Sadly there are many on this thread who disagree...

RUN FOR THE HILLS! THE MARTIANS ARE COMING! ICEBERG DEAD AHEAD! KLINGONS ON THE STARBOARD BOW! THAT'S NO MOON...! ABANDON SHIP! WE'RE DOOMED! WE'RE DOOMED!

Ahh good luck to him. Hopefully by the time he leaves he will have won everything possible over here anyway remember when he first started and loads of idiots were saying he isn't as good as Feka

I'm not overly worried by losing Lima.
Hes done a job for 2 years and we have good strength in depth. Prop is the easiest position to pick up a decent replacement. It also frees up even more cap and quota for the important positions.
To be honest, most of the genuine 'superstars' from down under only come for a couple of years anyway. Why do we expect that to change now ?
So long as our planning takes that into account, I'm not worried.

This is the realistic view. Mossop and Prescott look the part but tend to be a little injury prone. Lauaki is averageness personified and the young props are prospects and some way from the finished article. Also Lima is a better prop than any of them.

I think anyone who thinks we can cover his loss next season from within is living in cloud cuckoo land including Wane if that is his plan.

We need to replace Lima with a prop of similar quality and that is not going to be easy. As Dean Bell said the financial incentives to come here from down under have all but gone.

Very true Dave - Maguire did not bring Lima all the way to Wigan for nothing and he's not taking him back all the way to Sydney for nothing either - replacing Lima is not going to be easy.

I actually think that you have to go back to the days of Smith and Pongia to see a Wigan pack that genuinley intimidated the opposition like the current one does and a huge part of that is because of Jeff Lima - the guy looks like he could burst through a wall and is not injury prone.

Just hope we have plans in place!

It's about protecting our long term investments. So resting Mossop/Prescott et al. Lima we can run into the ground.

Yep, running Lima into the ground is really going to help us at the business end of the season. Genius.

Mossop and Prescott get enough rest through the season with the amount of injuries they get.

I can't honestly think of anyone who is A-on the same level as Lima and B-Available.

Massive loss

I'd love to replace him with James Tamou, the guy was a monster in Origin!!

Let's be realistic - we aren't going to get any current SOO players...

If it means the rest of the pack is fresh of course it will.

Yep, lets run the forward who makes more yards than any other prop in SL into the ground so others who make less are fresher than he is for the most important games of the season. Double genius.

Thankfully I don't expect Wane to act like a stroppy teenage who's just been dumped by text by his first ever girlfriend, so he gets the most of out all the players in order to maximise our chances of winning the pots at the end of the season.

Let's forget about next season for now and concentrate on this one!! Wane needs to keep doing what he has been doing to try and keep everyone as fresh as possible.
I was impressed by Warrington yesterday and am certain Smith is trying to keep his team as fresh as possible this year after the last two when they have run out of steam.
Wane is far too professional to do anything else.