What does everyone think of Widnes signing Kevin Brown?

I wondered if they would do this for next season, but I thought Hock might be the player they went for. They were always going to be crap this season but their chairman has supposedly got a bit of money behind him and has talked up his ambition so they are at a really pivotal point in their future now. If they had two crap seasons then the club will just fade away and lose its franchise at the next round, they need to sign some quality players and make a good fist of things next season. The hard thing will be attracting players so they need to make a statement by signing a big name player to give credibility to other players that they are approaching, in a similar way to us signing Martin Gleeson which differentiated us from say Salford who at the same time were talking in similar terms to us of 'big ambitions for the future' but were just linked with players they never signed.

I think Brown is a good signing and a good signal that they are serious and I can imagine Cullen will be good at selling the club's ambition to players they are approaching.

Hull have done similar with Gareth Ellis so well done to both these clubs and it will make things interesting in the signings market this year.

Good luck to them, we need a more competitive competition and if Widnes slowly start to get in to the top half of the table and become one of the teams that can beat anyone on their day then we all benefit.

Statement of intent? What, we intend to be less crap next season?

I think it's a great signing, I want Widnes to be competitive.

Give me Matty Blythe any day. Good for Widnes though.

I was using a Paul Cullen phrase as thats what he called us signing Gleeson.

If you were an out of contract player negotiating with Widnes and they say "we intend to make a lot of big signings, top level players, that the big clubs would be competing for" then you'd probably think yeah yeah. But when there is already a fairly big name player there then it looks more credible. Getting the first is the hardest and they probably had to offer Brown a good deal like we did with Gleeson, paying his wages for the rest of 2004 while he was still serving a ban and couldn't play for us. But once you have the first it's easier to sign the rest.

Look at our signings in the years immediately pre-Gleeson and our signings post-Gleeson and you see a major difference. Before Gleeson were were signing Grose, Gleeson, Wainwright, Sibbit, Stevens, Lima, Wilshere, Leikvoll, then after Gleeson it was Fa'afili, Swann, Kohe-Love, Bridge, Johns, Rauhihi, Reardon, Parker, Vinnie Anderson, Morley, Johnson. Not all those players hit the heights we wanted but they were players that would have been hard to convince we were serious had we not had Gleeson.

I think with us, we really made three big statements, first signing Gleeson, then a year later getting Johns on loan, then a year later signing Morley, those three signings all made people stand up and take notice that Simon Moran was serious.

yep believe weve offered lee briers a 6 figure sum 2 year contract to tempt

him to widnes watch this space !

Not going to go through your whole post and evaluate all the signings pre and post Gleeson, some were crap before, and some were crap after. If you want a statement of intent, then the signing of Morley was the turning point for our club in terms of attracting class.

I'm not talking about how good they are I'm talking about whether or not they were 'big names'. Grose was better than Reardon ended up for us but Grose was a young NRL player at the wooden spoonists, Reardon was a GB fullback.

But yes it went up another level after getting Morley on board. Gleeson was a good player but not really a big personality in the game. In terms of world status Morley was probably the most high profile British player in the world when we signed him.

Widnes aren't going to sign loads of top players now they have Brown but they will be closer to where we were in the market after Gleeson. If they then back it up by signing Thurston on loan next year and then Roby in 2014 we know they're serious like us.

With Morley still undecided, perhaps Widnes will offer him a two year contract?

The problem at this stage of their development, is that Widnes will be paying well over the odds, salary-wise, for their signings.

Why would Brown leave Huddersfield, where he is an established 'star' of the team??.....Simple - Widnes are offering him 'silly' money.

I'm not saying they shouldn't, after all to make any progress they need to attract some better known and better quality players, but for the next few years they will go through the Wire 'Cullen Years', steadily bringing in some decent players, but probably paying a bit too.much for them.....What they ultimately will need is a top class coach - Betts is pretty hopeless and shows little sign of getting the something extra needed to be competitive.

I think if they are successful franchise-wise, which they should be with their owner's obvious support for the club, then I would reckon it will be about 2015 or 16 before we see a serious challenge from Widnes.

I think they are sticking their neck out a bit.

Brown is a good player, but nowhere near as stand-out in his position as were Gleeson or Morley when Wire signed them. We can guess he will also be the top earner at the Comics. A step up for them, sure, but, given that he's also cost a tranfer fee, not really a 'star' signing.