Re: Undervaluing our own produced players : Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:17 pm  

Jukesays wrote:

I'm not trying to justify anything.
I'm saying that if any club in the league had signed 4/5 players of the quality of burgess/davies/marahall/Williams etc on the money we paid they'd be looking at them as great signings.
SOME of our fans take them for granted and imo think we should pay them less as we've produced them.
We may get first dibs but the lads deserve the right money.
I'm not sure why people keep saying where's the money gone. We have the largest wage bill but pay the same as say saints When you exclude marquee payments (saints will pay 2 x players as marquee and only the first 100k or whatever it is and thenabove that is kind of irrelevant for this dicussion) they will pay the same out as Wigan I.e.1.85million or whatever it is.

Now
Look at their squad numbers from 20 onwards (Barba apart as he's no1 obviously) and then look at wigans.
I know who's I'd rather have.

The argument then would be would you rather have 18/19 top players and very little else or a squad of 26/27 plus, that in effect is where some of the money has gone.

I'm not privy too what every player is on (I know a couple) but I do know that whatever people think end of the day it's perception.
Player x is on 125k - some think that's a lot and some think it isn't.

My argumemt wasn't about whether you go for 18 top players or a bigger squad, each to their own i suppose and pro's and con's for both imo.

I'm saying that wigans investment in the systems, infrastructure etc is well worth it's cost and when players come out of this system and earn bigger contacts I for one applaud the players and the club for earning and paying it (and with the temptations of large money in other places paying them is even more imperative).

SOME fans say why doesn't leneghan splash the cash, yet we pay more money out than other clubs, he can't win.
SOME fans on one hand are lauding wire for signing 3/4 players every year and then we all sit and giggle when it doesn't work or have longevity.
We do make signings, we sign a lot of our own younger lads every year (each one with different risk rewards).

I look at Davies and Marshall as new signings for example. Others see them as youngsters who should be happy to be at Wigan for the privilege. If we undervalue these lads then other clubs won't.

they aren't signings though (other than Burgess, slight exception as he came back). youth is youth, signings are signings. neither inspired me last year and still have a fair way to go this season to justify what they want or demand.

and again let me point out, i'm not saying our youth isn't good enough, it really is fantastic, but after one or two seasons they seem to think they can take on a team of thurstons and be paid accordingly. so my point remains, I don't think the club is handling them very well.

Re: Undervaluing our own produced players : Thu Mar 15, 2018 1:14 pm  

If only we had the junior set-up that the Aussies have! We see teenagers walk into NRL teams and be star players, whereas their equivalents in SL are undercooked in comparison. And the reason is that those Aussie kids, although only 18 or 19, have been battle-hardened in the tough junior comps there.

Re: Undervaluing our own produced players : Thu Mar 15, 2018 6:12 pm  

WiganBurt wrote:

they aren't signings though (other than Burgess, slight exception as he came back). youth is youth, signings are signings. neither inspired me last year and still have a fair way to go this season to justify what they want or demand.

and again let me point out, i'm not saying our youth isn't good enough, it really is fantastic, but after one or two seasons they seem to think they can take on a team of thurstons and be paid accordingly. so my point remains, I don't think the club is handling them very well.

And herein lies my point
If gildart has 6 months left on his contract and wire or hull or nrl (slightly different argument) come in and sign him they would see that as a big signing and would pay him accordingly.
Why shouldn't we?
Tom Davies signed a new contract late last year, why shouldn't we see that as a new signing and why shouldn't he get paid in line with his performances and in line with his market value?
Etc.

Now some people can choose not to look at it that way (and tend to be the more critical of posters?).
Some may never have considered that particular view point (I hadn't really up until 4/5 months ago when Someone said it to me). And if they don't agree fair enough, if they do fair enough.

But I wanted to put that argument across so that people consider it when complaining about lack of signings because without a doubt this way of bringing the youth through impacts on what we do with the money at the top end.
Ps. What we then do with the money and who we sign etc from outside (or bring people back) is a different argument.

Not sure why some people would be happy if we signed a Percival and paid him top dollar and would praise the club but we don't seem to appreciate it when the club sign gildart and also want him to be paid less?