Agree with most of them. Joel Monaghan worth a mention. He was an Origin player at the time and had payed for Australia. No Australian team would touch him after that incident and so it felt like a risk but what a player he was for us.

Andy Gregory..showed our intent on breaking Wigan's dominance in the 80s..shame he went there after a relatively short career at wire

As a Wigan and RL fan I would have put Michael Monaghan in there, for me he was the best all round hooker in Superleague.

what about Chris Bridge?

Alex Murphy & Bobby Fulton.

Yes Joel was a major signing, the only reason it didn't feel as big was because he was replacing Chris Hicks so it didn't feel like a major upgrade that would take us to a new level. Charnley was coming in to a wing slot which used to be Matty Russell or Mitch Brown.

Some quality players there. No sure it's fair to have John's as the best signing though as didn't he only play 3 games on loan?!
Sandow should be on that list as he was unplayable for the first half of the season you signed him...

Slightly different, because obviously back then Aussies brought in were mainly on short term deals, but when we brought in Steve Roach, Les Davidson and Phil Blake for the 1988/89 season, that was as ground-breaking and as big a statement of intent as we have ever made.

Typical Wire though, we then proceeded to have one of our worst ever seasons, only brightened by a Cup run, which was ended at Maine Road by the flukiest/greatest drop goals of all time.

Michael Monaghan and Hicks signed at the same time as King.

With hindsight all three of those were great signings. But when we signed them, King was the blue chip superstar.

MM and Hicks had not been Origin or international players so were less well known in the UK.

In MMs case there was a question mark. We had been trying to sign Matt Orford from Melbourne Storm, for 2006. When that didn't come off we ended up getting Michael Sullivan, who had been playing as a bench hooker for Cronulla and said he wanted the opportunity to be a halfback. It didn't work for us, and we ended up using him in the same way as a hooker, which left us without a proper halfback replacement for Nat Wood who had retired.

While Sullivan was with us, Orford had joined Manly and taken MM's halfback slot, so MM got shifted out to hooker. When we signed MM we heard the same story - he wanted the chance to play as a halfback again. Because we'd been through the Sullivan experience there were concerns at the time MM was signed that this was going to happen again...MM would come to be halfback, not be very effective, and end up being shifted back to hooker, leaving us without a halfback.

Which is exactly what happened

The difference to Sullivan was that MM became as you say the best all round hooker in SL. It still meant we were using makeshift replacements at halfback for a couple of years but once we signed Myler all the pieces fell in place.

But when we signed them, King was seen as more the sure thing and there were question marks over MM. King took a while to settle too though - neither of those two really got going until TS arrived in their second season.

Hicks was the most consistent from the start but slipped under the radar as a signing because he didn't have a high profile in Aus, although he had a good NRL record.

King, Monaghan and Hicks have to be the best signings we have made in a long time that we signed at the same time. I know King and MM Took time to hit there strides but can you think of any year since where we've signed more players in 1 year that have gone on to be quality and have such an impact?

That's a good question. The 2008 signings seem like a special crop: I missed out Louie Anderson who also signed that year!

We had a really golden spell of recruitment for a few years:
2007: Morley, V Anderson, Paul Johnson
2008: M Monaghan, King, Hicks, L Anderson
2009: Carvell, Higham, Mathers
2010: Atkins, Myler, Solomona
2011: Hodgson, J Monaghan
2012: Hill, Waterhouse, Ratchford

2012 weren't bad either!

Some inspirational signings mentioned here but arguably the signing that was the one that knitted it all together was Tony Smith. Should he be in on the list ?

Agree he should be.he sorted a few players out got them playing to there potential and gave us fans some fantastic rugby to watch and with the bonus of silverware...

Probably the biggest coach signing that we have brought in: 2 Super League titles, a WCC and GB/England coach before taking over.

Before that the biggest (of my time watching) was probably Dorahy.