He's probably first or second in line to be England's half-back, so a bit better than run-of-the-mill. I'd say.

I agree. Class act, Wire have done good business.

What £75k!!!

Does he get the extra 300k for free or do the club still have to pay it out of their budget?

I must have slept through all these world class game changing games he had for us. All i remember is him being slated for not being good enough. All of a sudden he has morphed into Darren Lockyer.

Good player but not a great one (certainly not one to spend 300k plus on) I would’ve been happy to have him but it’s not to be. The game needs stories sometimes and to have a pantomime villain to get stuck in to will add to the narrative of Wire/Wigan games next year and won’t do the fixture any harm.

I just hope there are funds available to say ‘we move on’ and strengthen the areas that need it urgently. If there are then those Wigan v Wire games could have some real spark next season.

Probably because the English halves are mostly god awful and England have a coach who would pick a side from the WN postcode if he wouldn't get any abuse for it.

He did have some top games and sometimes people wanted far too much from him but what I would say is that he’s a bit of a flat track player. I can recall some big performances in run of the mill games from him but not too many in big games. I always felt he was very cautious in semi finals, cup finals, grand finals etc.

Let me put it another way. what does he do so much better as a half that lads like Richardson, Drinkwater and Lolohea can't do to warrant being paid so much more than them? I would genuinely like to know.

On another note, the lads that come over from Australia with their big reputations and even bigger ego's ALWAYS fail. It's the hidden gems like Carmont and Richards we need to be seeking out. What the hell happened to our scouting set up. I will do it Mr. Lenegan, give me a grand a week and i will find you a top player from one of the feeder leagues.

Not that simple as players have to have played a certain number of NRL games or International games to qualify for a visa.

That's another thing that bugs me, somebody from Libya can come here to work in a warehouse on £250 a week then disappear when the visa expires but a professional sports team can't get permits for giving somebody guaranteed well paid employment thus pumping thousands into the tax kitty. Baffling.

A lot of rewriting history going on here. Williams was very good for us and always near the top of the SL try assists chart. He cemented his place in the team as a 20/21 year old - Harry Smith is struggling to do that now at 21.

Williams was exciting to watch and often made breaks from nothing, he is deceptively quick and usually backs up breaks, very good kicking game close to the line and very strong defence.

He is only “worth” £300k+ now because of the NRL’s inflated salaries vs. SL. Most of the top NRL halfbacks are on £400-500k.

Shaun Johnson is on £550k - people on here the other week wanted to sign him.

We paid George Burgess in the region of £300-400k so the club is obviously willing to part with large sums for top players.

The difference between us and Wire is also that we know exactly how much we paid GW prior to his NRL move which was barely 18 months ago. If that was £175k and Wire are giving him £350k (for example), the club knows full well his value hasn’t risen 100% in 18 months.

Williams is absolutely worth a marquee spot. Let's not pretend he isn't just because we didn't get him. The big question is who we do get.

Undoubtedly he was a better fit for us than most other HB's out there. Simply because of the cap relief we'd have got for him. We might get a better player, we might get a worse one, but very few would have matched the value of GW on the cap.

That doesn't mean he's worth an inflated salary though. Ultimately we'll never really know how much Wire are paying him, but I'm 100% certain that if any club knew his value, it was ours. We'll have offered him what he was worth and that's the way it should be imo.

I also don't buy into the "we're broke" BS that you read. We've paid plenty of top dollar for players and I'm sure guys like Hastings and Bateman will be on big money. Just because we don't want to pay that for GW, doesn't suddenly mean we don't have it.

Only £75k counts on the cap. You stated you would be “spunking most of your cap” on him. You obviously don’t know a lot about RL