess today. Neither Millward nor Betts can do anything with the players we have today - either because they are not good enough (not trying) or they are too inexperienced; also maybe one or two other reasons unknown to us. Any other SL club or sports club would be screaming for the head of anyone who had got their club into this shambles. Why are we not? Many people have blamed ML for this mess but are not doing anything about it (yes, myself included)! He seems to be getting too easy a ride.

It does seem a bit strange that's he's in the press today saying he feels sorry for Millward, how hard it is when so many players have gone, that the kids are not good enough etc. Ok, so Maurice isn't responsible for the injuries to Hock, Lockers, DV, Rads, Orr etc. And he can't be blamed for the Davico fiasco, as he was fit at the time he was signed. But who released all the senior players last year? Who decided the inexperienced kids could replace those senior players? Who agreed to let Farrell leave 2 years early and doesn't seem to be doing much to dissuade Rads and seemingly Carney from also leaving early? Yep, Chairman Mo himself. Part of the current player situation is caused by decisions he has taken. But he doesn't admit anywhere that he's made any mistakes with his recruitment policy at any time in the past, even despite the number of average-at-best players who joined the club then disappeared at the earlier opportunity when they've not produced the goods (Harvey No Yards, Matty Johns, O'Neill, Malam...).

As I've said for a long time, there are lots of things not right this year, and ML has from time-to-time come up with some excellent recruits and can't be solely blamed for our position this year. But on the other hand, he's the boss and ultimately the fate of the club is in his hands, so it would be nice to hear him take a bit of responsibility instead of just saying "oh it's a shame, but what can we do?".

[thegimble]

Ron posted:
The plight of Wigan RL Club lies firmly at the feet of Maurice Lindsay. Letting so many players go over the past few seasons and replacing them with over-the-hill Aussies, is the reason we are in the mess today. Neither Millward nor Betts can do anything with the players we have today - either because they are not good enough (not trying) or they are too inexperienced; also maybe one or two other reasons unknown to us. Any other SL club or sports club would be screaming for the head of anyone who had got their club into this shambles. Why are we not? Many people have blamed ML for this mess but are not doing anything about it (yes, myself included)! He seems to be getting too easy a ride.

Ok the injuries are not his fault. But he is running the club into the gound at the moment and i would question if it is deliberatly done. The mis management of overseasos player is a joke. And MO was in charge of recruting over the last few years.

Only way we would get anywhere against him is to basically not to turn up for games or buy merchandise but theat is not an option as the club and team must come first.

MO either needs to shape up or go. Too much money was given in the contrats to Faz, Rads, Connolly and a few others and now we pay the price as we ended up with no real quality through the squad and any one deluded enough to think the youngsters will become great players need to realise none are holding there own in their position against most SL counterparts today. 1 or 2 will become great players there is no doubt about that. O Loughlin will be a major star.

MO has done nothing but say we can not get any players in. Sorry but did someone on here list the players on the 20/20 ruling and we had 3 gaps. We got money we saved on Faz and Davico ok we got Botham and Guisett in but they will be on less than half of what they were on. We are been sold down the river.

In conclusion are we deliberatly been weakened as a club by MO and DW. Now we here that Rads might go to union. And no one would stop him. Sounds like he wont play againg for us. Seems to me that Football will become the only major sport at the JJB at the top level and this might have been the plan all along. I might be way off the mark here. But sounds to me we no where near the salary cap and have space on the 20/20 and yet were inactive in the market. Something smells here and its not my socks.

[Ron]

I think you may be right Gimble, there is something going on and I suppose it will all come out eventually - maybe when the football season gets underway things may become clearer. Just read on teletext that Leeds have signed a winger named Scott Donald, aged 25, from Manly Sea Eagles, scoring 63 tries in 87 games. He is due to arrive December. Where was ML when he was up for grabs???

[Doveoverdave]

the gimble posted;
But sounds to me we no where near the salary cap and have space on the 20/20 and yet were inactive in the market.

I am of the same opinion that we cannot be anywhere near the cap limit.

This once great proactive club is lying impotent with their fingers and everything else crossed hoping results will go in their favour instead of making results happen through club policy.

[Fraggle]

thegimble posted:
MO either needs to shape up or go. Too much money was given in the contrats to Faz, Rads, Connolly and a few others and now we pay the price as we ended up with no real quality through the squad and any one deluded enough to think the youngsters will become great players need to realise none are holding there own in their position against most SL counterparts today.

To be a little bit fair to ML, the Farrell contract was a 6 year contract put in place before the salary cap was reduced to £1.8m, and Rads' contract has been part-funded by the RFL althougj his next one would have to be fully-paid by Wigan if he were to stay, but the amount of that contract was partially determined by the RFU's predations rather than what Rads necessarily wanted.

