I seem to remember hearing the French totally disregarded no-tampering deadlines and were on his case for a quite a while, offering all sorts, before he made his mind up to leave.

What are you going on about at all? We couldn't/wouldn't offer him as lucrative a contract as Catalans due to the tax breaks over there. I'll admit that I agreed with us not offering him silly money as at the time the decision was made he wasn't playing well and had a bad injury record.

Nobody knows but usually it's something to do with the gang of four

If you say so!

What are you on about, it has nothing to do with any gang of four.

Keep chasing the eggs, and hope they don't break!

Best player in super league history

By a mile. Best player I’ve ever seen....
That comes from a Rhino.....

Would be great if he decided to finish his career off here in a few years. You never know…

I agree re the south of France but the house he had on Lee's Lane was pretty nice as well (no, im not a stalker. I drove past on my home from work when he was selling it)

Well deserved POTY award also

Not necessarily anyone on here, but it's amusing to see some of our fans now congratulating him.

Those same fans played a role in him leaving. The cr@p he used to get via social etc from our own fans was ridiculous. Stuff like "he's not running the ball back", or "he's finished" etc. That's even before everyone going OTT because him and Joel got drunk one night too.

Imagine being a club where your own fans give you stick, the owners want to reduce your salary and they sack your own brother...

I said if at the time, but losing Sam was the biggest mistake the club could make. If any player was worth the biggest contract in the club's history it was a born winner like him.

Never gave anything less than his all. Even when he wasn’t on it he was (and still is) one of the best, if not the best in SL by a country mile. Even rival fans have to admit that. He was a tremendous loss to us and worth every penny we could muster to pay him

Correct

As for him leaving, returning

No way coukd Wigan financially match what Cstalans were offering, still offering, coupled with the tax advantages that exist not only whilst he plays there but for the years after he finishes playing that he will benefit from

(People can question what I'm saying etc, but along with the lifestyle benefit, the tax advantages not only currently but post playing are ridiculously good).

I do get that, but at the same time I think it's easy to use all of that as an excuse too.

If there was ever a player to get into a bidding war for, it was Sam Tomkins. Completely understand that all of this is just talk and easy to say when it isn't my money - but I'd like to think that if I was rich enough to own the club, I'd have told Sam to name his price. I'd have done anything to keep him at the club.

The post playing advantages over there are unreal. I think you have to spend 3 years there though, hence James Maloney staying in France and playing at a lower level.

Honestly mate
As Pemps says below the whole package whilst playing and Post playing for a couple of years after you finish playing are unreal
It's not as simple as This BUT
It would basically like us having to double the amount of basic Catalans were offering

So if catalans offered say 300k for the last 3 seasons, we'd need to offer 1.5m plus love those 3 years to match what he will get when tax and the post playing benefits kick in.
Extend that to 5 years (his next 2 year contract taken into account) and wed be paying best part of 2.5m over 5yrs to match catalans 1.5m

#####above numbers for illustrative purposes only