Partnership with NZ Warriors

Thought about this before. Despite all the doom-mongering, this IMO could actually assist us recruit and keep our best talent.

Realistically our top players are always going to be courted by the NRL, given the disparity in salary cap and potential earnings, but this at least gives us some control over this, and actually could allow us to offer better deals to players than other SL clubs, by utalising the warriors rather than seeing them as a threat.

For example............Sam in another 2 years has many offers on the table from NRL / Kick and Clap etc. which ordinarily we couldn't match - however, if the partnership is utalised in the correct way, we could actually offer a competitve deal -

Say at the moment the most we can offer Sam is £250k per year. Where as Sam may be getting offers of circa £350-400k from union and the NRL. Ordinarily we're blown out of the water, but with a partnership like this, we would have potential to offer sam say another 5 year deal, but where two years of it he would be loaned to NZW. He would still be a Wigan player, but NZW would pay us for him, enabling us to use his extra earning capacity in the NRL, and redistribute accross the rest of his contract.

Suddenly, we can offer him everything he wants - The security of a 5 year deal he would be unlikely to get elsewhere, a competitve offer with what he is being offered elsewhere, with also the opportunity to play and test himself in the best league in the world, in either code!

OK Sam may still go, as the union offer for example may still be able to out bid us, but it would at least give him something else realistic to consider.

This would probably work even better with our young up and coming talent - ie/ George Williams, Lewis Tierney, Iain Thornley etc. When Union come sniffing round our developing youngsters, as with Chris Ashton, it usually only takes an offer in the region of £100k p/a to take them away from us. What an advantage then for these players, if Wigan can offer enhanced terms, to keep them on a 5 year deal, where they know they will get the challenge of the NRL thrown in in 2-3 years time? Surely that counters anything union may turn their head with.

Again, we could loan/second the player to NZW for a fee for this period, and offer that as part of a holistic 5 year deal, which again should be able to compete with RU. OK so after they've tried the NRL we may not get them back, but at least we keep them for another 2-3 years we wouldnt have done, so at least get a bit of our investment back, and it at least stops them from being wasted talent going to union!