How is it that Justin Carney signs a new 5 year deal at Cas and it's amazing for them and will stave off any suitors etc. but when we have a player sign the same kind of deal he is automatically leaving?

Surely we need that positivity on contract signings rather than shooting down every announcement

Everything looks positive when you're a team on the up, like Castleford.

But the reality is that contracts no longer protect clubs. What they do is strengthen the club's negotiating hand, so they can at least get something reasonably good out of having their best players poached.

Maybe some new era will eventually dawn, during which players and their agents develop a sense of honour and decide that contracts ought to be observed, but I'm not holding my breath.

Can of proverbial worms oped here!!!!

When writing it I did get the sense of pulling the pin and waiting for the grenade to go off but sort of thing that I don't get from our side at times

Andy Farrell, Joel Tomkins, Sam Tomkins, Trent Barrett, Brett Finch, Jeff Lima, Matty Johns & Lee Mossop are all good quality players who've left under their own steam whilst still under contract.

It's because of the above, and I think I've missed a few off, that some Wigan fans are sceptical of long term deals.

Can a parasitical leech with no talent other than that for feeding off the ability of others even spell "honour" ?

Sceptical ?

My heart sinks now when I hear that someone at the club has either signed a long contract, or is extending their contract.

I thought Finch saw his contract out? We just didn't offer him another. Piggy left early but that was for personal reasons and so did H.

However I think when it comes to those players we have sold such as H and Mossop as opposed to those just released like Piggy there is a suspicion the club has been quite happy to take the money and is not prepared to dig its heels in on principle even if it means someone sitting a season out on the sidelines. I think it is short sighted if so as it gives the impression we will sell anyone and encourages interest.

Some will see it as good business but there will come a time when a bid comes in and we really don't want the cash but do want the player.

I think you need to accept that SL is currently a massively secondary competition when compared to the NRL, both in terms of playing standards and financial incentive. If a player wants to go to Oz/NZ and they are wanted by a NRL team, there's not a lot a SL club can do, other than make sure their most valuable players are tied down to long contracts so they can at least demand a transfer fee. I've said it before, if a player was signing a 4/5 year deal knowing there was no way of getting out of it should a better offer come along, they wouldn't be getting signed in the first place, so the point about making players rot on the sidelines for a season is completely moot IMO.

It's not like it's only happening to Wigan, or RL in general. It's like if a Premier League club wants to sign a Championship player, the club can't do much about it other than ensure they get the best possible deal out of the move. It's the job of the SL clubs and the RFL to ensure that we can make offers for our top players to stay in SL rather than moving on to NRL, or Union. Both competitions currently have SC more than double ours, it is impossible to keep all the top players whilst that is the case, and to view it as the club being "happy to take the money" is very simplistic and unfair IMO.

Scott Taylor will be the next out I reckon

I ticked your "like" box Craig... No further comment needed.

Rumours are that Taylor has always seen Wigan as a stepping stone to better things. I think that he has been pretty open about that. We would suffer if players thought that they would be held back in their careers by comming to us.

Held back in their careers ?

Playing for Wigan used to be the absolute pinnacle when playing Rugby league.

Because we could compete financially with anybody else... Sadly, that's not the case anymore and It's a different world..

Sadly it's no longer the case.

Super dooper league is no longer a draw. The NRL whether we like it or not is growing stronger and stronger by the year. The standard of rugby over there continually rises and so does the pay. Whilst over here the competition gets worse, the pay stays the same and the investment and exposure dwindles. When you have clubs like Shuddersfield topping the league at the end of the weekly rounds you know there's a problem with the sport in this country.