Bye bye to Bob

[Fraggle]

From http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... idnes.html

Sportinglife.com wrote:

WIDNES SNAP UP WIGAN PAIR

Relegated Super League club Widnes Vikings increased their ex-Wigan contingent on Thursday with the signing of young forwards Bob Beswick and Dave Allen.

Widnes-born Allen, 20, made 23 appearances for the Warriors this season while Beswick, 21, played in 16 games.

"We are delighted to have signed two such outstanding talents," said Widnes chairman Tony Chambers. "They have both shown an ability to perform at the top level and I am sure they will have good careers at Widnes."

A year ago the Vikings signed Gary Connolly, Terry O'Connor, Mick Cassidy, Mark Smith and Jon Whittle from Wigan, but Connolly has now left the club and Whittle has moved on to Wakefield.

Wigan have now parted company with seven players who figured prominently for them this year.

Brian Carney is joining Australian club Newcastle Knights, Liam Botham has retired, Jerome Guisset is now with French newcomers Les Catalans and Stephen Wild and Martin Aspinwall have been recruited by Huddersfield.

Hardly a surprise, Allen's not made the most of his chances and Bob's just too lightweight.

[Chorley Pie eater]

Im sorry Fraggle I think that David has made a great difference to his form this year, I agree with you about Bob he has been a waste of space but i think Allen will come through & that the warriors will soon regret letting him go, I spoke with both players before the Stains match, Bob said he knew he was going but David said that he wanted to stay with Wigan & things looked good for him to stay.I honestly believe that the Warriors board will regret there mistake, but that wont make any difference to them when it comes to our players they are just blind ignorant.

[ChrisA]

Chorley Pie eater posted:
Im sorry Fraggle I think that David has made a great difference to his form this year, I agree with you about Bob he has been a waste of space but i think Allen will come through & that the warriors will soon regret letting him go, I spoke with both players before the Stains match, Bob said he knew he was going but David said that he wanted to stay with Wigan & things looked good for him to stay.I honestly believe that the Warriors board will regret there mistake, but that wont make any difference to them when it comes to our players they are just blind ignorant.

Allen has 5 props in front of him if he wanted to play in the front row, and he has Fletcher, Tickle, Hock, Lockers, and Hansen ahead of him in the back row. Where do you expect him to play ? we cant keep players for the sake of it, not these days with the salary cap and 20/20 rule.

[mrs_carney]

I didnt think dave would make it, he is unable to tackle properly. When he was paying the occasional game for us he looked good, when he was a regualr team member, he looked average at best. I think differently about bob though, even though he was quite lightweight and it was a drawback, he tackled his heart out, and really made a difference in the attacking line. But then again we have that young hooker we've signed up and wagga and newton (if he's staying). But although they've gone i dont think we'll regret it, its better for them to further their career and better for us regarding the salary cap.

[Fraggle]

Chorley Pie eater posted:
Im sorry Fraggle I think that David has made a great difference to his form this year, I agree with you about Bob he has been a waste of space but i think Allen will come through & that the warriors will soon regret letting him go, I spoke with both players before the Stains match, Bob said he knew he was going but David said that he wanted to stay with Wigan & things looked good for him to stay.I honestly believe that the Warriors board will regret there mistake, but that wont make any difference to them when it comes to our players they are just blind ignorant.

The problem is that people had been talking of Dave as being the next big thing for about 3-4 years now, and whilst he did finally break into the squad this year, other players have come from seemingly nowhere (to those of us who can't get the U21/U18) games and really taken their chances. I can only assume his development wasn't as fast as everyone expected, and whilst he may yet develop into a top player he's not done so fast enough for Wigan, and with the 20/20 rule and the £1.7m salary limit the club has to make some difficult choices, as has the player with several others trying to get his position next year (not least with Gaz Hock coming back from injury, regardless of any new recruits). Mr Allen didn't impress me enough this year to feel too sad about his leaving.

[DaveO]

mrs_carney posted:
I didnt think dave would make it, he is unable to tackle properly. When he was paying the occasional game for us he looked good, when he was a regualr team member, he looked average at best. I think differently about bob though, even though he was quite lightweight and it was a drawback, he tackled his heart out, and really made a difference in the attacking line. But then again we have that young hooker we've signed up and wagga and newton (if he's staying). But although they've gone i dont think we'll regret it, its better for them to further their career and better for us regarding the salary cap.

I agree. Opinion is divided on Allen but I 'd go with your assessment.

The pair of them are sort of sandwiched between older more capable players already in the first squad and players biting at their heals from the U21 and U18.

For example Tomkins looks at leaat as good as Allen to me.

If you think about it not many senior players will be leaving next year so there is limited scope to promote younger players to the 20/20. The club has done that with Hansen alredy and ought to be doing so with Hargreaves.

It seems inevitable to me that year on year we will see several young players who are emerging from the U21's be released.

