There's no way people on this forum are going to agree so, can we discuss Brexit instead?

Not really any different to this season really is it? Brown wont be a million miles away from the 150k that will count on the cap for Widdop - Whats the difference? On top of that they have players like Westwood, Atkins that will be retiring or moving on.

If Brown is on anywhere near 150k I’d be very surprised, particularly as he said publicly that he’d taken a pay cut to join Warrington. It’s just a general point I suppose about a club having two marquee players - it’s a significant proportion of the cap on two individuals and inevitabely means less money to spend elsewhere in the squad. To me Warrington’s squad looks a bit light beyond the best five or six players, but they made two finals last year.
As I say, I think the signing of Widdop is great in terms of him an an individual player. Time will tell if having a star half back combo can overcome less quality elsewhere.

I actually think they look relatively light of quality in the front row, IMO the only real area that is/will be letting them down.

Atkins and Goodwin out of contract this season - who’s going to replace them?
Lineham out of contract too. Can they keep him with Widdop incoming?
It’s the nature of a salary capped sport though. Every team has to make compromises, but have Warrington taken it a step too far? Are they going to end up with a few stars stars but not enough decent players to avoid having glaring weaknesses? Only time will tell. I hope it works for them though.

That is precisely where the Catalans Dragons will smash them again.

On signing Widdop, the CEO of the Wolfs has declared that this is the biggest signing in super league history....LOL

Not like the wolfs to go overboard is it

The same chunk of cap will be spent as any other team playing with two marquees. Our strength in depth is rather good this season, some very good youngsters bolster the squad - Doro, Livett, Luis Johnson, Philbin, Davis, Patton, Walker, Mamo (still young)....but yes Widdop's shoulder will see him play 2 games at best, Austin will go home crying after 1 season and we'll just spend all our money on 3 players next season. We should apologise for trying to pull this stale game up by the neck with star signings.

As for ruining promising youngsters - who?? I presume you're talking about Morgan Smith who, maybe just maybe, didn't turn out to be good enough for the upper echelons of SL. We did miss a trick there we should've signed Ash Golding instead and given him a 5 year contract.

Is that an acronym, or a specific subdivision of the Wolves?

I am disappointed that Widdop has not signed for the London Broncos.

Warrington have developed a number of young players and signed a few, too. However, we do not 'set their careers back'. Our problem has been these youngsters have just not been good enough for a club with ambition to win trophies. Some had lots of chances ( I was a fan of Gareth O'Brien but he never stepped up as an SL standard 6 despite a long run in the first team ) to impress but failed. Brad Dwyer was probably the best prospect but even he seems to have gone backwards at Leeds. Undoubtedly Wire need to improve the throughput of youngsters but its not for want of trying.

Key players in key positions transform a team. When we had the spine of Hodgson, Briers and Monaghan we were outstanding. Signing the likes of Widdop is the club tryin to get back to that sort of quality of spine.

Apart from it won’t, because only 75k counts if the player is home grown.

But aside from that, my point is more about the general approach of having two (non home grown) marquee players as they take up 300k.
Or I guess just the approach of having a smaller squad with more highly paid individuals rather than a larger squad with not as many high earners. Different clubs are going about spending the cap in different ways and that is what makes it interesting.
The only thing that’s frustrating is clubs who make a conscious decision to build a small squad of more highly paid players and then moan about injuries and not having a deep enough squad to cope.

Lineham's contract is not as expensive as the winger he replaced at the club.

Agreed. 1, 6, 7 and 9 should be where more money is spent.
But it’s still a balancing act. It’s no good having those players and then nothing else.