Ok so he isn't in the same league as Pat Richards, but I honestly don't see any issue with giving him another year. It only takes a couple of injuries and we could be crying out for a solid winger. He's nothing special, but imo he showed last year that he can provide good cover for the first team, presuming he's being paid as cover and nothing more. You can't have a squad full of superstars, Pryce is what he is, a squad player. If he pulls a Goulding and improves then great! If not, he will still provide decent cover.

I honestly don't see any problem with retaining Pryce. We've already seen that young players who are doing well will get their chance so Pryce isn't likely to hold back any young player.
In the games he's played, he might not have set the world alight but he wasn't terrible either, which at the very least means as a back up player he would be fairly decent.
There is clearly a lot of potential with Pryce, and at the moment he seems a long way off fulfilling that, but if you see a player with potential and have an excellent set of coaches then I think it's worth trying everything you can to get the most out of that player.

With Phelps leaving and Richards injured for the first part of the season we would be left with Tomkins, Roberts, Goulding, Gleeson, Carmont, Charnley and Marsh in the backs for the early part of the season (King and Russell probably wouldn't be ready for first team). If one of Charnley or Marsh was to go out on loan that leaves us pretty thin if another player succumbed to injury. With Carmont prone to a few minor injuries and Roberts struggling this year I think having another outside back in the side as back up is the sensible thing to do.

Phelps took up a quota spot, which is a waste on a back up player, he was probably earning a reasonable amount of money and had been struggling with injury problems during the year. He deserved to move on and try to further his career without being held back, which means he had to go.
That leaves Pryce as the logical player to be kept as back up to the first team.

With the height and weight that Pryce offers and the fact that regardless of how he plays he is capable of getting tries I think there is enough reason to offer him one more year, just to see whether the coaching staff can develop him into the player he promised to be. He got some bad injuries at a young age which means his development as a player will have been much slower than expected.

I think having another player as cover in the backs is necessary, and keeping Phelps wouldn't have made that much sense, and signing someone else wouldn't make sense either, so keeping Pryce is the logical option. If he stays on and Charnley or Marsh get picked ahead of him I honestly don't see a problem. We'd still have a player who knows the players inside out and has a good try scoring record as back up. We probably wouldn't be able to spend his wages on signing anyone else so keeping him on makes perfect sense.

C.P

Of course it makes sense. Pryce is a proven try scorer, is sound defensively, and provides excellent cover as a squad member. What someone needs to do is to get inside his head and convince him that he can do it, sadly some of the Wigan speccies booing him before he has even touched a ball doesn't help. I dread to think what would have been said had Pryce missed the tackle at Old Trafford when Meli scored.

However, Wigan fans have to have a scapegoat (it's nothing new btw) even Shaun Edwards, Andy Farrell, Eric Ashton etc had their detractors.

As I said previously I would like to see Pryce lose about a stone in weight and work on his speed off the mark.

Just to add, I'll bet most of his critics are the same ones who wanted rid of Riddell and Roberts in their first seasons at Wigan, and the truth is that Pryce has had only one season at Wigan where he was anywhere near fitness.
Let's see how he performs this coming season having been in the Bitcon torture chamber.

If I'm not mistaken Pryce suffered his first serious injury at the age of 20, which is a pretty bad time for a young player to get injured as its usually a time when they have made it into the first team and will look to build on that and try to establish themselves. I think Pryce has missed two whole seasons of rugby, so despite being 24 (an age where he should be establishing himself in a side) in terms of development he's only at the same stage as someone who is 22. Goulding is 22 now and has only just started to put in some consistent performances now that he's been given the chance. He also had many critics, especially the fans, but the coaches had faith in him and he took his chance.

No one can be really sure how injury affects a player, but surely if a promising player had injury problems from the ages of 18-22, only completed his first full season at 23 and had a bad season aged 24, it would be unfair to say that at the age of 24 they should be established and therefore they should leave the club, even though they've been playing first team for 6 years.

