We should have had some this year...........

It's not though is it?

Graham from Saints, Burgess x 3 from Bradford, Burgess x 1 from Leeds.
Briscoe from Hull is a target

I have no doubt that there will be many more.

Cream always rises.
I liked the look of Lloyd White at Cas yesterday. And Pickersgill looked useful.

Add Eastmond to that list who was destined to be England's long term half back, imagine Widdop and Eastmond as a halves combination!

It never ceases to amaze me how our players, according to some supporters, suddenly become rubbish the moment they leave. Mossop is an excellent young player who has served Wigan RLFC well. So much so that he is wanted in the NRL.

this

how many years does he have left on his contract? are we looking at a decent fee for him?

Mossop was great first half of last season. Hes had a slow 12 months, so his performances are hardly at the forefront of anyones memories.

Mossop has huge potential but he's had that for a while now and I don't think his game has developed as we'd have liked so far. I think injuries have played their part for sure but he also did a seasons worth of cruising last year when he had a pretty poor season. He's started this season in much better form but its again been blighted by those injury issues.

I think he'll have a big year this season in World Cup year to try and cement his spot in the side then move over to Oz for a new challenge. I think that will be great for his development and it should help him fulfil that potential.

I still maintain that if Mossop hadn't popped his shoulder back in during the Challenge Cup Final to come back on we probably would've lost. He gave us a real boost when it was needed

Lots of Mossop bashing before he's out of the door, same people who were banging on not so long ago about how he's the next Jamie Peacock, Dom Crosby probably has that mantle now.

Seems to be a bigger issue than Mossop going, he's just another piece in the negative pattern forming at our once prestigious club. I say once as it's clearly not the honour it once was to wear the cherry and white; evidence? Players are not just leaving, they are breaking their contracts to leave or even using Wigan as a shop window to finish in the NRL or SL.

A contract seems to be a method of securing payment for a player when he signs for another club when under contract, not something to honour.
We are getting the financial rewards as we sell our young promising talent, but for what? Now we still look within as there's no one of quality who's obtainable, that is evidence with the lack of movement in the transfer market, linked with a 31yr troublemaking Union forward; so very exciting

Are we going to sign a player of Mossop's quality or potential in return? I don't see how.

Worse so, I think this is only the beginning, expect to see Sam, Faz, Josh etc to follow in time, I mean, why would you stay?

The Burgess brothers were ripe for the picking due to the Bulls well documented financial problems. Graham wanted to test himself against the best, much like Morley and Ellis. Eastmond, along with Joel and Ashton, went purely for the money but his style of play doesn't really suit union. Many backs have suffered in union due to the lack of an open running game and have come back to league a shadow of their former selves e.g. Pryce, Smith.

I can see why Mossop, Hock and Sam may want to test themselves in the best comp. With H you also have to consider his heritage. Farrell strikes me as being another Lockers, Wigan through and through. You often see him watching the junior teams. Personally I think we have the talent coming through to replace them all bar Sam, though Hampshire, Williams or Tierney may prove me wrong.

Why are they looking at Wigan? Because we are the biggest name in the game, have a good production line, we have a good culture in terms of sports science/coaching and training methods and produce players with the attitude to succeed.

Which doesn't help us in the slightest.

Unless the clubs find ways to get more revenue and investment, losing star players to the NRL and RU is going to be the least of our problems.

Most of the clubs in the league can't afford to pay player salaries any higher than a SC that was introduced over a decade ago and has been massively eroded by inflation. The game is headed for a semi-pro future.

Many players will simply not get involved in RL in the first place due to the lack of a viable career. I'm not sure that in 10 or 20 years' time we will have any players RU and the NRL will want.

There seems to be no appetite amongst the clubs or (judging by these boards) many fans to address the issue of financial failure by clubs and the game as a whole in England. No one would argue that SL is likely to be as rich a league as the NRL but there is much that could be done to improve club and RFL finances.

If we carry on as we have been doing for decades then the best we can hope for is for RL to become a feeder competition for the NRL. That way we would see some talented athletes playing RL in England, even if only briefly.

we will have 5-6 SL clubs that will pick up the best young players around from academies and other SL and Championship clubs, keep them for 2-3 years and if they turn out exceptional at an early stage try and sign them up to a longer contract so we get a fee when the do get approached by NRL or Union.

As a sport we just don't have the revenue streams to compete with the NRL or Union, we have teams that can't pay up to the salary cap now so raising it would probably only benefit a couple of teams