Under the salary cap rules, what does happen when a club gets more income than loss/expenditure ?

I must confess, like a few others have stated, regarding the long term contract offered to Farrell.

Too many recent long term contracts have NOT been adhered to. The most ridiculous one was Joel Tomkins IMHO.

It's almost like 'long term contract' equals 'heading for the door' ?

We haven't had a season lately, where our squad have had time to settle for longer than a season and before another exodus of players.

It's frustrating as hell, but perhaps we'd better stop thinking of contracts as being guarantees. Clearly the players, their agents and even the club chairmen don't think of them in those terms.

We once had a system whereby a player was bound to a club for life unless a transfer fee was agreed with another club - and no-one felt that was particularly strange or controversial. All that the signing of a contract seems to be is a short-term imposition of that old system. A player signs and he's yours until his contract runs out, or until a deal is made with someone else.

All i will say is.... I would imagine most SL clubs wish they could have IL at the helm.

Be interesting to see how Powell goes, I guess we'll have to be patient. His age bothers me much less than how long he'll take to adjust to RL.

I guess people aren't too worried about Mossop and whether he will come back because of how well the young lads have gone in recent months. The long-term deal for Farrell is just what the lad deserves but 5 year contracts don't seem to really count for much if he decided to follow the others to the NRL at some point in the future.

The bigger picture is that our best players want to go to the NRL for the money and to test themselves in a much stronger competition. I agree that this is good news for the international game and I think that Wigan have anticipated a player drain and made youth development a key part of our strategy. It's interesting that our chairman seems to have accepted that some of our best players will go to the NRL over the coming years whereas over at Leeds Hetherington is promising to fight to keep their players. Call me cynical, but Hetherington is often on hand to provide some positive spin for the RFL whenever they need it. The bigger picture is that the quality of the domestic competition will continue its decline unless the whole set-up is radically overhauled as outlined by Jamie Peacock's article.

Trying to keep an open mind on Long, but would have thought his court case and other baggage would outweigh whatever he can offer as a coach.

Didn't we have a similar clause when Mark Flanagan went to Aus that we had first refusal on his services when he came back to England.

But of course, Mr Lenegan has the benefit of the Wigan area player output machine ?

The Wigan catchment area probably produces more players than the rest of the country put together?

I wouldn't go as far as to say that IL is "milking" the club. I do think that any owner of a sporting club in this day and age needs to look upon the club as a hobby and expect to make a loss (transfer fees etc rather than the underlying finances of course), rather than a business (at least in the short term).
RL has been insulated from this on the basis that the chairmen vote to keep the cap (surprise surprise) with no real external challenge (though Salford are now proving to be the exception).

The main thrust of my argument is that what on earth is the point of the club telling the supporters that they have got a decent transfer fee, when it will make absolutely no difference to us at all?

I bet Salford don't

Makes no difference.

we may have done, but lets be honest is Flanagan any better than the back rowers we have ?
its the gamble that mossop is taking. if when he comes back, he finds that we dont need him, then so be it.
at least the club have the option. if they choose not to take it, then that would be fine (if moose couldnt get back in, then we'd have a pretty decent pack).

And there was me thinking the transfer fees will be ploughed back into the club's youth development programmes in Wigan and South Wales for the long term benefit of both club and country.
Farrell's 5 year contract ensures we will also get a fee should he decide to go to the NRL.
Only Salford can afford a higher salary cap. We need more people watching, playing, paying to watch and sponsoring our game which may eventuate from our best players going to the NRL and us beating the Aussies.

IL is trying to insulate the club from an exodus of players to the NRL or Union.
Saints lost Graham and have suffered for it, Laffranchi was brought in to replace him and simply hasn't done. Nor was he ever going to. A very poor replacement!
The Burgess's left Bradford. The Bulls can't replace quality players as those and haven't done.
Last year we lost Carmont, TL, Finch & Lima. Replaced by Thornley, Smith Green and Taylor. Hock left mid season and replaced by Farrell who's been brilliant.
Have we suffered? Well, to me no, we are top of the league and a points difference far better than our closest rivals.
Mossop had it in his contract that he could go to the NRL so the contract has been ahered to following the player's request.
I do think IL & SW have thought this out well in advance of the player movements mentioned above.
Both men, especially IL, appear to be far more than one step ahead of the rest, including us!

Ironically isn't Powell on a 2 and a half year deal with Mossop going for that amount of time? He'll return as the replacement for a probably retiring Powell hopefully a better player from his time in the NRL.

That's how it would seem. Powell will, in effect act as a "stop gap" for Mossop until he returns. As I said, great business.

Long wrote the book on winning grand finals. We have a terrific coaching team. I don't buy all this "he used to be a tool" who cares? It's the same people that say "wane has no media skills"......so what??

The biggest question to come out of all this is are we still allowed to boo Sean Long?