What will have helped his development is playing at a lower level, I think Northampton were relegated the season he signed. And being dropped to the second team to work on his weaknesses.
He wasn't happy to play 2nd team football at Wigan, and I can't imagine him being sent to Leigh for 12 months (as an analogy)

All that's happened is that the RU coaches have done exactly the same as any RL coach would have done, but because he's tied to a large contract he has to stop being a big baby and knuckle down

Now there's no way he was worth what the RU paid for him but the fact that we've tied up Sam on a decent contract shows that we will pay the money when it's justified and the SC allows

The real lesson for the RFL to learn is to how to make our game more marketable so that we have the revenue to compete with RU so that we can keep hold of our decent young players and give them time to develop and not allow agents to simply play one offer against the other to drive prices up

Would you have said that about Chris Ashton at 18 years old, given that we were already performing a balancing act with wages, cap space etc?

Give an honest answer, and disregard the player Ashton is now.

Also, bear in mind that several England RU first team regulars wouldn't be worth £140 grand a year in SL given our salary cap status, so your 'verge of the England team' analogy doesn't mean much.

Why? I'm not talking about what happened in the past. All I said was I'd have him in-place of Phelps and apparently that means I think we should've given him £140k in 2007.

The problem was that Wigan allowed Ashton (and his agents) to get gooey eyed over the $$$ by not signing him up on a long term contract ala Sam Tomkins. Hopefully lessons have been learned and we can keep our "cream of the crop", however it's a problem wich is not going to go away in future years.

Wow, posing in a shirt for the team he'd signed for.

Gotta love Wiganers and their amazing over-exaggerations of everything.

His point is the fact he still played for Wigan at the time (and had to for six months more), in addition his attitude on the pitch was visually disappointing!

Wow how short is your memory!!

The bloke was parading around in that yawnion in the national press over 6mth before the end of the season and only 3 days before we played HUll in a vital SL game. It was a huge 2 fingers up to you, me and this great club of ours. Have some feckin standards man!!

You didnt see J Robinson acting like a w**ker when everyone knew he was going to RU.

Nope sorry pal, Ashton showed a lack of respect for the club that had made him into the player he was and for that I can only wish him all the worst.

Is that £140k figure correct? Thought that was dependent on various bonuses and that he went for a basic salary of around £60k?

Quote: Woody_woody "Is that £140k figure correct? Thought that was dependent on various bonuses and that he went for a basic salary of around £60k?'" www.lep.co.uk/rugby/Ashton-wages ... 2183993.jp Didn't think I'd dreamt it.

Quote: Woody_woody "Is that £140k figure correct? Thought that was dependent on various bonuses and that he went for a basic salary of around £60k?'" www.lep.co.uk/rugby/Ashton-wages ... 2183993.jp Didn't think I'd dreamt it.

It was Mo who said it was £140k - so it must be true.

For salary cap purposes though, the potential earned from bonuses is taken as if you'd been actually paid it on a basis defined in the rules or agreed with the Salary Cap co-ordinator. Under our rules it's quite possible that to match a potential pay offer from RU of say £120,000 (if all the bonuses are acheived) depending on structure it could cost as much as £120,000 on an RL club's salary cap even if the bonuses turned out not be acheived and the player only got paid say £60,000.

In fact, if you're an RU club looking to sign an RL player then the best way is to structure the offer in such a way as to have the most impact on the RFL Salary cap so their club struggles to match it.

That puts that one to bed. But even if had only been £60 grand, it's still a problem if you haven't got room under the cap.