I don't think it's that "strange" to be honest.

Warrington are cashed-up and ambitious. Pearson wants/needs to sell.

Anyone who takes Pearson at his word is advertising a willingness to believe in anything.

Leeds and Warrington have been in for Westerman for weeks.

Leeds werent prepared to pay a fee, Warrington were.

No doubt Pearson will attempt to save face by announcing an "undisclosed" fee, saying it was "too good to turn down" blah, blah, blah.

As I say, watch this space.

Its poor turning a game against the Kiwis into a testimonial type game, hope their "signings" break their cap.

Do you think we'd have got Lee Crooks and Jonny Whitley playing?

What's the Leeds v New Zealand game got to do with their salary cap?

Still a load of e spouted on here

Westerman would be a massive loss IMO, we're a different side when he doesn't play and a much better one when he does. The fact Leeds are apparently after him speaks volumes, I can't remember the last time they signed a player and thought he wasn't a good signing for them.

Interesting reading on here and I sincerely hope that we are going in a completely different direction to you...no offence

Let's just see before we start slagging off again.

If it is 150k I can totally see why the club have sold him, gives us money to help the club and big piece of salary cap to play with, ok we lose a decent player on his day, but we have plenty of cover.

My main concern is when or how we use the money, no quota places and lack of quality British players available. I like us to try and use the money to sign an outside back or hooker. Who could we make a bid for that would realistically sign for us or their club release him. If only we hadn't kept Micheals and we could have tried to sign Carney or another winger from the NRL.

We could keep the money for a mid season signing?

With Rich Agar on board, I don't doubt we're going in opposite directions.

It looks as though Westerman was always going to go this off-season. From what I was told, Pearson made the decision to cash in on his two most saleable assets midway through last season.

This would explain why the club suddenly changed tact and signed Sika Manu, withdrawing a contract offer to Jordan Rankin in the process.

It's fairly obvious that a chunk of his Westerman's salary has long been accounted for.

But, by not revealing his true hand too early, Pearson has been able to push a "no squad is stronger narrative" to feed pass sales.

He's even managed to suppress the news coming out before the shirt launch.

Good PR or cynical PR? Either way, I think he's surpassed himself with the vehemence of his recent denials, even having the audacity to claim "Joe is a big part of the club's plans moving forward."

The news of Westerman's move to Warrington will break next week.

The only question is, whether Pearson will attempt to cushion the blow with a "too good an offer to turn down" response, or pin another guilt-trip on fans, blaming sluggish pass sales!

Can anyone guess who's back?

Given that we have been fed a constant stream of tales of financial woe from AP recently I'd be amazed if any of the cash were allocated for signings.

The money will be needed to fund day to day operations due to the fans that are "killing the club" by not renewing their season passes.

Go on surprise us.

Would it be PC to mention his name?

Seems fairly certain that we're happy to cash in on any saleable british talent we have, trouser the cash and use the salary cap to bring in overseas players. I'd expect this to continue whilst pearson owns the club and we remain a team fighting for 8th place each year. He's clearly bitten off more than he can chew with the club and completely misread the situation and the clubs' fans. The best case scenario in the short term is he can get a wealthy fan on board to at least prop us up, worst case is we continue to sell our best players and end up playing championship rugby in an empty stadium.

There's no doubt he's made mistakes who doesn't but he's still put his money in and made on paper at least some cracking signings this year . We have a pack who IMO is one of the best in SL. The backs maybe be not the best but we have good youngsters who could surprise a few. Am really looking forward to the new season but then again I always do