Not quite as easy for Wigan to pursue legal action against someone who is no longer in the country and employed by a non-UK based company.
And it didn’t quite work out that well - most of the £250k was spent on making Zak Hardaker’s loan move permanent.

I'm sure I've seen someone mention Sam Tomkins as a potential replacement (if it ends up coming to that) & all I can say is - god I hope we that lucky.

Well it’s time they found some backbone. No player is bigger than any club and I’m sick of players trying to be bigger than the club (not just necessarily Wigan RL or RL for that matter). It’s high time we came out with the brutal honest truth, obviously providing this whole story is true, stating Hastings has walked out on his contract and showed no signs during the off season he had any intentions of coming and playing for Wigan.

I really hope this isn’t true though. He seems like a genuine honest bloke and I’d hope that he’d be honest about his intentions and quell these rumours.

He’ll come but he won’t want to, we’ll hold him to his 1 year deal then he’ll bugger off to the nrl, what quality we get from him is unknown

No, i just think deeply and question everything.

It was fairly easy to see that Hastings does not want to come and never has just by going straight to the source himself and listening closely to him when he has been questioned about his move.

Im not saying he wont end up coming but theres no smoke without fire and he clearly holds no desire to play for Wigan.

I don’t get this opinion that he never wanted to come and has a dislike of Wigan. If he didn’t why did he sign on the dotted line in the first place? He’s mates with Lam, Hardaker, Gildart and Joe Burgess, so he’s not short of people to mix with.

He may have changed his mind based on an offer from back home but I doubt we held a gun to his head in the first place.

Just seen an Instagram picture of Hastings showing a bare piece of land saying ‘new house pending’ (looks a bit sunny to be Ince) Now the guy may be getting one built for when he goes back in a year or two but he’s literally making zero effort to dampen the flames, in fact with things like that he’s just throwing fuel on instead.

I usually try to ignore rumours and talk and focus on what's real; official announcements from the club or player.

But... this doesn't feel good. I've lost a lot of faith in the club with regards to contracts after the Edwards situation and now feel something isn't right with Hastings.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I've seen ANYTHING from him regarding him signing for Wigan, no pic in the kit, no interview no promo featuring him, no positive tweets or social media comments. Instead we see Jackson refusing to change his Insta bio, rumblings he's thinking of a U-turn, new housing comments when over in Oz; none of it looks positive. If Jackson is aware of all this, he should personally address it, all he needs to be is a tweet or post which takes literally 30 seconds to rubbish rumours and it's all put to bed; but he hasn't.

If we don't have Jackson for 2020 we're left in a right mess. We're already debating what to do with French, but having no Jackson leaves us without that dominate half at time in the year when recruiting that key player is increasingly difficult.

Shall we just ring Latrell Mitchell now?

If it's still bare ground, I'd be surprised if there was an inhabitable house there any time between now and mid-2020 at the earliest, but I'm finding it difficult to take comfort from that.

Considering he came over as such a decent bloke when he was at Salford, I have to say that I'm not getting that vibe at Wigan.

He's busy on Twitter, but never seems to mention his 'new club' - and now would be a particularly good time as the rumours are rife.

I won't pretend that I'm not getting a bit worried that we might have bought another lemon.

I agree. He could end all rumours in a single tweet. Yet he's failed to do so. He'll be fully aware of the rumblings. I'd like to know why he's not addressing it. Would take him all of 30 seconds.

Is he related to Shaun Edwards?

The fact that he is not denying it is worrying particularly as he is usually so active on social media.

Another potential embarrassing situation for Wigan.