thats a crazy comment. Attitudes can be coached and managed, so can morale. Its all about leadership. If the coaches were not upto the job then they should have been shipped out not world class players.

I think you will struggle to find a world class player with no ego, some are worse than others though. I suppose it depends on the coach as to whether they want to work on that attitude or not. Doesnt mean they are bad coaches though if they dont want any disruptive influences.

That is not why Ashton left. It was about money - he was offered a lot more in RU than salary capped Wigan were prepared to stump up for an 18-year-old. And that's the end of it.

As for Ashton's attitude, I think you'll find that complaints about this only began to manifest when it became clear that he was leaving. In that respect, he wouldn't be the first player killing time before his contract expires to start dicking around. Andy Coley was accused of it at Salford; Henry Paul was accused of it when he was leaving Wigan for Bradford. However, it has to be pointed out that neither of those two had the poor grace to actually pose in another club's shirt while they were still officially at their former club. In that respect Ashton did himself no favours at all (though I bet he isn't particularly bothered).

I love these ignorant posts I really do.

Andy Craig went on to play for Scotland RU, could never break into the Wigan side and played for Swinton.

Ashton was on 8K when he first played on the first team, this was upped to 11k, A big difference to the 200k Farrell was on when he left us to go to union, okay Faz gave his all for Wigan, but he was well rewarded for doing so. Ashton became big headed after all the hype about him, but he had watched Wigan from being a young toddler, who could blame him if it went to his head when he realized he was playing for the team he idolized and thought to be the best thing since sliced bread. He was young and imature and the money he was offered was too good to turn down, We should be pleased for him knowing that Wigan has made him in to the player he is and know that we can be proud of bringing another player into the limelight.

That's not true. They stepped in with top-up payments to both Rads and Cunningham to ensure they stayed in league, successfully. They can only go so far however. Offering to pay Chris Ashton more than the £40,000 difference in salary to keep him in rugby league would have been a foolish precedent to set. The figures involved in Robinson, Paul, and Faz's cases I imagine would have been much higher.

What do you mean by 'marketing of the game to improve players public profile?'

I think I know what it means, but I reckon it's easier said than done.

If what we're talking about here is trying to boost the game's profile in comparison to RU, which, despite being a poorer product than RL, is still the darling of the establishment and the national press, and as a result enjoys an international profile, which, thought it may leave us baffled, is now on a global scale, I think we're on a hiding to nothing.

Let's be honest, there's no way we will ever be in a position in GB where we can say: "Come to us, lads - even if you get picked for England RU, you'll never enjoy the profile (and the spin-off benefits) that players in RL now get".

For me, the only thing we can really do to weigh the dice in our favour is introduce modifications to the Cap, such as discounting juniors or ex-Academy players from it, so that we can concentrate all our capped resources on keeping the big name stars in the game. Despite the best efforts of many Saints and Leeds fans, I've yet to hear a reasonable argument as to why that would be a bad idea.

Just to confirm for the record that according to official statistics Rugby League is the second most popular team sport in the UK after football. This is judged using the measure of the number of fans who go through the turnstiles at games over the season in domestic league competitions. Based on this Football is way ahead with over 25 million strolling through the gates. League is second with 1.64 million taking the time to have a pie and watch a game and Union is third with 1.48 million people daft enough to watch blokes have an extended cuddle, lift each other up like a chorus line and kick the ball to the fans. If anyone is interested Cricket is a distant fourth with 888,000.

Based on last full year of statistics available.

I do have a life........honest!!!

Ben Foden would be a world class full back in league IMO

Well played Chris. Bombed his big one chance (literally). Just kicked too early. Inexperience apparently. I'd suggest club experience would give him the know how of when to kick in that situation but hey ho...

He just panicked. But, well done Chris!

Always nice to see a Wiganer play on the world stage.


He did take the wrong option on that kick though.

Glad he lasted the 80 mins.