I've always wondered why they don't expand to Hobart in Tasmania

We should expand to Tasmania given that many of our countrymen resided there in the penal colony.

New sides mean more of our young players being targetted

Interesting note from the head of RL commercial that there are apparently 20 marquee players in SL. Seems very high to me - wouldn't have thought many clubs could afford them.

I’m not surprised, if you have a federation trained player on more than 100k (which every team will have bar maybe London) you might aswell set them as marquee to save £50k on the cap.

Made no sense when the likes of Saints claimed to not have marquee players, just gets you more value out of the cap.

Exactly
And even if the club doesn't spend up to the cap you would still claim it for the 1/2/3 players that eat up most of your cap whether they choose to use that Space or not

Surely this is against the spirit of the game (heard that somewhere else)

Andrew Johns and Brad Fittler were both calling for Field and French to get NRL gigs next year hopefully we can stagger their departures so we dont lose both at once if they do go home

Looks like the most likely scenario currently is French leaves at the end of this year and Field at the end of next. Both will have done around 5 years at Wigan in their prime - we can have no complaints.

If this is the last year they play together at Wigan then hopefully they both stay fit and the fans enjoy it as much as possible.

From what I’ve been told from someone I know at Wigan is that French is as good as gone but there is zero interest in field from the nrl

When you think, a few years back, we were all saying, oh, if only we could hang on to just one of them, and we've managed to hang on them both, it's great really. So we can look forward to watching them both this year, and if Bevan gets a swan-song in the NRL, good luck him. As I've said before, he's definitely a much better player now than the guy who left Parramatta.

You also told us that Thompson would never sign for Wigan! I rest my case mi lud.

Maybe Thompson the inside man

French owes us nothing, if he goes I’m sure he goes with everyone’s best wishes.

The last “favour” he can do for us though is make a call on his future early.

We as fans don’t need to know but the club need to know so they can do business early to replace him.

We don’t have a player who can step up to fill the void he will leave and I don’t think there is anyone in SL who is able to fill the gap. I wouldn’t mind Tyrone May or Mikey Lewis but both have got 2 years at KR and they are not a selling club so we will need to go to the NRL and probably have to pay marquee money so the more time we have the better.

Looking at the off contract NRL players the style of half we need and whom is available is limited. Given Smith is such a high quality organiser we need a strike 6.

Daine Laurie looks the best bet or someone like Anthony Milford if you are wanting to roll the dice and in reality neither of those should command marquee money.