DaveO wrote:
Do you not remember Wigan signed Scott Quinnell who at first looked like a fish out of water but in a lot less time than three years was a quality player? We didn't even have him for three years but he was great once he got going a lot quicker than you suggest.
Now granted that was a different era but the point is if you are a good enough athlete with the right attributes for the sport you will adapt quicker than you suggest.
The problem is Wigan are not going to be signing RU players of the quality of Scott Quinnell, not that RU players can't adapt quickly enough.
Was Quinnell REALLY a hit? It's pretty hard to tell given the enormous gulf in standards between the top-tier Wigan players who were way ahead of not just players at the bottom clubs but many in the mid-table pack, too.
Granted, Quinnell *appeared* to be making plenty of yards (as did Simon Haughton early in his career). But we have no reliable statistics to make a determination insofar as the whole gamut of equally important attributes (tackling proficiency, endurance etc.) How many missed tackles was he making? What was his general fitness like? Quinnell openly stated that he found making weight difficult. And his physical capabilities dropped off a cliff once he returned to Union which suggests to me that he couldn't have possessed the strength of character many of today's SL players know they have to work on from a very early age.
I don't want to knock the guy too much because he was one of Wigan's better performers. But if I had to take a wild guess at the completeness of his rugby league skills I'd say that he was likely susceptible in one or two less visible facets of the game.
Now, factor in the additional layer of issues created by full professionalism in both codes. Union was a complex game BEFORE it went professional. Today, with all manner of sports scientists analysing not just key skills (such as tackling) - but FRACTIONS of skills. One way or another both League and Union are becoming more specialised. And as they do the gap which players must bridge to make a successful transition grows daily.
Sure, great athletes stand a better chance. But athleticism only gets you so far. I mentioned the term "muscle memory" because it is a monolithic stumbling block to all who cross codes. The process of unlearning correct tackling technique in League and then assimilating the same for Union (which is completely different because of the way the ball is recycled in play) takes a lot of time. Too much time, in my opinion.
Three years is a good benchmark for a completely successful transition. In three years you could have promoted several promising youngsters (at practically no cost) who are currently being coached with techniques which have been proven to work. Bear in mind that coaching one sport out of a player and then replacing it with another can only ever be an experimental process in a rapidly changing professional sport. Which means the possibility of failure is always likely to be high.
In any case, Wigan's problems are relatively easy to address (provided Wane hasn't lost the dressing room or some other calamity) with existing league talent. I'm not sure the club even needs to go outside of this country. Sure, getting one's hands on a Hill or a Walmsley isn't easy. But Wigan's problem isn't a slight undertonnage. You're massively undertonned. First get your hands on some modestly gifted yardage-getters who will
immediately lift Wigan six or seven places off the foot of the stats table before you start worrying about superstars.