I'd give you Hampshire at a pinch but feel the analogy with Burgess is being too kind to him. However, given those presumably exiting it shouldn't be too difficult to meet his financial demands. Also, I suspect money won't be the primary issue with Hampshire, it will be about first team opportunities which the coach isn't giving him at the moment.

I think there's a big difference between quality and quantity. I personally think even with 6 players leaving there's still enough squad players to cover the loss of 4 of them. That to me is a massive indicator of how swelled we appear to be.

Agreed about Galloway but you made a decent point on another thread about all this being relative. When you are comparing him to the quality of props both at our club and in SL in general he is undoubted quality. Galloway like Cuthbertson might not compare to top NRL props but they are easily good enough to make a big impact at Wigan.

Then its simply bad management imo.

If you have a player as talented as Hampshire then you don't bring in someone who is a direct competition for him. Why does it have to be one or the other? You can retain youngsters and at the same time sign decent players.

To be fair, that's guesswork. We don't know what his primary issue is, but we know that money always helps. I too doubt we'd be competing with anyone in the NRL for him, but to lose him to Saints would be even worse.

However, I take your overall point. I'm worried that we lack ambition in recruitment terms. I don't buy the argument that we finished 3rd so everything must be okay. We know we have glaring weaknesses in this team, and with no sign that anyone is coming to fill these gaps, it's hardly reassuring.

But I don't think we can ignore the Burgess issue. When a starlet signs to go to Aus before he's even made it in the British game, that should worry us. If we're shoring up contracts to prevent that happening again, I wouldn't be displeased.

I think what we have to do is look how to improve our squad.

If there is someone ready to step up and replace a first 17 player then fantastic. We then need to consider balance within the squad maybe we can afford to lose a little quality in one area if it means we can gain in another.

If there isn't the quality then we need to recruit, it's not rocket science.

Looking at our squad going into this year I and others would have liked an experienced stop gap at 6 and a Prop at the very least. I still think we would be much better placed had we done so rather than sign a couple of Secondrow come Props.

Moving forward there are serious issues to address. Obviously upfront we still lack a quality experienced Prop. Patrick has to go. Woeful signing. You don't find experienced quality first team leaders in the youth system so you have to look to recruit. Simple.

Our backrow lacks size, again another glaring issue. Do we have a real quality big young backrow in the youth set up? No. We need to recruit. Connor Farrell will not fit into our 17 if we are to retain his big brother and Bateman.

Not recruiting a half last year has cost us dear. Powell has shown glimpses but never enough to think he was ever going to be a first team regular at a top club. Williams should have gone to half, 2 year deal for am experienced 6 with Rocky backing him up would give us quality, consistency and an easing into first team rugby of 2 quality young players. We haven't and we are shocking at hooker when MM goes off and we are more than likely going to lose Rocky as soon as he can get away. Given the decisions made last year though we now need to stick with what we have in that position.

Wing is covered with Manfredi but we lack any backup beyond that and also look very stretched if we pick up a knock in the centre. Ideally I would like us to sign a utility wing/centre to cover that position.

Backup hooker is a massive issue but Wane has cast his dice and now we look stook with what we have.

We have already made some very poor decisions in our recruitment. We are clearly weaker than last year and we need to recruit at least 3 players to get it moving forward again.

Hubris in our youth system is costing us in my opinion and our seemingly Wigan bias/mentality is also holding the club back at times.

I think people become frustrated seeing players signed by other clubs who we know style wise we are crying out for. Galloway instantly gives us what we need upfront, Taylor gives us size in the backrow that we so badly need. I appreciate we may have bid and lost out it may have other irons in the fire and this could be all premature concern when the time line up for fixture 1 of the 2016 season, but given our recent activity in this department especially last year I think the concern is justified at the moment.

Hindsight is a great thing. Right upto the start of the season the general feeling on this forum was that we were in fine shape. We had a bigger pack and had recruited well. Sometimes things do no go as we thought that they would. I for one would not have questionned our recruitment and to some extent we have to live with that as we cannot just tear up contracts. I realise that some players will be leaving and so can free up some cash but great replacements are hard to find. I Wonder when those clubs, that have announced signings, started to put feelers out. Finding the right fit, as opposed to the desperately feeding on scraps as they become avaliable, takes a longer view, unless some catastrophy suddenly drops some world class players in your lap as happened to us in the past.
We carry a big squad because we give the youngsters a chance, otherwise why bother with an academy, and I do not want that to change. Yes, a big, hard running forward, with good hands, who tackles like SOL would improve our squad, but they are rare. My gut feeling is that the club are still looking at what will happen to SOL next year before they flash the cash.

I think if you look back there were many of us that were concerned by our recruitment at the start of this season and our lack of size/balance. Personally the only positive at the time for me was Tautai because I though he would give us that explosive runner we have lacked for a while and to be fair he hasn't hit the heights I would have expected.

If we are waiting to see what happens with SOL then we have missed out again on players as most are already signed for next year both here and overseas or at least at very late stages of sorting a deal.

In Bateman we have a SOL replacement already at the club whenever he decides to step aside. You sign a big Secondrow you tick one box and you still have room to accommodate Tomkins, Sol, Farrell and Bateman rotating the squad and for the inevitable periods SOL is out or the others pick up a knock.

I was personally happy with the way things looked this time last year.

Green was leaving but i was confident in Rocky being a perfect for HB partner for Smith - he hasn't been given the chance.

