Losing Joel I can deal with but it's what will naturally happen after that I have the problem with.

This is why our game will never get anywhere. Who needs enemies with to55ers like you.

It's just Saddened being Saddened.

Anything to do with Wigan he is obsessed,ask any Saints fan.

I don't want to get into one of those long, drawn-out arguments that usually end with a battle of semantics and a whole load of complicated split-quoting and such; that's a war of attrition that you'll definitely win, as I have a relatively short attention span...

BUT

Your argument seems to be predicated on the expectation that every SL club should have two international standard English wingers; they won't, they haven't and they never will, so I'm struggling to understand the basis of your position.

Tomkins goes to Union - in exact terms, it's a loss to RL, but since the SL is not some theoretical zero-sum game where a constant state of equality and equilibrium must be maintained, it's reasonable to assume that he will be replaced, if not now, next season or the one after. It's a loss, but hardly a fatal one.

Well said. Particularly agree with the bit about having international standard wingers at each club. No matter how big the sport gets, which it probably wouldn't, that will never be a priority, nor will it never be realistic.

I wouldn't worry too much about Joel. If Saracens are silly enough to offer £400,000 a year to him, then let them do it. Joel's a good player, but not £400,000 a year. Wouldn't matter if we had central contracts or not, i wouldn't pay half that for him, yes we need to keep our best young talent, but we don't need to be held to ransom with silly money. If he wants to leave a club that averages 14k, to a club that averages 6k, so be it.

Sam is slightly different in that he is a top drawer player (even if he is, shall we say, slightly annoying). However if he has any ambition, why not go to the NRL. He will certainly get the media profile we all bang on about over there.

The Sun is a scumbag paper, always has been always will be. Id take this with a pinch of salt

I'd like to believe that mate but it doesn't explain why he's pulled out of the England squad. As soon as I heard that I knew the writing was on the wall.

I just hope we hold out for silly money for him. If somebody within League enquired about him I wouldn't be tempted for anything less then 250-300k because there's not much you can do with the cash in our sport. Whilst it's Union I'd be asking minimum 500k. We know they have the cash so let's see it.

Wigan should then use it to make a couple of reasonable bids for young up and coming players and on youth development.

Is losing Joel Tomkins to RU a massive blow to RL?, No IMO not an 'Elite' RL player and can easily be replaced, Probably recruited to RU to play the Mike Tindall do nothing but run hard Inside Centre role.

This attitude is whyt this keeps happening. It doesn't begin and end with Joel. There's nothing to stop the RFU raiding our ranks again in the future and tempting away the likes of Sam Tomkins, Johnny Lomax etc. Then where do we go?

I dont blame players going for money as its a short career and get what you can but for the sport its such a disappointment to lose players so young to Union. It could get worse and thats a problem!!

Losing players before they become real stars in rugby league is a disaster.

If sam goes too then I hope all the clowns who booed him at the exiles game are proud of themselves !! yeah he's an annoying little scrote and by all means boo him when he plays your team (i bet he laps it up) but hes also a fantastic young talent and when he pulls on an England shirt hes on YOUR team (would you still boo if he scored the try that won us the 4 nations?)

Losing talented English players to union is never going to be good for our sport but if it becomes a stampede of players switching codes we could be in real trouble

Yes, until we have 2 English wingers of a better quality than Ashton at every club losing him harms us. Until we have 3 second rowers at every club better than Tomkins, losing Tomkins harms us as a game.

The fact is we cannot afford to be losing the likes of Ashton or Tomkins when we are employing the likes Tongia, Tadulala, Talupapa, Paea, Delany, Lauaki, Martin, Youngquest, McGoldrick, Ah Van, etc, These players getting a game at SL level proves there isnt another Tomkins or Ashton around the corner, there isnt even enough to start with.

Yes its reasonable to assume that there will be another player the quality of Tomkins coming through in 2 or 3 years time but we dont need 1 Tomkins, we need lots and lots and lots of Tomkins.

The Queensland cup.

One attraction about Union is that even if your initial contract isn't that much (in Union terms) you have the potential to earn a lot more with future contracts. Of course all that depends on how you adapt to the game. The time has come to accept that we are down the food chain regarding finances compared to Union. League players are seen as cheap gambles by Union clubs, everyone’s looking for the next Jason Robinson. This in part is due to the salary cap that is imposed on the Premiership teams. A lot of Premiership clubs just can't compete with the money rich French teams so they have to start looking outside of the game for next best thing. I expect the raid on league talent to continue for the near future, not that we can complain, we did our fair share of raiding Union in the past.