Our reserves got called off again last night I noticed. It really is a pathetic state of affairs that we should even be having to travel over to Halifax, Keighley etc in these cold months when teams like Saints, Wire, Salford, Leigh etc should all have opposition we can play.

The games in a mess at the minute with no agreement on a new structure in place and seemingly no interest in youth development at a lot of clubs.

If there isn’t some ruthless decision making over the next few months we’ll continue to drift and god knows where all the clubs will end up.

There is that old phrase, the darkness before the dawn.

We reached that at Wigan in 1979, when we got relegated. So often, it's only when drastic failures occur that positive things tend to start happening.

I get the feeling that SL is fast approaching a state when there are too many critical failures to be tolerated.

Not released (ie not deemed good enough) - but when an improved contract is rejected. I'll use Joe Burgess as an example. Joined aged 16 and worked his way through the youth system at Wigan, before securing a 3 year professional contract in 2013. At 21, and after turning down contract offers by Wigan, he signs for Sydney Roosters, who have not invested a penny in his development. To me, even though Joe was a free agent, for home-developed players who have only had one professional contract, there should be some form of compensation due to the losing club who have not released the player and tried everything in their power to keep him. Academies need funding and if the clubs are seeing their brightest graduates repeatedly pinched, then there is no incentive to invest in them.

Was having Joe Burgess in our side on a low contract for years not sufficient reward for producing him?

Joe Made his debut late 2013 and he was 19 (I kind of agree with you BTW)
I would say the contract he had at that point and in 2014 his real debut season was a fair reflection of his progress, fitted into Wigan's Wage structure for youth etc.
I think the issue was that people from outside the club as well as ourselves recognised he was potentially a special talent and offers emerged mid 2014 that were in advance of what we could fit in given we had Manfredi/Charnley at the time (Bear in mind Manfredis injury and Charnleys's departure was 18months away).

The club made a pretty good offer (For 19yr old with limited experience etc.) - But the offer from the Roosters was far greater & he wanted to give it a go (For Which I don't blame him 1 bit).

Now if he had stayed (Like George) then my argument is and back to the OP is that the contract offer would have to somehow be close to the offers that other clubs from the outside are offering.
We complain about lack of signings, but the contracts George/Gildart/Sutton & then Budgie when he came back (On a contract similar to the Roosters offer from 3 years earlier) are akin to picking up pretty big name signings as their performance & worth to not only us but what other clubs perceive them to be worth to them demand.
So those resignings are and what I was trying to get at, are like signing/bringing in New players.
The advantage is the players are familiar with the structures, we know them inside out so there's no real risk or if there is we know what were letting ourselves in for and we may be able to get them slightly less than other clubs.

Gildart's took some stick for that interview a couple of weeks ago, a bit like the Wane interview when headlines were he wasn;t worried about losing players to NRL, it was taken a little out of context for me.
He didn't say he wanted to go now, he didn't say he couldn't wait to go etc. he said his contract was expiring and waiting for Wigan to offer along with any other options that come in (Sounds sensible to me) and that "One Day" he would like to give the NRL a shot. Isn't that what we want our players to be and our culture to be , ambitious, to test themselves etc., to be winners.
Lets not look back with glazey eyes, other players did it in the past.
Henry Paul left
Ellery Left
Tuigamala left
Betts left
Barrie Jon Mather left
Clarke left
etc.etc.etc.

And there were may different reasons etc. behind all of them.

But bear in mind we brought a hell of a lot of players in from other clubs and benefitted from winning the Money battle with nearly all the other clubs for many years, unfortunately the shoes on many other Feet now (Other clubs have parity, NRL dwarf us and the dreaded RU).

Gildart needs to make the right decision based on what's best for him, we as a club need to manage our resources as best we can for Wigan.
My OP was that given the way the cards are now (Current salary cap, the RFL issues, lack of media exposure etc. leading to less revenue etc.) I believe the way we were investing in these young lads and the systems that sit behind them is the best way forward and IMO were doing an excellent job of it.
Sitting here and bemoaning Wire signing 2/3 players every year and having varying degrees of success from Dreadful to average isn't something I'm going to do.

I'm going to sit here and smile that Tom Davies, Liam Marshall, Jake Shorrocks, George (And yes I do believe the investment is his contract was a good investment) Higginson, Wells, Sutton have all signed contracts previously and recently that IMO are better "Signings" than what other clubs have made and if Gildart joins that club "BRILLIANT"!

You are probably right in the sense Wigan have tried to emulate Leeds in their pay structure and offer a progression salary-wise as players hit various milestones. So players will get pay rises when these are hit. This is a good thing in the sense it ought to put an end to the situation where really talented players are stuck on poor contracts and so they get fed up.