I think both Pryce and Prescott would fall into the above category at Wigan. Their injury troubles mean that both have less experience than they should and their chances to become established players have been hampered, but both still have plenty of potential and could become the players they promised to be, and so it makes sense to allow them a little longer than you might with other players in order to see whether they can reach their potential.

There is no argument over the fact he will take up one of the 25 salary cap slots. This he must do so even if he was on peanuts we could not sign a 26th player on a decent wage. So the justification put forward its OK to sign Pryce because he will be cheap does not stand up.

As to me barley having a good word for IL I don't think you will find that to be true if you care to look back over the message board. What I don't ever do is adopt the stance that he is either perfect or poor but I comment on each thing he does on its merits. He has got most things right but every now and again he does get things wrong. He must have approved the re-signing of Pryce so even if it was not him exerting undue influence over this he has still agreed too it so he is as guilty as anyone else at the club for this.

Dave

So what? The fact that Pryce at 24 still has not established himself in the side means he must require yet more time to do so. How old will he be before he does reach that potential, 27?

Who in the meantime will be coming through the ranks he will be blocking the progress of?

The thing that is missing from your posts above is any consideration of whether he deserves the chances he has been given at Wigan and IMO he has done nothing to prove he has. Being unlucky with injury does not make you deserving of a contract. Bracketing him with Prescott is crazy because while Prescott has also been unlucky with injury he has done one thing Pryce has not and that is improve as a player! Pryce is no better now than when he was signed.

The "proven try scoring record" thing is surely a joke as well, lies damned lies and statistics and all that. Plenty of players have proven try scoring records. Denis Moran did before he came here and look how that turned out.

Dave

Dave I appreciate this board is all about opinions and speculation, but your posts comes across as though you are better placed than the coaching staff to make this call on the merits as a player in the squad, and also better placed with the financials to make a decision on where he fits into the cap structure than IFL and the clubs management.

Fair play personally you do not rate him I can understand that, but what I cannot accept is the fact that you seem to know the plans for him, the squad and the cap over and above those who deal directly with it and him as a player on a daily basis.

I wouldn't disagree with that. Of course IFL has influence in club signings; any chairman worth his salt would have a say in recruitment, as he's the one writing the cheques.

But that's different from what you originally said, which was something along the lines of "I dare say this was an IL and not a Madge/Wane decision".

You were quite clearly implying that, because this was a decision you disagreed with, and therefore - to your mind, at least - was a poor one (rather presumptuous of you), it must be soley down to IFL. Utterly ridiculous. You have no grounds for that assumption at all. So, whether you intended it or not, it came over as just another contination of your 'conspirarcy-theory' skepticism about IFL.

As for the money thing, I will say again - and for the last time - that I don't know what Pryce is earning, and nor do you. Neither of us have the club's financial plans at our fingertips, and we never will have. All we can do on that is surmise - it will never be something we can use, as you appear to be doing, as the last word in a debate.

As Jonh said, Dave, you do talk at times as if you are better qualified than almost anyone else to run Wigan RL, including the people who are running it at present and doing a pretty good job. And yes, you are allowed to have opinions like these, but don't be surprised if other posters find them rather dubious.

Pretty much what I was going to put.

How anyone can question Madge, I find amazing. Especially when it comes from someone who is sore their "favourite" winger has left, and they have seemingly allocated the blame for this to KP.

I am not speculating when I mention the salary cap implications of signing Pryce. That is just how it works and you can read the rules for yourself at the RFL web site. A club divides its £1.6m up between the 25 highest paid players. Any player outside that who plays a qualifying SL match gets paid out of the £55K set aside for young players getting the odd game. Pryce will be one of our 25 top paid players because there is no way he can be funded for a full season out of the £55K without it impacting on the clubs ability to give young players game time.

Dave

Read the thread. I am not the only one who does not agree with Pryce being re-signed and not the only one who does not rate him. All you are doing when you say "How anyone can question Madge" is putting another spin on the boring and completely pointless "coach is always right" debate-ending argument.