Perhaps Maurice should have known that the amount of salary cap money was going to be cut to £1.8 from what was available when these contracts were signed. But on the other hand, I'm not sure if these contracts really were too expensive even at the lower cap limit. Faz was on £166k/year, and being captain you'd expect that to be the highest salary (but is less than Paul Sculthorpe?). If you take that amount off £1.8m, then we've still got £1.63m left which is enough to pay 19 more players (20/20 rule) an average of £86k each, not a bad salary. Now, some of the players will probably be on more than that, some of the 20/20 players probably less, and that only allows 20 players, so here's some maths:

Salary cap £1.8m
Farrell £166667

5 (say) non-20/20 players @ £19.99k (£100k for argument's sake)

19 other players = average of £80k each (£1.53m / 19)

Total squad 26 players, not unreasonable, all the 20/20 slots filled and the £1.8m all used up. Even having another player on the same as Farrell only brings the money for the other 18 players to £1.36m, average £76k each.

Some of the 19 are going to be on more than £80k, some on less than £80k so I think they will balance each other out. Tickle might only be £40k, Dallas on £100k, for example, and the younger players have still got time to get those top salaries. We've had a big player turnover in recent years so I think only Faz and Radders have been on big, long-term contracts.

I don't see a couple of big salaries as being the problem. Unless we're trying to pay all our 20/20 players top-whack then there's enough leeway in the £1.8m cap to pay for a couple of top-rate players like Farrell without any trouble.

And pay them we should. If you want the best, you've got to pay the best wages. The only scenario I can see where we would have had a problem is if we weren't making enough money to be allowed to spend £1.8m (there's still the 50% of income rule). Have we not been making enough profit, meaning we've not had the full salary cap to play with? That seems incredible given our attendances have been rising, corporate money should have been coming in and we've got all kinds of other marketing schemes going on. Ticket sales alone account for something like £1.5m, nearly half of what's needed, but maybe the club hasn't been performing in other areas. If that's the case, then we're definitely looking at the management being at fault, not players wanting big salaries.

[Wizard_Millward]

Fraggle posted:
To be a little bit fair to ML, the Farrell contract was a 6 year contract put in place before the salary cap was reduced to £1.8m, and Rads' contract has been part-funded by the RFL althougj his next one would have to be fully-paid by Wigan if he were to stay, but the amount of that contract was partially determined by the RFU's predations rather than what Rads necessarily wanted.

Perhaps Maurice should have known that the amount of salary cap money was going to be cut to £1.8 from what was available when these contracts were signed. But on the other hand, I'm not sure if these contracts really were too expensive even at the lower cap limit. Faz was on £166k/year, and being captain you'd expect that to be the highest salary (but is less than Paul Sculthorpe?). If you take that amount off £1.8m, then we've still got £1.63m left which is enough to pay 19 more players (20/20 rule) an average of £86k each, not a bad salary. Now, some of the players will probably be on more than that, some of the 20/20 players probably less, and that only allows 20 players, so here's some maths:

Salary cap £1.8m
Farrell £166667

5 (say) non-20/20 players @ £19.99k (£100k for argument's sake)

19 other players = average of £80k each (£1.53m / 19)

Total squad 26 players, not unreasonable, all the 20/20 slots filled and the £1.8m all used up. Even having another player on the same as Farrell only brings the money for the other 18 players to £1.36m, average £76k each.

Some of the 19 are going to be on more than £80k, some on less than £80k so I think they will balance each other out. Tickle might only be £40k, Dallas on £100k, for example, and the younger players have still got time to get those top salaries. We've had a big player turnover in recent years so I think only Faz and Radders have been on big, long-term contracts.

I don't see a couple of big salaries as being the problem. Unless we're trying to pay all our 20/20 players top-whack then there's enough leeway in the £1.8m cap to pay for a couple of top-rate players like Farrell without any trouble.

And pay them we should. If you want the best, you've got to pay the best wages. The only scenario I can see where we would have had a problem is if we weren't making enough money to be allowed to spend £1.8m (there's still the 50% of income rule). Have we not been making enough profit, meaning we've not had the full salary cap to play with? That seems incredible given our attendances have been rising, corporate money should have been coming in and we've got all kinds of other marketing schemes going on. Ticket sales alone account for something like £1.5m, nearly half of what's needed, but maybe the club hasn't been performing in other areas. If that's the case, then we're definitely looking at the management being at fault, not players wanting big salaries.

Great post Fraggle.

[jinkin jimmy]

Not that it makes much difference, but I think the figures for Farrell ( and Rads) will be wrong. I know about the contract he signed years back, but I'd be amazed if it hadn't been improved. There was talk of Long and Scully being on £200K at Saints, Lauatiti (sp) came on £75K for half a season at Leeds, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Faz was on £200K+.

[Blind Side]

Hope you can do the maths at the end of the season when we are facing relegation.

Mo is running out of excuses he has removed most of them from the club,

Or could it be that he is only a puppet for someone else who realy does not care about Wigan Rugby

[jinkin jimmy]

Blind Side posted:
Hope you can do the maths at the end of the season when we are facing relegation.

Mo is running out of excuses he has removed most of them from the club,

Or could it be that he is only a puppet for someone else who realy does not care about Wigan Rugby

wnac, is that you?? :doz: