I'd imagine Hastings and Bateman are both currently marquee, but Burgess only agreed to leave Wigan back in Feb 21, so presumably they were paying Bateman, Hastings and Burgess at that point and were under the cap? Bateman signed for Wigan in July last year so I assume they must have some cap space available, I dont think anyone of any significance has been signed since Burgess left have they?

They have Hardaker, French, Hastings, Bateman and Field. All will be on big money. However it seems Williams would only cost 75k towards the cap because he is 'club trained'.

Yes but they had all those players before Burgess retired, so surely they were able to fit them all plus a marquee salary in Burgess, under the cap........ Unless when Hastings signed his extension in Nov 20 they already knew Burgess would play no part in 2021.


Williams would only count for £75k, but that would mean one of Hastings or Bateman would have their full salary counting on the cap as they would use marquee for Williams I imagine as would get the most dispensation from it.

If they didnt have cap space they could release Hastings early, Raiders or Wests would be interested i'm sure. Austin would probably need to be released to another SL club - Leigh perhaps?

Maybe?

Widdop has a better all round game and could slot straight into the Canberra team to replace Williams immediately.

The Burgess money was used on the French and Hastings extensions according to the Wigan forum.

Interesting that Williams has come out on Twitter and said he asked to be released at the end of the season and Canberra have just done it now and he knew nothing about it and so he doesn't have a club at the minute.

Going off the BBC report there would appear two, very different, sides to this story

rlhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/57238671rl

"Some" of Burgess money was used on Hastings/French but not all

Garden decking man was spouting off, aimed at Wilkin, that he had the money for two import signings available but nobody to spend it on. Throw it all at Williams for the rest of this season on a short term deal with Leigh and Williams can then go where he was planning to anyway next year.

Get him signed for 2022 and get him on loan for this season.

Plus Joe Burgess, Morgan Escare, Joe Greenwood, Ben Flower and a few of the lower squad number players all left.

I can’t believe I’ve never been to theses beautiful places in Wigan that hold such a pull over Australia. Presumably NRL teams will be more reluctant to sign Wigan players on big contracts knowing they are likely to disappear after a season.
OR is someone pulling the old “homing pigeon scam” selling off at an inflated fee and waiting by the loft for them to return home*?
* For the purposes of potential litigation this is a light hearted suggestion and not intended to impugn the honour of any team/owner

Maybe he's going back to Wigan, and he's not getting paid for it, a la Radlinski. Rat smelt......(nothing to do with Tomkins)

It would make sense for Leeds to sign him until the end of the year.

Perhaps the Williams unrest has given Widdop the impetus to put his new improved game in the Aussie shop window.

James Graham spoke well on this on NRL 360 this morning basically saying when he went to Australia you plan getting your family over to see you and you coming home in the off season but with Covid none of them things have been able to happen. The same thing happened with Bateman where he wasn't able to see his daughter last year because of Covid.

Anyway, I'd love us to break the bank for Williams. He was, for me, the best halfback in the competition when he left and he'll be even better now. I'd sooner him than Trueman.