Dave

Dave you're coming back at me with ridiculous exaggerations of what I said. Yes Pryce may require longer to establish himself and reach his full potential. If it were up to me I'd say one more year is enough to see whether Pryce is ever going to make it at the club. Perhaps the club think the same.

As for blocking the progress of players; who exactly? We've already seen young players will get their chance when Madge thinks they are ready. We've seen both Charnley and Marsh feature at Wigan. It doesn't matter who is in their way, if they play well they will get their chance, whether it be through first team here or out on loan.

Perhaps the advantage Prescott has is that despite his injuries he has still played games in every single season since he broke into the first team. When Pryce arrived at the club, his first year was a non starter through injuries, in his second he was pretty poor and that's being fair. In his third, he was actually a bit better. Obviously, this bit is where you're going to have to accept that other people might just have a differing opinion to you.

I think there were signs of improvement from Pryce, and I still think the early promise showed by Pryce is a reason to give him one more year to see whether Madge can get the most out of him. There's no doubting that if someone can find out what makes him tick he could become an excellent player. It might just be worth seeing if the coaching staff can see what they can do. It's not like they aren't making a new signing to keep him here; we don't need one. I believe Phelps would have gone at the end of the season no matter what. He isn't likely to hold anyone else back, if he doesn't play well he won't get picked.

No I am not. I am stating the facts as to how the salary cap system works and pointing out the impact of signing Pryce with respect to the regulations. What he earns is not relevant, the fact he is being paid by Wigan is all that matters whether he is paid £10K or £100K - that just determines which pot of money his wages come from.

He is either one of the clubs first tier players i.e.

"A Club’s “First Tier Players” are the 25 Players registered with the Club and
eligible to play in the Super League who have the highest Salary Cap Values at
the time in question, whether or not they have played for the Club in a Salary
Cap Relevant Match in the Salary Cap Year to that date."

Or he is one of the second tier players

"A Club’s “Second Tier Players” are those Players who have represented the
Club in a Salary Cap Relevant Match during the Salary Cap Year but do not
have one of the Club’s 25 highest Salary Cap Values at the time in question."

They rules are available herehttp://www.therfl.co.uk/~rflmedia/docs/Part%205_Section%20E.pdfrl

There is actually only £50K available for all second tier players (not £55K as I thought) so unless you want to argue Wigan will want to use part of that fund to pay Pryce it is common sense that he will be a first tier player and we can only have 25 of those. Either way signing Pryce has implications for the salary cap and so where you came in suggesting he may be cheap as a justification is plainly wrong. He either takes one of the 25 first tier slots up or he takes money out of the 2nd tier budget. My position is he deserves to take money from neither.



Anyone can read the rules and I challenge you to do so and come back and explain to me where I am wrong in what I have been saying regarding the impact signing Pryce will have on the clubs salary cap.

Dave

No you are speculating on how Wigan use the cap, nothing to do with the rules.

What you are saying basically is that you do not feel Pryce is worth a place in the top 25 earners, fair enough that is your opinion.

What I would like to know though is who is Pryce in your opinion holding back? This must be the crux of your argument as I see it. If Pryce is on the top 25 pay sheet then which player are you concerned is missing out?

And why hasn't Pryce featured more often? He got his mid season run then never featured again. Prescott played because the coach thought he was good enough and presumably Pryce didn't because the coaches thought he wasn't. And yes I am using another take on the "coach is always right argument" when I say that but since the argument used against me is I am daring to question our coaches I think its only fair you explain to me why when the coaches overlook the player you are so keen on him.



And you accuse me of ridiculous exaggeration? There is every doubt he could become an excellent player because in three seasons he has failed show any signs of it. The evidence suggests he will be mediocre at best.



Well I do hope he comes good and I have to eat humble pie on here. Pryce charging down the wing swatting players off on a mere 40m run (I won't even burden him with the expectation of a length of the field effort) would be great to see but can you honestly ever envisage that happening?

Dave