Quote: ralvag "This “thing” about having a rich owner meaning you can throw money about for success isn’t all that for me. They’ll have two marquees & spend up to the cap. Wire have tried the whole money throwing excercise for a while apparently with some success (CC wise). Thing is now is that it appears to be coming together really well as they’re finding a decent balance. How Powell does as coach remains to be seen. If they win SL, which I think they will within the next 3 seasons, it won’t be solely down to their financial position IMO.
Personally, my thoughts are generally that whoever out of the top 5/6 has the best coach wins the league. One of SL’s biggest issues for me is that there is a distinct lack of top drawer head coaches, with guys like Sean Long missing out on working under them (AKA Wane under Maguire). There really are no stand-out head coaches across the league (possibly McNamara, only on form though). Massively missing 3 or 4 Maguire’s/Holbrook’s/Robinsons’s/Monie’s. The draw from SL seems to be dropping for these type of guys, but you get a few teams with that level of coach at the same time, and the whole league improves as it drags the rest up (monkey see, monkey do). Thing is, it would take a minor miracle to make it happen given the decline of the sport generally over here.'"
There will be a big difference throwing money around in these next couple of years to throwing it around in normal times. That will be that other clubs won’t be able to do that. Yes there is a salary cap but you can go above it with the marquee rules and not many, if any will be spending at Wires level. They would always see Wigan, Saints and Leeds as the threat. They have a Leeds side who have a way to go to be challenging for league titles, a Saints side feeling the pinch of the salary cap and who are losing three huge players for next season in Bentley, Fages and especially Coote and then us, who look in borderline crisis. We look to be losing about a third of our salary cap next season and to date seemed to have signed a championship winger and a squad filling centre, without much promise of pulling together a squad anywhere near good enough to challenge for honours.
Add in the fact Powell is coming in, who I expect to go really well and it’s now or never for Wire.