In today League Express paper Lenagan as basily said that there will be no overseas players signing for Wigan because the rate pay in Aussie land is far greater than in GB! and that with there doller being worth more it looks like only a over the hill type player would want to come over. He says that he will concentrate on local British players.

Im past caring to be honest, most of our best players over the past few seasons have been home grown anyway... Sam, Charnley, O'Loughlin, Hock, Mossop.

And I'll raise you Carmont, Finch, Hoffman, Richards, Lima

No real surprise, We already know he is going to try and do it on the cheap. Best thing we can do now is just try and get the best young English players and nurture them into a group of winners. Im a bit disappointed though that we didn't go for Gaskell. We will have to start being that English core that brought us so much success in the late 80's early 90's. If the league can somehow survive and get stronger then we are in prime position to have a future of home grown stars. Warrington will very soon be finding themselves in a similar position to us and they haven't recruited any replacements for their ageing players yet. Saints have pretty much gone through it and seem to be happy with what they have, And imo they have a good group (not sure about Jordan Turner though) Hull look as though they are trying to emulate Warrington and will be up and around the top, Leeds have done their usual stick rather than twist on the transfer front. (if it aint broken it doesn't need fixing)

Best thing we can do is try and use this as a transitional year and see how Wane copes with having to use his brain a lot more. It should give us plenty more clues on how he is as a coach this term.

Maybe i am being shallow, but i like the razzmatazz of signing an overseas player.

I like the speculation, I like the confirmation, I like their arrival and I enjoy seeing how the progress.

Whilst I completely understand the fiscal reasons for not pursuing an NRL player, it does not mean that i am happy we wont be.

This or any sport is about entertainment and excitement. Signing big names is part of the fun.

Shame that the sport finds it self in this position.

To be fair though Finch, Hoffman and Lima were only here due to the issues at Melbourne and the Madge link - there would have been little chance of them being at Wigan otherwise. Carmont and Richards were signed before the huge increases in the Aussie pay over there.

There is no doubt that for all clubs the days of marquee signings from down under at pretty much over - unless you count players towards the end of their careers (who can't get a decent pay deal) or players with issues.

I am happy though that Wigan have put so much into the youth set up over the last few years - at least we are in a strong position compared to some clubs.

So I take it from that Blake Green is a second rate Aussie? Otherwise what is he doing here?

Anyway it has never mattered at Wigan where a player comes from so long as he is a top player so IL needs to make sure the club can sign the top players whether they are British or Australian or anything else.

So does IL simply admit defeat or does he want to improve matters financially so we can compete for the worlds top players?

It's also a bit stupid to come out and say he wants to sign English players and then apparently be negotiating to sell one of the best who we have under contract.

That is a very good point

When Lima and Finch said they were off I said at that point I wouldn't touch an overseas player again because it's too disruptive but I've changed my mind after what's going on with Hock! We're not only having trouble keeping our foreign players but also our homegrown lads and that will only get worse.

I'm not saying the NRL should be our first port of call but we'd be daft to rule it out. We may not get the top end players but there will always be the odd Carmont available and if Wigans scouting is good enough they'll be aware of that.

I think we probably have...

Hodgson - Ratchford
Briers - O'Brien
Morley - Hill
Michael Monaghan - Dwyer
Westwood - Currie

But what about Wood, Carvell, Joel Monaghan, Waterhouse and Higham all in the 30+ club.

i think most of us realise that less and less quality nrl players will be coming over now with the increase in their salary cap. it is just another indication that super league has been well and truly left behind now by the nrl and union. we will have to develop more home grown talent to fill all the teams we have, the downside of that is that the international aspect of our game will be gone with just british players here, also our top players will eventually move over to the nrl for more money and to test themselves, there is no doubt that overseas signings add to the excitement of a new season not to mention the effect some of the quality nrl players have on our youngsters. i hate to say it but the game is in a mess, you can tell just by reading these boards how the lack of enthusiasm as gone out of people. and as much as some people dont like sky tv, if they ever pull out its game over for superleague.

I'm in that club

It's been coming for a while,
Who was the last decent overseas player under the age of 30 to come over here? Unless there is a major upturn in our economy we will struggle to attract these kind of players over here. As an example when we went Australia for the 2008 World Cup we got between 2.1 and 2.3 Aus$ to the £.
At present it's 1.5 Aus$ to the £.

My hope was that we maybe could have got some of the up and coming fringe players to come over for a couple of years (even a player swap) but that doesn't look as if it's going to happen either.