Weproduce so many yet have just not got spece for them in the first team squad.

That means the club will have to think you are pretty special to get a precious slot in the first team squad.

While these two players are OK, they are not outstnding and so it is bye bye.

Dave

[Matthew]

I agree with the consensus on here - two good but not great players. As we are aiming to get back to the top once more - we have to be ruthless about who we keep and who we let go.

Whilst either player could come back and haunt us - it won't be next season and that is what we have to build for at the moment. In my opinion we've spent too many seasons saying "We may not have a great season this year - but we've got a good crop of youngsters coming through". In order to attract top names to add to our squad we need to be succesful - no top players are going to want to sign for a club and settle for mid table mediocrity - unless it's for a pension payout and those are the players we DON'T want.

Success breeds success - winning is a habit and unfortunately it is one we seem to have given up on of late. Where as before we would have gone to every game expecting to win - we've now gone to places like London hoping for a result and places like KR fearing the worst.

It was interesting to see that it said that it was IM's decision to let them go - maybe Maurice has let him have some control...

[Exiled Wiganer]

What gets on my nerves is that the salary cap takes no account of home grown talent - sure, we get the first pick of wave after wave of youngsters but so often a player comes through later on. With Hansen, he may have potential, but if he does not fill out he won't make it, and we can only do so much on that front. Allen may get his act together, grow and come back to haunt us - for a long time they were rated as highly as one another...

They should weight the salary cap so that clubs could spend more retaining their home growns - until you do, you could argue that Wigan's benefits for producing all these potential stars are marginal.

This makes me apoplectic with rage.

[Fraggle]

Exiled Wiganer posted:
What gets on my nerves is that the salary cap takes no account of home grown talent - sure, we get the first pick of wave after wave of youngsters but so often a player comes through later on. With Hansen, he may have potential, but if he does not fill out he won't make it, and we can only do so much on that front. Allen may get his act together, grow and come back to haunt us - for a long time they were rated as highly as one another...

They should weight the salary cap so that clubs could spend more retaining their home growns - until you do, you could argue that Wigan's benefits for producing all these potential stars are marginal.

This makes me apoplectic with rage.

I'd take the U21's and U18's out of the salary cap altogether. Only a few clubs take youth development really seriously, and those clubs are producing players for the rest of the league. It's almost like a draft system sharing the talent out, but Wigan are spending time, money and resource training young talent that we then are forced to let go. We get to keep the best presumably, but they wouldn't be at Wigan if they were rubbish so the Widnes' of this world are the ones to benefit by getting players who've gone through the Wigan academy without having to do any of the development work or spend the money themselves.

Even without having the kids included we wouldn't be able to keep them all, they themselves may get frustrated with waiting for an emcumbant first team player to get injured or move on (such as happened with Briscoe) but the decision to leave should rest with the player because they want to play, or with the club for tactical reasons (player not good enough, Bibey springs to mind!), not because the money men say you're spending too much on new players so either get rid of some of them or get rid of some of your experienced players. The Widnes' of this world probably spend most if not all of however much of the £1.7m they're allowed from their income on their first team squad, whereas Wigan and Leeds have a lot more players to pay for from that same pot of money. Is that really a fair way of levelling the playing field, penalising the clubs who produce most of the next generation of players?

[DaveO]

Fraggle posted:

Exiled Wiganer posted:
The Widnes' of this world probably spend most if not all of however much of the £1.7m they're allowed from their income on their first team squad, whereas Wigan and Leeds have a lot more players to pay for from that same pot of money. Is that really a fair way of levelling the playing field, penalising the clubs who produce most of the next generation of players?

Very good point. I know form a discussion with a Wakefiled fan some time ago on RLFANS that Wakefields policy is to sign experienced players of a certain standard because they are worried if they go for youth they may not be good enough and the club could get relegated.

By not paying younge rplayers they have more to spend on those experienced players wages.

If Wigan hang on to half a dozen players like Allen and pay them all £10K a year they may not count on the 20/20 but they are costing us £60K we could spend on a senior player for the 20/20.

I am starting to wonder if Wigan have got fed up of having less to spend on senior players due to having so many younger players on their books and have basically decided if you can't beat 'em join 'em.

If you look our squad has the most overseas players in it than it has had for years when in the recent past the move was to try and produce a home grown squad bar three on-quota players.

The home grown as opposed to foreign dominated squad is out of the window for the next two seasons at least.

Is the idea of producing our players going to go completely out of the window because it just is not worth it as well?

I read an artical years ago before we had a salary cap quoting two Aussie coaches who were complaining that regulations down under would mean their clubs would be producing talent for other clubs to pick up and that they would not do continue to do it forever.

If the rules are going to make it hard for Wigan to complete for senior players due to having less money to spend the lack of success we have had recently may well tempt ML to ditch the grand idea of a good youth set up at the club.

I hope not and to be honest I don't think it will but there is always the possibility it might happen.

Dave