I thought it was 50% of his package that didn't count now that he has 10 years service, but I'm so depressed by the JT news I can't be bothered checking.

Lockers does count on the cap I think.

If you have a player (or player's) who have been at the club 10 years, then you get an extra 50k on the cap. In total, not per player. So even when Hansen (who I think is next in line) get to 10 years, we won't get any benefit from keeping him for that long.

I understand the problem you outline but still feel that a club should hold a player to a contract at least in order to let agents know that they cannot ride roughshod over every contract. Otherwise the whole cotract thing is meaningless.

contract mean nothing in this day and age, I am very dissapointed as a wigan fan today and I feel sam will go the same way shortly. It may be hard for joel to move down south and be away from his family, his girlfriend and his mates. Maybe he hasnt fully made his mind up but something needs to do about this now before we lose his brother!

Yeah no problem with back loaded contracts as you say good planning, for a player mid to late twenties. IMO for a young kid of 20 who has played for country and been a consistent performer for a couple of years you shouldn't back load it as others will come in, as has been shown

IFL explained how it worked out with lockers at the last forum i went to it was along those lines that you mentioned!
i think thats an interesting idea that rugby union do with the reguards the oversea's players, how would it effect us though using pat richards as example because of his irish passport? are there not too many loop holes in our game to make the rule un enforceable??

Its a absolute cert that his brother will follow him..joel will be a big name on big money playing on a much bigger international stage..And sam will be on less money getting abused week in week out by fans playing infront of 15k at wembley against australia.

not really a hard decision i would say.

I hope there's another explanation for this but it's looking likely that we are going to be loosing a star player.

In the sunday times post mortem about england ru's latest failure, there was an article about who will win them the world cup in 4 yrs time.

The picture to go with the article was sam tomkins.

Not saying it's a done deal, but these things usually build a head of steam, especially when his agent is a ru agent and he can see how much ashton has benefitted....

im not saying joel had no choice but he may look at the furture at wigan as

a) playing out of position
b) because of this struggling to get into an international side he should walk into
c) new coach - all may not go well
d) lure of fame and fortune

i'll be gutted if he leaves, well and truly, but feel we/the club need to take their share of the blame.

Ahhh this is annoying me now. Rugby Union doesn't deserve to have players with the quality of Sam and Joel, it's a boring sport and Sam would tear it up.

Sort it out RFL!

Radio 5 was saying it would be Owen Farrell and Mike Ford's lad, 2 more lost to the game for different reasons.

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everybody moaning about the loss of players to union and how its the salary cap this salary cap that. Clubs had a vote and voted not to raise the cap. Personally i dont see the problem with anyone bettering themselves financially because if we have it right there is not a chance in hell the RL could ever compete with Union finacially.

So we should just sit back and let it happen?