The fact that we're a week and a half away from the start of the season and we don't know what our half-back combination will be is ridiculous.

Why are you worried about 2017? I'm worried about what happens this season. You can plan all you like but things happen - injuries, loss of form, people buggering off to Australia.

You pick the best team available to you at the time. We all get too obsessed about having home grown players in the team, as if that gets you any extra points. It's a bit like 'motherhood and apple pie'. No-one questions the orthodoxy of - bring through your youngsters, preferably British and preferably local. The reality is much more complex.

I was reading the other day about our Challenge Cup win against Dewsbury in 1929. I was surprised to learn that even then we had 5 Welshmen in the team, 2 New Zealanders a Scot and a Cumbrian, with only 3 local lads.

I'm all for local lads doing well, don't get me wrong. But if you are serious about winning I'd rather have Leuluai and Barrett/Finch/Green in the halves than Williams and Hampshire.

If the youngsters leave, so be it, Wigan won't find it too difficult to attract decent players.

I don't care where they are from, I am talking about a settled halfback combination that we can build a team around, that's obviously not going to happen by signing a 32 year old.

We should be aiming at turning our success since 2010 into prolonged dominance similar to what Saints (13 SL/CC trophies '96-'0icon_cool.gif, Bradford (5 SL/CC trophies '00-'05) and Leeds (6 SL/CC trohpies '07-Present) have had in the past, I seriously doubt they achieved what they did by merely signing the best player available whenever anyone leaves and not thinking about long term planning.

They kept a settled spine of Long/Cunningham/Sculthorpe - Paul/Deacon/Lowes - Maguire/Burrow/Sinfield and it paid major dividends. The latter two of those combos are made up of players who barely broke into their rep teams (bar Robbie Paul) but they knew how to make the team tick, resulting in a heap of trophies.

I like the Woody Allen quote "If you want to make God laugh - tell him your plans!"

These things happen, they are very rarely planned. You pick the best players you can, you recruit the best players you can. The rest is down to luck.

Oh Wigan were renowned for being "the team of all nations" in that era. It was Wigan Highfield who played in the league from 1922 to 1933 that consisted of local lads.

During those periods I always rememeber discussing it around those times - Especially the Saints one and discussing that Saints had a steady 6/7 for Seasons 99 through to 2004/5 & Then Pryce came in and Same for another 4/5 years.

In that period we had
Smith/Florimo (That was a Big name that went down well BTW!)
Clinch/Smith (There's another name to Ponder when discussing short termism instead of long term planning)
Smith/Farrell
Peters/Farrell/Smith (Smith & Farrell seemed to split 6 between them that season)
Lam/Johns
Lam/O'Neill
Lam/O'loughlin
Robinson/Orr
Lam/Orr
Moran/Orr (Now then - Let's go out and get these Top Class Aussies again I hear you say!)
Moran/Brown
Dobson/Orr

Period covered 1999-2006 - 8 Seasons - Number of trophies = 1
11/12 half back pairings & Approx 16 half backs - Not inc. players that played occasionally such as Chester/Coyle/Reber (Shudder!) Nick Graham (Shudder!) Phil Jones etc.

Same period St Helens - 8 seasons - Number of trophies = About 8/9/10?
Martyn/Long
Long/Sculthorpe (Only when Martyn was injured?)
Long/Hooper
Long/Pryce (Who then went on to play together for a further 5 seasons (ish)

Bradford in same period basically had :-
Paul/Paul
Paul/Deacon
Pryce/Deacon

Trophies = 7/8?

Leeds established 2004/2005 through to 2012 (8 seasons)
Maguire/Sinfield
Maguire/Burrows
Maybe a bit of Dunneman early that period 2004ish
Trophies = 10ish?

Under IL
2 years of stability with Leuluai and Barrett set us up nicely IMO and then a Partnership of Leuluai & Tomkins was only broke up due Roberts injury and Tomkins Move to Full back that led to Tommy & Deacon playing together most of 2010 & 2011 with Finch thrown in 2012.
So 4 Half backs with Tommy a constant throughout in 6 seasons was a much more consistant period.
Smith & Green 2013 & 2014
7/8 seasons 4 half back pairings covering maybe 6 players Trophies = 5/6 (Dependant on LLS etc?) bearing in mind first 2/3 years was spent recovering from the issues of the previous 5 years or so I believe it was the stability of having Half backs (And Hooker & LF inc. in this) there for 2/3/4 seasons rather than 1 year and get shut and constantly chopping and changing that helped.