However the object of the exercise is to assemble a top side and not just keep all the players happy. We have the highest wage bill in the league and I don't think it is warranted. Where has all the money gone? My concern is we are paying too many average players too much money and this is holding the club back from making signings to fill obvious gaps in the side. For example it was rumoured Powell was given a huge pay rise when Widnes came sniffing. I'd have let him go.

We do have a great academy set up but no club has ever succeeded off home grown talent and Wigan don't even try to do this with plenty of signings from outside the club. Part of the problem is quite a few of these have also been bang average lately but that doesn't mean the solution is going to be found in the academy. I suppose what I am trying to get it is your posts sounds like you are justifying a lack of signings because we decided to pay home grown talent more and we should be happy we are doing so whereas my stance is I don't see a problem with doing that with the [ibest of them [/ibut given the huge wage bill we must be doing this with not just the best of the home grown talent but with the entire squad wherever they come from some of whom don't warrant it.

It can't be mutually exclusive to give someone like Davis a pay rise and also not be able to afford a better centre than Sarge. If it is for Wigan the balance isn't right.

But are there that many “ big signings” available these days? We don’t really see them much, at any SL club, and even then there are often unique underlying reasons for that ( Barba, for example).

I'm not trying to justify anything.
I'm saying that if any club in the league had signed 4/5 players of the quality of burgess/davies/marahall/Williams etc on the money we paid they'd be looking at them as great signings.
SOME of our fans take them for granted and imo think we should pay them less as we've produced them.
We may get first dibs but the lads deserve the right money.
I'm not sure why people keep saying where's the money gone. We have the largest wage bill but pay the same as say saints When you exclude marquee payments (saints will pay 2 x players as marquee and only the first 100k or whatever it is and thenabove that is kind of irrelevant for this dicussion) they will pay the same out as Wigan I.e.1.85million or whatever it is.

Now
Look at their squad numbers from 20 onwards (Barba apart as he's no1 obviously) and then look at wigans.
I know who's I'd rather have.

The argument then would be would you rather have 18/19 top players and very little else or a squad of 26/27 plus, that in effect is where some of the money has gone.

I'm not privy too what every player is on (I know a couple) but I do know that whatever people think end of the day it's perception.
Player x is on 125k - some think that's a lot and some think it isn't.

My argumemt wasn't about whether you go for 18 top players or a bigger squad, each to their own i suppose and pro's and con's for both imo.

I'm saying that wigans investment in the systems, infrastructure etc is well worth it's cost and when players come out of this system and earn bigger contacts I for one applaud the players and the club for earning and paying it (and with the temptations of large money in other places paying them is even more imperative).

SOME fans say why doesn't leneghan splash the cash, yet we pay more money out than other clubs, he can't win.
SOME fans on one hand are lauding wire for signing 3/4 players every year and then we all sit and giggle when it doesn't work or have longevity.
We do make signings, we sign a lot of our own younger lads every year (each one with different risk rewards).

I look at Davies and Marshall as new signings for example. Others see them as youngsters who should be happy to be at Wigan for the privilege. If we undervalue these lads then other clubs won't.

Did you miss Leeds winning eight Grand Finals, two Challenge Cups and three World Club Challenges since '04, heavily relying on home grown talent throughout?

The Wigan team that won the double in 2013 had about 10 or 11 academy produced players.
The GF winning team of 2016 had 9 but also had McIlorum, Sam and Joel Tomkins unavailable through injury.
The WCC winning team of 2017 had 10 academy produced players.

Keith Senior, Marcus Bai, Chris Mckenna, Ali Lauatiti, David Furner, Willie Poaching, Barrie McDermott, Brent Webb, Scott Donald, Clinton Toopi, Kylie Leuluai, Jamie Peacock, Gareth Ellis, Luke Burgess, Danny Buderus, Brett Delaney, Darrell Griffin, Shaun Lunt, Joel Moon, Mitch Garbutt, Adam Cuthbertson, Tom Briscoe, Matt Parcell, Brett Ferres.

Off the top of my head, either big signings from the UK or from overseas that have played and made a great difference in the grand finals Leeds have won.

The key is to sign good players to complement your homegrown lads, we don't.

Just out at moment, if nobodies done it before I get back later this afternoon ill name equally as many that Wigan have signed since Keith senior signed for Leeds!

Name as many as you like, i started from 2004 when Leeds started their Grand Final winning run, so maybe start at 2010 as we were hopeless for the best part of a decade before then.

And isn't that point proved?
And why were we pants?
Because we spent too much money on too few big name players that didn't work and until 2008/2009 didn't invest/protect/pay etc the youth coming though.
We didn't have a squad big enough to complete if those big name players didn't work or got injured.
And we're too quick to bin off youngsters if they weren't world beaters by 19/20/21

Other than for money reasons why do we have an u16/u19th split? Did u16/u18/u20/1 not cover all of the bases? I remember amature clubs running colts A and B teams on a shoe string. I am aware that having too many lads can impact local amature sport but how many later developers are lost completely to the game because of lack of opportunities.