Re: The halfback solution : Thu Dec 01, 2016 9:30 am  

mark_m wrote:

It is a good job the Wigan Academy knows how to produce players otherwise we would be struggling in key positions.

Is that now Brown, Russell, Ratchford, Crosby, Currie and Hughes?

Looking at the squad it looks like another season of failure to me.

Brad Dwyer too, no?

Re: The halfback solution : Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:45 am  

rubber duckie wrote:

I have it on good Elf authority, Williams will be turning up for preseason training as a Wire in Nov 2017 wether you like it or not.
It's a done deal.
Now if you know of any dwarf that knows better then my Elves, then please enlighten me. I won't except the word of an Ogre so that counts Shaun Wane out.

If you're so confident then how about this.

If George Williams signs for Wire before 1st Jan 2018 I'll donate £50 to your nominated charity.
If George Williams doesn't sign for Wire before 1st Jan 2018 you donate £50 to Joining Jack.

I'll post this on the Wigan board as well so that you don't miss it.

Re: The halfback solution : Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:04 am  

fez1 wrote:

[quote="mark_m]

Looking at the squad it looks like another season of failure to me.[/quote]

Really????

Failure - LLS winners and runners up in the other 2 comps.

Try sod all for most of the 90s and 00s.

Pack has been strengthened.
Backs the same as last year but with Toby K more experienced.
Gidley and Dec were a good pair when they played.

We will miss Sandow. Until injured he was virtually unplayable. Can't understand those who say he only played a couple of good games for us.

Losing Currie and Ratch is a blow also.

Others have strengthened well so I doubt we'll do as well as last season but I can still see us being in a shout for silverware in 2017.[/quote]

Yes really. If we don't win the GF it is outright failure, that is what it is all about.

And how anyone can compare the club to the one from the pre-HJ/ SJM days is beyond me. We are one of the most highly resourced clubs in the game.

Re: The halfback solution : Sat Dec 03, 2016 11:28 am  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

If you're so confident then how about this.

If George Williams signs for Wire before 1st Jan 2018 I'll donate £50 to your nominated charity.
If George Williams doesn't sign for Wire before 1st Jan 2018 you donate £50 to Joining Jack.

I'll post this on the Wigan board as well so that you don't miss it.

£50 ... The last of the big spenders. I didn't know things were that bad up north.
If I was a betting man I would have made it £500.

Re: The halfback solution : Sat Dec 03, 2016 11:35 am  

Builth Wells Wire wrote:

£50 ... The last of the big spenders. I didn't know things were that bad up north.
If I was a betting man I would have made it £500.

I'm not a betting man (I'm a poor pensioner ) , but I thought this was worth it for charity, particularly Joining Jack.

Re: The halfback solution : Sat Dec 03, 2016 12:11 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

If you're so confident then how about this.

If George Williams signs for Wire before 1st Jan 2018 I'll donate £50 to your nominated charity.
If George Williams doesn't sign for Wire before 1st Jan 2018 you donate £50 to Joining Jack.

I'll post this on the Wigan board as well so that you don't miss it.

Ha ha. Good job nobody challenged you £50 to explain why Chris Bridge should have been sent off. Could also challenged you about saying Warrington would go bust on the back of image rights tax ruling or Warrington not being in a position to compete for at least five years because our team was so old with Morley, Monaghan etc.

At the end of the day Rubber Duck posts on here plenty of rumours he hears and to be fair he has a strike rate a lot better than a broken clock. Whether the Brown signing not happening and Williams signing ahead of November 2017 pre-season was his finest moment is very debatable.

You can be pretty sure that Warrington's interest in Williams will have forced the strained finances at the Dave Whelan Stadium to stretch that little bit more than they wanted to.

Re: The halfback solution : Sat Dec 03, 2016 1:57 pm  

Paul Youane wrote:

Ha ha. Good job nobody challenged you £50 to explain why Chris Bridge should have been sent off. Could also challenged you about saying Warrington would go bust on the back of image rights tax ruling or Warrington not being in a position to compete for at least five years because our team was so old with Morley, Monaghan etc.

At the end of the day Rubber Duck posts on here plenty of rumours he hears and to be fair he has a strike rate a lot better than a broken clock. Whether the Brown signing not happening and Williams signing ahead of November 2017 pre-season was his finest moment is very debatable.

You can be pretty sure that Warrington's interest in Williams will have forced the strained finances at the Dave Whelan Stadium to stretch that little bit more than they wanted to.

That's my post of the year by some margin.

Re: The halfback solution : Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:44 am  

Williams leaving Wigan may or may not happen. It certainly won't happen before the end of this coming season.

However, what is certain and undeniable is that Wigan can only have one marquee player and that, at present is NOT Williams. So it IS likely that he will be off somewhere else for 2018 - whether this is Warrington or Leeds or whoever is irrelevant.

And it is this likelihood that makes Wigan fans nervous and defensive. And we would be just the same if it was Currie or similar.

So maybe we can give all the betting talk a rest now.

Re: The halfback solution : Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:50 pm  

mark_m wrote:

Yes really. If we don't win the GF it is outright failure, that is what it is all about.

That's right. It's a failure as we failed to achieve the objective which was to win it. Quite simple really. I saw on one of the Warrington facebook posts that some chap thought this was a "brilliant" season. I think Leeds' 2015 could be described as that, not Wires' 2016.

However, I have not forgotten the past where we would have only dreamt of Wire competing at the level they are currently. We have become a member of the big 4.

Re: The halfback solution : Sun Dec 04, 2016 5:36 pm  

mark_m wrote:

Yes really. If we don't win the GF it is outright failure, that is what it is all about.

And how anyone can compare the club to the one from the pre-HJ/ SJM days is beyond me. We are one of the most highly resourced clubs in the game.[/quote]

Didn't realise our history only went back 20 years!

If we are only focussing on the SJM days then every year has been an outright failure by your definition.....
That's OTT in my view.

We need to win the GF - that's clear, but I think every top side probably has the same or very similar goal.
This year our side was arguably the strongest in the league given the injuries. (Maybe Hull could claim that).
We blew the GF but getting to 2 finals and winning the LLS is not - for me - outright failure.