When the American settlers shared their turkeys with Indians, i bet the Indians thought, 'hey these guys aren't so bad after all'.

HY, do me a favour. Go and look up IL's history, his qualifications and business dealings. If you think you are better placed to run a large organization, and that he is some naive fool who is easily made an idiot, you can clearly see something in this man that i can't.

Whoever signs L.Tomkins, will there be another link up between clubs? I mean Sam and Joel go and they link up with both, he's got form.

We'll probably keep hold of the 3rd best Tomkins for his whole career

I've underlined the only three who I think we've missed. All the others were either at retirement age, or wanted to go back home or weren't that good anyway, or ruined their careers through off-field idiocy (and even Brett Finch would be questionable under some of those terms). I'm not touching the 'exit lounge' because we don't yet know which of those will be going and which won't.

We're all dejected by the Sam story - more so than maybe anyone at Wigan ever imagined - but this laundry list of disdain is nothing more than stilted propaganda designed to win the approval of the 'we always look on the downside' crowd who populate the other website.

You could pick most teams in Super League and draw up a list of players who've left in the last two or three years, and it would be similar to this one - a couple who you regret having lost, the rest who you'd simply shrug your shoulders about.

In case you'd forgotten, the team we're left with after being so so heartlessly stripped of star talent is still top of the league and still in with a good chance of winning trophies.

There is negativity and negativity, but his example is taking the absolute p122.

The real loss in recent times is the one almost no-one ever mentions - Michael Maguire, clearly one of the best coaches on Earth, and someone we'd never even have had if it hadn't been for Ian Lenagan. Let's look at some of the guys his predecessors got in. Denis Betts, Andy Goodway, Eric Hughes, Ian Millward. Yeah, f***ing awesome.

Hang on a minute, I post facts and you say I am taking the pi$$. Get a grip.

So how will any young NZW guy coming over here manage with the work visa?
We already have one in Gelling and his visa situation is a mare.
The NZW younger players are of no use to us whatsoever.
The only ones we can use will be those who are good enough to play first team every week. I'm not sure that's the kind of link NZW may be thinking about.
That's of course if there is a link!

It's a fact that those players you listed have all left since 2010. It is NOT fact that their departures amount to the disastrous picture that you are trying to paint, or that they could all have been avoided had someone with more nous been in charge.

Rabbiting on about 15+ players leaving is a melodramatic soundbite. It also ignores the other FACT - that we still have a very good side, the majority of whom are young and eager to prove themselves instead of old and looking for reasons to go home.

I don't doubt we are a good side and I am pleased we are top of the league.

However, if you care to go back to my post, you will see that someone asked how many players had left since 2010 and I answered the question factually. I did not add any comments that were negative. My only comments were factual. I therefore find your remarks inappropriate.

The problem isn't the 15+ lads that have left but that if they keep leaving at that rate it will catch up with us.

There are only so many years we can see 4 or 5 players walk out the door before it effects us. Our major attacking threats are Tomkins, Charnley and Richards and 2 out of those 3 won't be here next year.

If anyone thinks linking up with a league who constantly talks down SL, is blatantly arrogant saying 'unless players play in the NRL they are more than useless', we can't bothered with an international this year, blah blah blah is good then you need your head looking at.
Australia is quite happy to be the rugby version of American football, they don't care about the wider game, they only care about themselves.
As daft as it sounds union has been more respectful to SL than the NRL has of late.
They'd quite happily cherry pick every good player and leave us amateur, they don't care.
If anyone thinks NZW would actually benefit Wigan i think they are the naive ones, tell me again all the benefit you're getting from Saracens, free tickets to watch Joel?

Hasler being blatantly arrogant when they signed Graham, it was obvious how good Ginge was, head and shoulders above anyone in SL, awesome for England yet being talked down when he went over YET who is regarded as the best prop in the NRL at the moment?

The only reason i prefer our players in the NRL is because we don't lose them to the other code.
Look at the British press going all coy over Izzy Folua now, or Sonny Bill a while back yet these guys are ten a penny in our game and still we don't get the recognition we deserve.

NZW will throw big contracts at any Wigan academy lad who they think looks the part and any of their lads who looks the part will never fly as far as Perth in their life unless they're wearing an All Blacks shirt.

And yet Richards is 31 and is not the athlete he was a couple of years ago, so again it feels deceitful to mention him in these terms.

Why don't we wait and see who we replace these guys with before quoting their impending departure as though it's another nail in our coffin?

I'm as dejected as everyone about Sam, and I can't understand why he is being allowed to leave a year early ... it makes no sense to me and is tarnishing the whole season. Yes, it does make it feel as if the revolution that started in 2010 has now ended. But if Sam wasn't leaving, I strongly doubt that the retirement of players like Carmont, Coley and Deacon, the departure for home of players like Richards, the sacking of idiots like Gleeson and Hock and the loss of players who are well past their best like Fielden would be seen as anything more than the normal chopping and changing that goes on as teams develop.

The other website is ridiculously negative about the current administration at Wigan. One clown is even calling for a return of Maurice Lindsay, who was great when there was no salary cap but was so unable to modernise later that he very nearly got us relegated. I think the rest of us - me included - need to man up a bit. Sam is clearly going, if not in 2014, defo in 2015. It's a massive blow. But we've lost great players before. Wigan will still go on, and it's not like we're struggling to get wins.