Quote Ruddy Duck="Ruddy Duck"The fact that talented players including Ratchford, Welsby, Williams etc no longer want to play for their own town club of Wigan is an indication of how the club has become a less attractive to some players not only from our own country buy also to some better players from down under and it comes as no surprise when other top clubs like Leeds, St Helens and Warrington all play in in brand new and regenerated Stadiums of their own.
Time that some supporters got off their high horse of arrogance and faced the fact that it is not only in the game of Rugby League where Wigan has now fallen behind nearby more progressive towns like St Helens and Warrington.
The rot except for the odd better season or so set in when the club left Central Park!'"
They were released by Wigan as youngsters. Ratchford wound up at Salford and Welsby (who I wasn’t aware was at Wigan once upon a time?) at Saints. There’s literally thousands of youth players Wigan have released over the years - me being one. Some went on to make Wigan regret it, others not. I don’t know what point you’re trying to prove here, what do you suggest we do? Keep hold of every youngster? Williams was never a Wigan player to sign. You’re picking and choosing players who didn’t sign for us, or who were actually RELEASED by the club to prove a point which is ludicrous - supposed world class players aren’t signing for Wigan because we don’t own a stadium, really? We’ve been in it for 22years and in that time we’ve signed;
Trent Barrett
Craig Smith
Brett Dallas
Steve Renouf
Paul Deacon
Stuart Fielden
Ryan Hoffman
Jeff Lima
Brett Finch
Jackson Hastings
George Burgess
Sam Tomkins
Mark Riddell
John Bateman
To name but a few. Jackson Hastings had a host of offers when leaving Salford, he signed for us. Bevan French hasn’t been short of suitors, he re-signed with us. Your argument has no basis whatsoever.
This “rot” isn’t really a rot seeing as we’ve won trophy after trophy and made final after final in the last 11years. I’ll take that kind of “rot” everyday of the week.