With the appalling financial state the British game is in, with clubs going bust and a salary cap over 30% down in real terms since it came in, the best British clubs can hope for are scraps from the NRL table. We (British RL fans, not just Wigan fans) will need to adjust to the reality that it's going to be increasingly difficult to hold on to our star payers and that the days of top quality southern hemisphere players coming here are at an end.

At least IL is doing something to help Wigan deal with the symptoms of the financial decline of the British game, though I wish he and the other club owners would start doing something to deal with the underlying disease.

We have it worse at Wigan though. Being 'Wigan' brings extra attention to our best players.

Sam Tomkins is wanted all over the place including the other code. Leuluai has been signed up back in NZ, not many players come over here and get a big deal to go back.

Thought about this before. Despite all the doom-mongering, this IMO could actually assist us recruit and keep our best talent.

Realistically our top players are always going to be courted by the NRL, given the disparity in salary cap and potential earnings, but this at least gives us some control over this, and actually could allow us to offer better deals to players than other SL clubs, by utalising the warriors rather than seeing them as a threat.

For example............Sam in another 2 years has many offers on the table from NRL / Kick and Clap etc. which ordinarily we couldn't match - however, if the partnership is utalised in the correct way, we could actually offer a competitve deal -

Say at the moment the most we can offer Sam is £250k per year. Where as Sam may be getting offers of circa £350-400k from union and the NRL. Ordinarily we're blown out of the water, but with a partnership like this, we would have potential to offer sam say another 5 year deal, but where two years of it he would be loaned to NZW. He would still be a Wigan player, but NZW would pay us for him, enabling us to use his extra earning capacity in the NRL, and redistribute accross the rest of his contract.

Suddenly, we can offer him everything he wants - The security of a 5 year deal he would be unlikely to get elsewhere, a competitve offer with what he is being offered elsewhere, with also the opportunity to play and test himself in the best league in the world, in either code!

OK Sam may still go, as the union offer for example may still be able to out bid us, but it would at least give him something else realistic to consider.

This would probably work even better with our young up and coming talent - ie/ George Williams, Lewis Tierney, Iain Thornley etc. When Union come sniffing round our developing youngsters, as with Chris Ashton, it usually only takes an offer in the region of £100k p/a to take them away from us. What an advantage then for these players, if Wigan can offer enhanced terms, to keep them on a 5 year deal, where they know they will get the challenge of the NRL thrown in in 2-3 years time? Surely that counters anything union may turn their head with.

Again, we could loan/second the player to NZW for a fee for this period, and offer that as part of a holistic 5 year deal, which again should be able to compete with RU. OK so after they've tried the NRL we may not get them back, but at least we keep them for another 2-3 years we wouldnt have done, so at least get a bit of our investment back, and it at least stops them from being wasted talent going to union!

combined with the partnerships with saracens, wales rl and the south wales scorpions it really sounds like theres a plan in motion here.

"Global Warriors brand" - good grief, Jack Robinson was right all along in naming us Warriors back in 95!

What if he'd have spent 2008 playing in the Toyota Cup and had come back to us even better than he is now? Not saying it would have happened, but there are going to be flipsides to every argument. We might be able to send some of our better 20s out there to play in their comp instead of being loaned to Championship clubs over here.

It may also be a case where we are able to take some of their players who are on the fringes of the 1st team. We know Wane and Lenegan seem to like "project" players and this is probably what we should be looking at more now as with the NRL SC increase it is going to be more difficult to attract established players, even if this means it is likely we will only get a couple of seasons out of them before they go back. I'm sure there would also be options for coaches to go over and learn some of their techniques. As long as we don't see a massive drain of our better players leaving for NZ then the positives outweigh the negatives IMO.

We'll have Shaun Johnson, Simon Mannering and Ben Matulino please.

Johnson would be as good as Sam over here.

Mannering is past it.

At 25 Simon Mannering is "past it" don't talk rubbish he's a great world cup winning player and there was strong rumours The All Blacks wanted him to convert to Union in 2011.

Who knows how it will benefit us?

Tommy L was a NZ academy product who needed to come to the UK to improve his game.

I'd be happy if this deal allowed us to have that potential.

Realistically how many players could they pinch from us? They've got a good young team there already and they aren't gonna just sign our guys to rotate them week in week out.

Possibly the most misinformed post i've ever seen

not sure that 'we pay some of his wage they pay the rest' would pass salaray cap regulations?

Why has there been no announcement regarding this.

Rubbish Wigan!

speaking to HH with frank Endacott, heard it here first!!

couple of big NRL clubs interested!