It'd be great to have a couple of 30something rugby union players in the game, as well as a tanned reality TV star! *shakes fist at salary cap*.

Gareth Thomas??

He was a specific opportunity for a Welsh club. Reasonable gamble, he did ok but the sums didn't add up.

Only desperate to buy commercial success for the sport. Frankly I wouldn't want Wigan to end up with those 3 old RU players in terms of buying on-field success. My preference would be for Hull (say) to get them, to get their stadium full again. I don't care.



It's a fact of life that Wigan and Leeds are the most important teams (as of now) to the sport's commercial development. Dragging us back won't move the rest of you forward.

If you want the game to get media attention, then yes, it would indeed be great.



If you're a purist and don't care about media attention, that's your choice and we just have different ideas about what we want for the game.



Happy to differ and respect your view on that, but just don't kid yourself that you can have it both ways. A family image of tough working-class lads playing a great sport on low wages is a lovely little story, but the wrong one to get the media attention we need. ( Why do we need it? Because attention brings sponsors, and sponsors build stadia, pay for the best athletes to perform for you, etc, etc )



Don't kid yourself that the RFL media department banging on about the quality of the 'product' is going to be any more effective than its been for the past decades.

Some people on here have a habit of re-inventing history to suit their purposes. Wigan were a profitable organisation during the glory years up to 95. A combination of a bodge-job of moving to summer rugby when crowds almost halved, massive excess costs on the new stand project and Jack Robinson being like a rabbit in the headlights and unable to do anything about the situation culminated in the sad loss of Central Park; it was nothing to do with spending on the playing staff.

the new stand was built well before 1995 wasnt it?



and Central Park was closed at the end of 1999 - so, you reckon that in less than 4 years, Wigan went from being a profitable business to being bankrupt and selling the ground?

Quote EHW="EHW"the new stand was built well before 1995 wasnt it? and Central Park was closed at the end of 1999 - so, you reckon that in less than 4 years, Wigan went from being a profitable business to being bankrupt and selling the ground?'" www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugb ... 71381.html in 1997 Wigan were already £12m in the red, and selling Central Park to Tesco.

Quote EHW="EHW"the new stand was built well before 1995 wasnt it? and Central Park was closed at the end of 1999 - so, you reckon that in less than 4 years, Wigan went from being a profitable business to being bankrupt and selling the ground?'" www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugb ... 71381.html in 1997 Wigan were already £12m in the red, and selling Central Park to Tesco.

Yes the stand was a seperate matter of Capital expenditure, outside this the organisation was profitable on a trading profit and loss basis. And the excess spend on the stand was just about held in check until crowds halved when moving to summer rugby.

so in 12 months (from the start of SL to March 1997 when Central Park was sold to Tesco) the club went from being profitable to being £12m in debt - entirely based on SL crowd figures in 1996???

Let them have their warped recollection of history, it makes them feel better.



Oxford's built a brand new all seater stadium for £15m in 2001, but one stand at the end of Central Park years earlier, plus one season of summer rugby, meant they had to sell the ground for £12.5m. Of course it did.

Bored now lets just Wigan Bash



Wigan in the late 80s and early 90s was a profitable company FACT



Just like my team late 70s early 80s Hull FC



The problem now is teams cannot bring Players like Peter Sterling Brett Kenny Wally Lewis Mal Meninga because of the salary cap. These are the types of players that made supporters turn out on a wet winters day and clubs made good profit