Finding it hard to disagree with anything you’ve said there Dave. As for your last question could you have classed FPN as a big name? I’m leaving ever so slightly towards yes, despite his questionable performances. Prior to that Brett Finch/Ryan Hoffman I’d say.

It’s not really IL/SW’s policy to bring in big name recruits, it’s more their style to bring in developing players from either the academy or elsewhere, though not its biggest fan it is financially cost effective and we certainly can’t say it hasn’t produced success; whether we like the style of play or not.

I said this on another post but years ago we were clamouring for more British talent coming through the ranks and less Aussies. Now it has happened we’re now almost clamouring for the opposite, we can’t have it all ways. Perhaps we’ve swung the pendulum too far to British talent and need to find the balance, but thinking about in from an England RL perspective; coming within 6points of a World Cup, again can we really argue it isn’t working?

Replacing a 22 year old NRL-bound prop for a 25 year old Championship prop is such a Wigan thing to do.

He got injured in one of the pre-season friendlies or reserve games.

I just can't see Sutton as a starting prop in the NRL. Well,we'll see, I suppose.

Signing a prop from the lower leagues is nothing new for Wigan. Even with a plethora of world class talent in our 1991 squad we nipped over to lowly Rochdale and signed Neil Cowie. He didnt do too bad did he?

To be honest, I don't think Wigan do this enough. Other clubs have had much success signing players from the lower leagues where we rarely do these days.

Fully agree. It’s been frustrating to see teams like Saints, Wire and Leeds have success with guys like Walmsley, Hill and Hardaker whilst we never seem to look that way. There doesn’t seem a better time to be looking at the Championship either because the league is stronger then it’s ever been and lads like Bullock have been impressing against full time professionals with very good pedigree at higher levels.

I'll give you FPN though I suspect many had never heard of him before he signed. As to the general point I am not suggesting we max out the overseas quota for the sake of it as many clubs did in the past but given IL was one pf the main proponents of the marquee rule that we actually make use of it assuming Sam T is off and we have a slot available. Sport is supposed to be entertaining and I'd like to see a signing that didn't give the impression the club's motivation was always cost first.

It may be cost effective to bring in developing players but it's basically boring if this a repeated time after time. I also wonder what the motivation is to[i bring in[/i developing players when we supposedly have the best production line going. They just get in the way of the home grown talent and you still don't know how they will turn out. I don't put this potential signing from Barrow in that bracket and as someone else said this seems like a Neil Cowie type of recruit.

It certainly doesn't help these lads who bloom a little later than others.

Hill was at Wigan until he was 16 and then the club let him go along with Stef Ratchford, both deemed not good enough by dean Bell and ironically Shaun Wane.

Hill clearly seems to be a late bloomer and maybe this lad from Barrow can be the same. I saw a picture of him from his Wigan days online when he was a winger. He was like a pipe cleaner and he must now weigh about three times as much.

So was Tommy Makinson, but I don't think that was Wanes call, Brian Foley?

You bring up a very interesting point there in your second paragraph re why we’re bringing in developmental players when our production line is supposedly the cream of the crop, it almost contradicts that statement altogether. With two developmental props in our ranks currently, bearing in mind Navarrete looks to be ‘graduating’ soon; are we saying our academy props aren’t up to scratch?

As for your first point again I’m inclined to agree. Fans want to see big name signings who then kick on for the club but it falls back to the fact that the approach we’re taking now is working. Would IL/SW want to change a winning formula? Even so I think SW would be far too stubborn to change the approach. On the flip side using Walmsley as an example, if Bullock turns out to be as good as AW; would we complain at another developmental signing? Probably not.

There’s pro’s and cons to either way and for me I’d like to see a balanced approach whereby we are in for and signing big names but we’re keeping a keen eye on the future whether that be the academy (my preference) or developmental signings.