I suspect it's because we already have two very talented halves coming through in Powell and Williams, plus Smith who could potentially be with us another 5 seasons or so

He'll be turned in to a fulltime fullback IMO because he's perfectly suited to that position in this style of play we adopt. Since Maguire was in charge we've had two solid halfs who do a simple but effective job with an X factor style player at fullback being fed by them. It was Deacon and Leuluai then Finch came in and then on to Green and Smith. The next in line will be Sam Powell who'll partner Smith next year IMO with Hampshire taking the 1 shirt.

I'd still like to see us chance our arm though and have a Hampshire/Bowen/Tomkins style player in both the 1 and 6 positions with a solid player at 7. I think that would add more unpredictability to our play.

Lets just call it 'The Sam Tomkins effect' as a player with natural strike and pace, as a second/third reciever he can link up in the line like Sam. Sam's had amazing success as a fb now a $ millionaire playing in the NRL. Maybe Wigan see Rocky as the next Sam.

Personally with a split halves system, I'm happy with Rocky at 1.

Williams is a bit of an X-Factor type player. We could see Hampshire at 1, Williams at 6, Smith at 7 and Powell used at hooker. Would be a very fast and creative spine.

Powell looks a better half to me. Hopefully he'll wait his turn and take his opportunity when Green leaves. Proabably at the end of the season.

We also have Jake Shorrocks in the U19s who looks to have a lot of potential.

Shorrocks played very well in some of the big U19 games last year (especially when you consider he was still 1st year U17's) some big decisions to be made at Wigan in the next two years!!

When we need a new mod don't expect a call.

Back on topic, I'm good friends with a lad who helps out with the kids at Wigan and has has been mentioning Shorrocks for a while now. He is adamant that he is going to be very special one day.

Sounds like some of the senior players like Bowen and Green are going to be under real pressure to keep their shirt in the next 12-18 months.

I wouldn't expect either of them to still be at Wigan in 12 months time tbh.

Hopefully not as it would mean two more talented young Brits in their place.

Incredible production line at Wigan - what I find so impressive is the number of x-factor players rather than steady pros that the club seems to develop.

I hope Matty Smith stays with us for a long time he is a great player. Could become a club legend in my opinion.

Could well be Hampshire at 1 and Powell at 6, with Williams still in reserve. Logan Tomkins and Lewis Tierney still need to improve but both could well develop in to established players also. It's good that we've got some exciting creative players coming through. We've relied heavily on oversees players, in the halves especially, over the last few years (Lam, Barrett, Leuluai, Tim Smith, Finch, Green) or British players we've bought from other clubs (Orr, Deacon, Smith), with only really Sam Tomkins bucking that trend, so it'll be nice to have some own-grown first choice players pulling the strings.

It's obviously early days but if players like Hampshire, Burgess and Powell kick on then they'll be excellent players, the challenge is then to try and keep them!

Whilst not halfbacks, Radlinski, Newton, Farrell and O'Loughlin all held down key positions for long periods recently. I suspect Luke Robinson would have been on that list also were it not for Pongia-gate

I agree with those, though not sure if you would class them as "X-Factor" players. My point is we have pretty much always had at least a couple of oversees players in the first-choice spine of our team in recent history. It's not necessarily a bad thing, I loved watching Barrett, Lam, Leuluai etc., but we seem to have the players coming through to have a very exciting spine made up of players who have exclusively come through our academy.

Newton came from Leeds, btw.