Repeat sales are as important as big sales though. You need to keep a good reputation of looking after your people

Bingo! It's not all about the deal it's what fits for the player.

I suspect that is a fans view point. Perhaps a more accurate statement would be "an agent usually only thinks about what is the best deal for himself and not the players current club"
If they didn't think about the players interests they wouldn't retain them as client's for very long.
As a fan though, we see agents as bad guys because they may advise their players to leave our "smaller" clubs to go to the bright lights of a "bigger" club.
An agent can't however force a player to move, although they can advise them to. The player has to agree to any move surely, which means they must be happy to accept that move.

I would like to think that the game would be better off without agents, but it probably wouldn't; unscrupulous club owners would replace unscrupulous agents and young players would still be exploited, but in a different way.

What's more accurate to say is that the game would be better off without *some* agents.

Have you all seen the Tom Johnstone video by the 18th Man yet?

It was shared by Michael Carter today on Twitter. Basically it has TJ dancing away in a night club with Wane watching on. Kirmo and a couple of others are watching on too. TJ then goes up to Wane and gives him a hand gesture suggesting he is not interested in going to Wigan. Very funny and well worth looking up.

(It is probably a modified clip from a famous film, but I've no idea what.)

It's from American Pie 3: The Wedding.
It's a dance off in a predominantly gay bar actually.

Funny clip

The game would probably be better off without one or two agents. The overwhelming majority act in the players best interests.

And there's the rub - the interests of an individual player are often to counter to the interests of the club that developed him, or the game as a whole.

Personally, I think that the RFL should centralise the work of agents - and while they're at it, they could oversee the creation of a proper players representative body, to replace the 'union' that Wilkin and a few of his mates set up as a lark.

www.totalrl.com/wakefield-line-hadnt-sold-stars/

www.totalrl.com/wakefield-line-hadnt-sold-stars/

Prefer this team of players who got their go at Wakefield Trinity
Jowitt
Johnstone
Atkins
Murphy
Kaye
Brough
Wood
Amor
Davy
Pitts
Ellis
Crowther
Westwood


Wildie
Ferguson
Tautai
Arona

No Brett Ferres?

This deserves it's own thread and not derailing the Johnstone one.
I'll tidy up later.

We can all pick a great 17 of junior players we wish our clubs had hung onto - Atkins and Ferres are two we let go that we should have kept.

Hope you keep Johnstone, the kid's a special talent.

rlhttps://twitter.com/superleagueshow/status/721011908342628352rl

Didn't appear to "hate" Brian Smith.

I certainly hope they "hate" Chris Chester just as much during the next close season