Joel was back and i was more than confident that once up to speed he would be an excellent addition at 2nd row - he's played far too much time at centre.

We had Taylor and like you i thought TT would have been excellent foil with Taylor, Flower and Clubb - Taylor left and also left a HUGE hole.

The above is annoying but it also reminds me of the Noble era or Saints of 24 months ago- i.e. a good team that with a few tweaks or additions is changed into something completely different.

Agree with most of this. Galloway is no Peacock, but, as said, he's a decent pro who will churn up the metres (more than our current props do). The point about an experienced wing/centre is a fair one. Someone like Mantellato, or Krisnan Inu ? Funnily enough was chatting online to a St George fan last night, who reckoned that Cuthbertson was a good player for them who'd tailed off at Newcastle (I'd remarked that I never thought he looked anything much at the Knights; didn't remember him at SGI). Either way, going to Leeds seems to have worked for him. If only we could find another like him!

As for halves, I reckon Williams has done pretty well this season on balance, with the bonus that unlike ageing Aussies, he'll be a better player next year, not a worse one: see Luke Walsh!

I'm not always the biggest fan of the NRL, but now some of the top teams are really hitting their straps at the business end of the season, you have to be impressed by the way the likes of the Roosters are playing. They have some of the best props in the business, can carry the ball upfield against anyone, and when in the attacking zone, they have the precision and flair to put points on the game. Forwards and backs all play their part. Our generally very good outside backs are being asked to do much too much.

Signing Patrick and Tautai was never going to solve our size issue however much Lenagan and Wane tried to pretend it would. Sadly it's turned out that not only are they both small props but they're also a liability in many other areas (ball retention and defensively being two big issues).

I do still think Tautai can pull it round with a big fitness push in the off season but Patricks surely a goner. If Tautai had the correct support around him upfront he'd instantly improve. He'd have been great for Saints playing off the back of Walmsley, Amor and Masoe with Roby working off the back of his strong suit (his running game).

It seems like there is a lot of people that share my genuine concern about our recruitment policy in the last 18 months but sadly, there doesnt appear to be any signs from within the club that its going to change.

I havent been to the fans forums held by IL but I would be interested to hear if anyone asked him whether he was consciously making an effort to promote youngsters from within rather than looking for established players for the here and now ("on the cheap"icon_wink.gif as some may call it.

The point I was trying to make is that even in relatively recent times we have gone abroad for players to do a job and even the players that havent been world beaters in the NRL like Carmont have gone on and done great things for the club. Now we seem to prefer playing second rowers out of position to fill that gap.

Similarly with the halves, Green left and I genuinely believe that 3/5 years ago we would have got in an established player to keep things ticking over until something better became available or an academy product became up to the task.

In an ideal world, I would hope to see Wigan sign a centre, a hooker/halfback and two props for next year. Realistically, I expect it to be a replacement for Patrick plus Sam with some big news that we have signed some academy players to long term contracts

I think I'll wait until I see what our recruitment is, before being content or critical.

I can understand the comments from both sides of this debate so far to be honest.

teams such as Catalans, leeds and wire have announced recent signings of a good calibre and it all seems pretty quiet from a wigan point of view. we already know we have sam back at FB next year but that doesn't fix the whole team where it is needed and we all know there are a number of areas of concern at present and for the short term future (based largely on opinion, of course). on paper sam may be a better player than most of the oppositions teams recent signings but those signings appear to show how the other teams are plugging gaps and improving their squads with dependable and proven players. what have we done other than re-sign sam?

I fear another year of "blooding youngsters" which is what wane wants. why did wigan feel the need to showcase a game in London for the blue chip community? are we actually that skint? it all seems too much of a coincidence if you ask me. I love wanes passion and his thoughts on an all local based first team set of players but this is simply not going to work in the modern game. especially when he won't even play some of our youngsters half of the bloody time anyway! a very bizarre situation we are in at the moment I think.

we may do well in the super 8's but I fear a year of doom and gloom next year and I wouldn't be surprised if we won't be in a position to contend a trophy in the next few years if the club carry on with the current recruitment policies. we have a great squad don't get me wrong, but its not good enough to simply refuse or not commit to building on it.

I think Tautai has done o.k. He averages around 75 metres a game and 20 tackles. His ball retention bar the game at Warrington when he got concussed and probably should't have come back on has been fine, and he doesn't miss a lot of tackles or give away many penalties. Partick has been a disappointment, he is rumoured to be in the top 3 quickest players over 30 metres at the club, and I think we all expected more.

As for recruitment, it's a balancing act. Next year we have Sam coming back but also have Gildart, Bretherton, Shorrocks, Waterworth, Gregson etc coming out of the U19's with no place to play. What do we do with them? Bretherton is about 6'4" and 16 stone now at the age of 19!!
Look at Ryan Hampshire, he's rightly peed off at the moment because he has nowhere to play. If we go to the overseas market then some of these players may be forced to leave, can you imagine the uproar on here if Hampshire or some of the ones mentioned leave?

A major concern for me is not identifying issues it is addressing them. The club identified a lack of size as an issue after the Roosters game and went public with this concern and to address it sign Patrick and Tautai to add to our already small pack.

Both were signed to play up front but clearly for all to see Patrick in particular was woeful and moved back to the second row where he still lacks size but it is less easy to exploit.

2 seasons on we still need size and there has been plenty on the market.