Wigan.

The RFL have found the other set of books

Is that just good marketing or are we in trouble to?

I think it's a matter of trying to sell early.

It was a case of getting the revenue in early, but there must have been a reason. It's a very unusual step.

I'd say that's a bit late to be selling tickets. Almost 100 years too late.

As for selling season tickets early, it would not do much financially for a club as it would just bring in money earlier, but it's still the same money that would have been spent and it still has to last the same period of time. It's not like they can keep bringing the renewal date forwards.

If anything they could probably see that the GF was not likely this year and so the peak time to renew was the game against Warrington at HJ.

There is the arguement that you get more interest, but Saints allow DD over the course of the season and even if everyone paid up front, the extra month of interest 8000*200*0.04 (at best) /12 = £5333. Not a serious boost to balance against any losses.

Seems an absolutely sensible idea to me. Why wait till now, when people's minds are wandering off Rugby, in favour of Christmas, or booking next years holidays, or any of the other demands on finances, get people to buy when they have rugby at the front of their priorities. Just becasue it is unusual doens't mean to say that it isn't a very good marketing ploy. If everyone stuck to the tried and tested, we would really stagnate.

One things for sure, the salary cap isn't working. We've had London, Bradford, Crusaders, Salford, wildcats all have money problems since the cap came in.

A possible problem with the cap is that teams may feel the need to spend up to it to be competitive.

For instance clubs such as Hull KR and London(?) have both in the past said they are spending full cap, would they be spending £1.65 million if that figure was not there to aim for?

It could possibly mean clubs are spending more than they can afford and indeed more than they would if there was not a figure to aim for.

A bigger problem with the cap is that it has nothing to do with controlling clubs profit and loss, just how much they can spend on players.

I'm a fan of the cap in terms of it evening out the competition, but we have had it for what 10 years. You would have thought by now that most of the clubs would have caught up to it, but that is not the case. There is a good discussion on the VT about changing the structure of the league, however in the end it comes down to money.

Everyone including us wants more money, clubs want to cut other clubs to try and get a bigger slice of the pie that is already there. But in that world the only way clubs get more money is by reducing numbers. That means playing the same teams more often and more fans drifting away as they get more and more bored with playing the same teams over and over and over, so then clubs take the easy option again to cut even more clubs.

It's a vicious circle when it starts, but it's not one that I'd like to see us go down, less clubs, less areas developing players, smaller pool of players = fewer talented players making the grade, makes for less interesting game. It's all bad.

We need to expand not contract, but when money is tight people love a simple solution to a complex problem.

Bobbie Goulding just tweeted something about wilkin to Widnes?!

It's looking like Bobbies Barman saw him going into Widnes then put 2 and 2 together and got 85.

Could be any number of reasons for Wilkin to be at Widnes. But I suppose it gives that little spark for those who where complaining about a lack of Saints RL news.

I wouldn't be unhappy with that news.

I'm not the greatest of Wilkins fans on here as most know, I've been critical of him since 2008 but I think he's had two ok seasons.

I also think we'd miss him, he does 40 + tackles each week and if you take that out of our team we'd be 40+ tackles down, not many can put a shift in like that in world rugby league.

His kicking game has been vital for us this season, even tho its not the greatest kicking game but is better than lomax and hohaia.

My only concern with him, he's on big contract and doesn't warrant it.

That's the key for me. His workrate is commendable, but Tim Jonkers used to do a similar stint on probably half the cash and while his kicking game became more established through the season and did a job for us, 2nd rows aren't there for kicking (that should be done by the half backs). This, together with him trying to "take the pressure off" our halves meant his go forward was practically none existant. Last year, I think we may have been better off playing him 6 full time.

If he left, I reckon Flanaghan could take on the defensive work (and hit a lot harder). We've got manu and walmsley coming in, so numbers in the forwards arent a concern for me.

I think Wilkin leaving wouldn't be such a bad thing for Saints.