Mathers is 25.

I cant be bothered trawling through the archives, but i would bet that the people who are moaning about the deal are the ones who have continually moaned about the drinking culture at the wolves and have blamed Gleeson and Briers all the way through. Now we have got rid of one of the main culprits who was a very talented player, things might start to change. We have got a lot of good kids coming through i for one would prefere a role model that will teach the kids good things off the field as well as on it.
Good deal for me also Mathers hasn't lost his talent in the last year it just needs reigniting and Tony Smith hopefully can be the man!!!!!!!!!

fantastic, so let me get this straight, one of the best wing centre combos over the past 5 years in the league in gleeson and fa'afili, and they were both crap.

Gleeson's leaving, and people are saying he was crap, and when fa'afili left, he was crap and only scored so many tries because of gleeson, who as we're all discovering now, is/was crap.


I wish we had a player combination on the left hand side of our attack that was equally as bobbins, i really do.

I'm really concerned about this deal in the fact that we've not got the best out of it.

Gleeson going is irrelevant now he has gone he never showed up on a regular basis and T.S must have seen something he didn't like ,what worries me is we have no in our squad now we need 2 so when are they coming ?????

There's people on this thread that i'll listen all day long too, but they've got me today, just not getting it.

Why is this not a good deal ?

There's many factors,

Financially we get £100k for a bloke that was obviously leaving for the NRL at the end of the year, so effectively on a free.We've never been thrifty as a club, so I don't doubt he'll be given the funds to re-invest.

Smith has set down a marker, for donkeys years we've talked about players treating our club as a doss house, 'player power' and that rubbish, we've cried out for a bloke to come in and overhaul this, we've got it and now folk are getting back on the fence. Gleeson obviously told Smith of his intentions/feelings what you will, Smith has made it happen.

We paid £200k, we got back £100k. So it's what £25k a season if you look at it like that, most teams pay money and get zilch return, hoe much did Leeds get back for Ellis ? We paid £50k for Vinnie, and he's done ten times less than Gleeson ever did. I think we've brokered a good deal, to recoup half of what we paid.

I've loved watching him, I think he's class, but I think he's heartless too. I've never felt he had any affiliation with our club, he didn't attend functions and stuff, he's just 'done his job' in his eyes, no more no less. So in the same way, i'm not too bothered that he's going.

If we have to take a step back to go forwards then so be it, I mean that. We're not obviously that great a team, we're 12th, so having flair obviously doesn't guarantee success. I think Smith is going to try and get 17 hard working, team orientated people on a pitch every week, and when the work ethic, and levels of cconcentration are as they should be, then he'll start to look at adding the nice touches, the flair if you will, but he won't substitute flair for effort & commitment, so unless your going to put that in, you won't play, and he obviously feels we either have the players to put this in now, or we can get them.

PJ said in his interview that folk drop balls in training and stuff, Gleeson strikes you as a bloke that wouldn't fancy training too hard every day. If we're looking for 24/7 proffessionals, he doesn't strike you as one.

Now they have both gone, it was Briers setting them up on a plate, etc....................

A good point. Sometimes tough decisions need to be made: the year before Smith arrived Powell had released Sheridan, Hay and Pratt, at the time that was heavily criticised because Pratt and Sheridan were GB players at the time.

There was an interview online I saw not long ago with Wayne Bennett where he said that he always worked on the rule that its better to get rid of a player a year too early rather than a year too late. Alex Ferguson does the same at United, he's been good at sensing when a player was just over the peak of his career and starting to slip backwards. If Gleeson stayed for the final 18 months of his contract with us I doubt he would have improved on what he had done already, he would probably have sulked for the rest of the time and been a bad influence. Moving to Wigan might up his game for a while, but that doesn't mean its a bad decision for us, because I doubt he would have upped his game if he'd stayed here.

Excellent post, well said that man!

rlhttps://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rugby_league/article6044688.ecerl

I don't think it's a case of whether Mathers is better than Riley, it's whether Mathers is better than Reardon, and I reckon it's a decent replacement.

Some of the salary cap must have been freed up as well, hinting a replacement for Gleeson.

Gleeson & Reardon out.

Mathers + 100k + extra salary cap in.

= a new centre and more professional players.

Absolutly spot on - are you Tony Smith???

Smith must look for something in a player, be it ability wise, lifestyle, desire, hunger, whatever, but he must.

He's shown before by signing - Bai, Mckenna, Dunneman etc that he's certainly not against 'experienced' players.

He's shown that if the kids are good enough, he'll play you.

I don't think he has too many pre-concieved ideas about good & bad, I think he judges on what he sees, I really do. And what job you can do for 'His Team' and I very much think it's his team.

He's made a judgement call that we can do without him, I back him 10,000,000%.

Excellent Post, well said that man!

Gleeson has been excellent for the Wire. Enjoyed watching him play and he'll be missed. Scored and created plenty on our right side and will be a real asset for Wigan.

He didn't want to play for us anymore. He had already been asked to be released this year to play NRL or for the same reason in 2010. No point keeping a player who doesn't want to stay. I trust Tony Smith completely - if he didn't want him to go, he wouldn't. If he's happy, I am.

He'll be lining up for kick offs right where I stand at the HJ. I won't be giving Gleese any stick at all.

A man who talks sense. People who think this is anything other than a good deal for the club are just plain wrong. As clearly stated he would have left for free at the end of the season anyway.