Our sport could do with a decent share of the multi £millions thrown at our Olympic team by sport England. Not bad for a so called amateur sport.

I agree, Williams could potentially be the best signing we have made since Morley. The rest I don't think there is that much in it, but I do like Lineham.

In terms of how I would assess it, I think Williams is an upgrade on Austin. Tough one regarding Mata’utia and Mamo as Mamo has probably had his best season ever with us this year. So I suppose it’s a slight downgrade on Mata’utia however, he brings a different skill set and can cover the halves and full back. J Clark has been pretty non-existent in the last 12 months for me and I think Davis should be selected ahead of him in the side anyway, so Holmes will be an improvement on him.

Shame for Harrison with that 8-12 months injury as I was looking forward to seeing him next year given he comes with a good reputation from the Championship. I think our time with Sita has drawn to close which will be a relief to many. Minikin and Lineham is fairly scratch, although I do like Lineham his discipline is to much of a flaw and he’s missed far to many games through suspension.

Lineham is a liability with his disciplinary record.

Wire didn`t offer him a new contract and none of the Super League top teams showed any interest in signing him.

That says it all.

Leeds were

The difference is, Wigan and Leeds generally have a great crop of young players able to come in and fill the squad, and they have a track record of winning Grand Finals with signings that we would consider unknown.

Warrington don't. So reducing the quality of our squad doesn't give us a better chance of winning.

It's a similar argument to the one that used to be levelled at the TS squad - Wigan and Leeds would have long crap spells during the regular season because they knew how to peak at the right time, whereas we wasted our good form during the regular season. By the end of TS time, we had learned to be crap during the regular season but it didn't result in us winning anything.

Perhaps, but those days are changing. Our commitment to youth over the past decade and more is now bearing real fruit. Longstaff and Thewlis are really exciting and Wrench looks an excellent prospect. Sure Walter will enlighten us to more on their way through. These are also adding to established academy products of real quality that have graced our team for a few seasons.

We have been hearing this for years though. It's always "X is really exciting" or "looks an excellent prospect". We heard it about Rhys Evans, Declan Patton, Harvey Livett, Brad Dwyer, even going back 20 years the same was said about Sibbit, Noone, Gleeson, Pickersgill, Hulse. There was always someone on the old Wolfweb site saying "The future's bright, the future's Wire". What they probably mean is, we have some good kids coming through who look great in junior rugby and have good attitudes. That is a different thing from having young players who actually make an impact against SL pros. Wigan, Leeds and Saints regularly bring through players who are difference makers in big games, become internationals, and have NRL clubs chasing them. Our criteria of Academy success is just having a player get a good number of games in our first team.

I wonder if 3 or 4 years down the line these guys that we are hyping up as great Academy prospects now, will end up going to Salford, Widnes or Leigh, along with anguished debates on here about how they were great prospects but were "destroyed by poor coaching" and that Powell "prefers his favourites from Cas" rather than giving young lads a shot.

Regards Thewlis and Longstaff (particularly the latter) do you notice a difference between these two and previous, recent big hopes? I do, despite it being early days. We also have King, Philbin and Cooper as top class academy products. Wigan's current crop does not look impressive, quantity over quality.

We don't know that for sure. Maybe wakey offered him the most cash? Maybe he feels they are building to something?

He has been a bt of a liability but a lot of that has been harsh treatment from the judiciary panel.

There was an interview with Lineham where I definitely gathered Leeds were in the hunt but possibly 3 years was too good to turn down? Purely speculation on my part I hasten to add as I know nobody…

I agree about Linehams harsh treatment by the panel, but he's made his own bed unfortunately and I can't see him getting shown any leniency in the future so that means more missed games.
With that in mind I think it's right to let him go - rather reluctantly as he's a big unit and when he plays does a good job.
But as we have Thewlis and Ashton I'm comfortable with the alternatives.

But - back on Minikin, I'm still not sold on him. He could end up being a Mamo type signing though. You never know.