I actually quite like it. I love how big the sport is over there and how much scrutiny comes with it. Yes, they cross the line but I'd rather have that than the shambolic coverage we get.

Imagine journos actually holding the game to account and not Baz and Tez trying to be everyone's best mate.

Only £75K of his salary would count on the cap and Wigan usually keep an amount spare for mid season opportunities.

If the physical finance is there to take advantage of that it’s an easy decision. To have a cracking player here whilst using that rule is a big advantage going forward. It’s all about having the finance though I suppose, both now and in the future to use it to its maximum potential.

Wigan must be in pole position to sign him since they have some form of 'first refusal' option, Wigan are his home team club, and he would only count £75k on your cap vs. £150k elsewhere (home trained).

The problem for any club is, do they have an unused marquee space? If both spots are already filled then one marquee player has to count 100% towards the cap.

But he would only be signing for half a season, so you would expect that Wigan, Leeds and the wolfs have room for him this season, the breaker may be the following seasons and the length of contract on offer, as has been said many times we have first communication with him, not a guaranteed right to sign him, he may not want to come back to Wigan, Gildart will be gone next year, Burgess is at Salford, so lads he grew up with have moved on

hope I'm wrong though

I enjoy the Aussie coverage to a degree as it's a world away from the easy ride players, coaches and administrators get over here. In the UK RL journalists live in fear of upsetting anyone so nobody really asks difficult questions. That leads to really boring coverage. So much so that I just gave up on it and I only rarely watch any televised RL over here.

That said when NRL 360 degenerates into four blokes yelling at each other it's e. On the other side NRL on Channel 9 has opinionated ex-players coming out with bollox so it's not just journalists.

The coverage is like the Premier League gets over here and so players going there need to understand that's one of the downsides of going there, which also has to be measured against the much bigger salary, nicer weather, better standard of competition etc. If you really make it you can get a gig on one of those shows like James Graham but you need to be one of the best players in the comp as well as being able to string a sentence together.

I understood that, under these circumstances, the player's salary is taken pro rata meaning that whatever he is paid for half a season counts as double that against the cap.

tried to explain this on the forum numerous times
People think that if for example the players wages annually added up to 1.5million we could bring someone in half way through the season and pay them 700k (The rest of the cap) for half a season, you can't

the players wages are spent/assessed monthly

So the cap is 2.2m (I think) divided by 12months - i.e. 183,000 a month approx.

If you are running at £170k a month for the first 6 months of the year the 13k spend per month your under the cap x 6 previous months cannot be used at some point down the line

You can only spend up to £183,000 per month each month

So if were 13k per month under the cap then Wigan can only pay a 6 month contract of 13k x 6 months for the rest of the year

Hope that makes sense

Disclaimer - All numbers above are hypothetical

Explained here. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... l-20671729

Explained here. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... l-20671729

Interesting, I didn’t realise it was a monthly cap on expenditure, thanks for a clear explanation

Good luck with that. We have a few who struggle with the concept over on the Wire pages

Also quite a few who think that you can structure the wages so that you pay more one year and less another. The simple fact is that the RL have the final say in the figure that is used against the cap, so no chance for creative accounting.

For GW to come to the Wire we'd have to let another marquee player go early. That could happen as Austin would likely be on his way at the end of the season anyway and Widopp has expressed a wish to return to Australia to be near to his kids.

I'm guessing Williams might not be able to command a marquee salary this season if no team has the cap space for it. It may be a case of him taking a lower salary with us this year then a big salary next year when we can free up cap space.

I totally get the "We need a good prop as top priority" thing.

But George going to Leeds or Wire? that would be a disaster, and surely must not be allowed to happen.

Talking about Journalism...

The WEP have just run a story, that quotes Brian Carney, saying that Leigh are in for him.

Give me 360 any day of the week