Well arent you the grown up one.

Some times Dave you post a thousand blooming words reply and i sometimes get lost in them. But this time short post and i think you are totally correct. I can not see how we gain anything from this. IL has done RL and us more damage this afternoon than anyone connected with the game. This will benefit the game with the biggest purse and its not us. Instead of going to bed with Saracens he should have got the cap changed. I have no issue with Joel going but us going into parteneship with a RU team smacks of complete stupidity on behalf of IL.

IL should now explain what is going on and why he has done this. I have this afternoon just realised how great a coach Michael Maguire was for us. If Maguire had not come from The Storm then we would not have had signed Lima, the Hoff and Finch last year.

Only peace of good news is that the greatest talent SL has seen has signed an imnproved deal but then again did his brother sign an improved deal last year and then fooked off.

Indeed. As I just posted on the Sam thread if contracts are worthless then so is this one. IL (and Sam as well) have nailed their colours to the mast and decided to stick with RL for three years at least.

If they don't think they can enforce this deal it would never have been made.

The only conclusion is contracts are not worthless so IMO it would have been well worth forgoing the reported £250K and having Joel a (potentially) unhappy player for a few years by enforcing his contract to truly say hands off contracted players to RU.

As to the tie up with Sarries. It has already served its purpose. It's got intelligent people on this board distracted from the Joel transfer, which IS bad news, saying there must be something in it for Wigan because IL did it despite the fact for the life them they can't see what we would gain.

Don't know if this has already been mentioned (haven't read through the 7 pages so far) but I think this could be a very good idea.

Yes it may be giving more exposure to our talented youngsters, but if we have regular cross code games and absolutely hammer them like we did with Bath, then it will show we have a far superior and entertaining game. What better way to show the world how good Rugby League players are by stuffing the current Premiership Champions, whilst playing good rugby at the same time.

The more exposure our sport gets, the more it will be appreciated by a greater audience.

Poor show from IL. So far it's all benefits for RU/saracens.

It's no good people on here whinging to wait for a statement; the partnership has already been announced and a real statement on the benefits to Wigan should have been prepared and released at the same time by IL.

As it's stands it just looks amateurish by Wigan and a bad move by IL.

You cant be for real. The matches with Bath are when the problems all started. Precisely because of the reasons you highlighted Union was desperate to get our top players after realising how far behind they were and since then RL has been on a decline and our coverage has got less and less.

I've 100% faith in Lenegan. He knows what he's doing. Maybe some of you would rather we had the two clowns Maurice and Dave back and all those magic days of being pumped time and again against St Helens and even Warrington and consistent under achievement.

I've usually got a lot of faith in IL but I'm not to sure about this.

If we can learn from each other then fair enough but I've got a feeling it won't help us and it'll just make it easier for them to take our players

Union people know that very well, so why would they risk having a cross code match? If the outcome is Wigan hammer Saracens, then yes we have just put some of our best youngsters on show to Union which has all the money, but at the same time we have just shown Union fans that despite RL being in decline and Union growing for the last 15 years that we still have the better product.

I think this Partnership is a big risk, but if it comes right we could see a big change in RL.

Hm.... This has me really twitchy. Some points of justification would be nice...

I really couldn't care less 'how it looks'.

Lenagan loves Wigan and has improved the Club no-end since he took over. He wouldn't make a deal that gives nothing to Wigan and let his Club roll over for someone.

He isn't going to tell the world and his wife about what exactly we've got down to the last detail as it's no way to run a business. Everything he's done since taking over has been in the Club's best interest, so I don't get the fascination so many people have of 'if we're not being told, it's bad for the club'.

People need to learn to deal with it and have faith in the Chairman who's more than earned our trust and respect.

'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'

I don't like the idea of player loans. Sure they have some good young players, but realistically, will they loan us anyone decent? I doubt it.