Farrell deal is good, but honestly shouldn't it just be completely standard? I'd be more shocked if we hadn't signed him to a long deal.

Sorry to see Mossop go, but not sure we'll miss him dramatically.

Long coming in is quite funny. Booed him every time he played us.

While I sympathise with the gist of your concerns re. the salary cap, players leaving, contracts not seeming to be worth much (and I'm not a fan of Long either), the comment I've underlined - which has dripped from your tongue before - is really quite scurrilous.

Are you trying to say that IL is somehow milking the Wigan club?

What evidence have you got for this?

Do you actually have the first idea about IL's private finances - how much he is taking out of the club, or maybe how much he is putting in?

Perhaps you just mean that the chairman may as well trouser the money, because he isn't allowed to spend it on new playing stars. But if so, perhaps you should have said that, instead of yet again appearing to imply that there is something questionable going on.

Under the salary cap rules, what does happen when a club gets more income than loss/expenditure ?

I must confess, like a few others have stated, regarding the long term contract offered to Farrell.

Too many recent long term contracts have NOT been adhered to. The most ridiculous one was Joel Tomkins IMHO.

It's almost like 'long term contract' equals 'heading for the door' ?

We haven't had a season lately, where our squad have had time to settle for longer than a season and before another exodus of players.

It's frustrating as hell, but perhaps we'd better stop thinking of contracts as being guarantees. Clearly the players, their agents and even the club chairmen don't think of them in those terms.

We once had a system whereby a player was bound to a club for life unless a transfer fee was agreed with another club - and no-one felt that was particularly strange or controversial. All that the signing of a contract seems to be is a short-term imposition of that old system. A player signs and he's yours until his contract runs out, or until a deal is made with someone else.

All i will say is.... I would imagine most SL clubs wish they could have IL at the helm.

Be interesting to see how Powell goes, I guess we'll have to be patient. His age bothers me much less than how long he'll take to adjust to RL.

I guess people aren't too worried about Mossop and whether he will come back because of how well the young lads have gone in recent months. The long-term deal for Farrell is just what the lad deserves but 5 year contracts don't seem to really count for much if he decided to follow the others to the NRL at some point in the future.

The bigger picture is that our best players want to go to the NRL for the money and to test themselves in a much stronger competition. I agree that this is good news for the international game and I think that Wigan have anticipated a player drain and made youth development a key part of our strategy. It's interesting that our chairman seems to have accepted that some of our best players will go to the NRL over the coming years whereas over at Leeds Hetherington is promising to fight to keep their players. Call me cynical, but Hetherington is often on hand to provide some positive spin for the RFL whenever they need it. The bigger picture is that the quality of the domestic competition will continue its decline unless the whole set-up is radically overhauled as outlined by Jamie Peacock's article.

Trying to keep an open mind on Long, but would have thought his court case and other baggage would outweigh whatever he can offer as a coach.

Didn't we have a similar clause when Mark Flanagan went to Aus that we had first refusal on his services when he came back to England.

But of course, Mr Lenegan has the benefit of the Wigan area player output machine ?

The Wigan catchment area probably produces more players than the rest of the country put together?

I wouldn't go as far as to say that IL is "milking" the club. I do think that any owner of a sporting club in this day and age needs to look upon the club as a hobby and expect to make a loss (transfer fees etc rather than the underlying finances of course), rather than a business (at least in the short term).
RL has been insulated from this on the basis that the chairmen vote to keep the cap (surprise surprise) with no real external challenge (though Salford are now proving to be the exception).

The main thrust of my argument is that what on earth is the point of the club telling the supporters that they have got a decent transfer fee, when it will make absolutely no difference to us at all?

I bet Salford don't

Makes no difference.