Rugby League

[koi]

That's the guy who bought Salford isn't it? I assume who has/would sell Salford as he surely couldn't own two teams in the same division.

The name on the bid was his Missus but it was clearly the man himself behind it, no doubt as a way to get round the salary cap. Talks big does Koukash but there's little evidence to back it up especially when he appoints Harris as head coach.

[Guest Norbert]

He does seem a bit like a less dodgy Ali Syed-"I'm a big spending maverick who wants to buy myself a sporting empire...........oh did you think I was a billionaire, I'm not that rich but I do have a new 3 series BMW."

[koi]

Certainly something about him. He's thrown money at salaries and has paid well over the odds for some players yet has spent very little on the coaching side, infrastructure, youth etc.

[cn174]

Certainly something about him. He's thrown money at salaries and has paid well over the odds for some players yet has spent very little on the coaching side, infrastructure, youth etc.

Wants instant success I guess and that's the way he think's he'll get it. Not sure if Harris will do it for them either.

I've got to say I'm quite enjoying it, my friend who is a fairweather Man U / Salford fan, was going on about how they're going to be challenging for the title bla bla. Keep sending her screen shots of the results page on bbc

[koi]

Thing about Koukash is he talks the talk but not much evidence of walking the, er, walk. Hansen was a good signing but from what I've been told the deal was incredible and for four years, even then if Wigan had matched the four years he'd have stayed at Wigan. Only this week they've been on about signing Kevin Locke from NZW. Okay he's not the best in the NRL but he's a dam sight better than anything Salford have had, instead they sign the turnstile that is Greg Eden from KR on loan. It all smacks of Venky's.

Heard Sam played an absolute blinder against Storm today.

Edited April 25, 2014 by koi

[dave birch]

Thing about Koukash is he talks the talk but not much evidence of walking the, er, walk. Hansen was a good signing but from what I've been told the deal was incredible and for four years, even then if Wigan had matched the four years he'd have stayed at Wigan. Only this week they've been on about signing Kevin Locke from NZW. Okay he's not the best in the NRL but he's a dam sight better than anything Salford have had, instead they sign the turnstile that is Greg Eden from KR on loan. It all smacks of Venky's.

Heard Sam played an absolute blinder against Storm today.

Koi, If you get chance, watch the South v Brisbane, played yesterday (friday 25/4).

A really good game, interspersed with some poor defence, but it did contain one of the best tries you'll ever see, Greg Inglis. 89 meters, beat 8 or nine bronco defenders, and puts the ball down sooo coolly.

The Burgess Bros had great games, especially Sam. The game ended up 28-26 in favour of Souths with a very contentious penalty in the 70 something minute

[cn174]

Ace try!!

Then goes and drops it two minutes later to let Broncos score

http://www.rabbitohs.com.au/news/2014/04/25/anzac_day_highlights_rd_8_2014.html

[koi]

Incredible try. NRL is so competitive, wish we had a similar level here

[dave birch]

Koi, what they should do in RL is to allow short term swaps from countries to other countries. Maybe 12/24 month contracts, just to show up and coming players whats happenning in other places.

Maybe they could "twin" clubs in different countries.

Edited April 28, 2014 by dave birch

[koi]

Koi, what they should do in RL is to allow short term swaps from countries to other countries. Maybe 12/24 month contracts, just to show up and coming players whats happenning in other places.

Maybe they could "twin" clubs in different countries.

It has been tried, when I say tried I mean we send our youngsters over there and they pick who they want. We were suppose to have a deal with Melbourne and now NZ, none of which seems to have benefited Wigan, quite the opposite. The original idea was to have our youngsters train with a parent club and play in something like the Toyota Cup. We were also suppose to have games between the partnered clubs and access to the 9's you have down there. All I've seen is our talent going in one direction. The same happened with Sarries; a partnership that would allow players to try the different codes and stage some cross-code games using the proposed hybrid model. Again, we lost one of our best players in Joel T to them, they 'borrowed' our fitness staff and in return we used their training facility before the CC final.

Sadly English RL is only going to get worse. Not long a go I would have put Melbourne, Canterbury, Manly, Souths, Wigan and Leeds as the top six clubs in RL but I'd drop the two English clubs from that now.

[cn174]

Fantastic performance from the youngsters at Wigan tonight - 9 of the players born in Wigan.

Held out very strongly in the first half and just too quick in the second half. A shame that Meli got in right at the end but other than that the defence was superb.

[den]

Fantastic performance from the youngsters at Wigan tonight - 9 of the players born in Wigan.

Held out very strongly in the first half and just too quick in the second half. A shame that Meli got in right at the end but other than that the defence was superb.

Why are Wigan playing so many youngsters Clare - injuries, or has the squad been weakened recently?

[koi]

Injuries, ten first team players out. I see first teamers, some will have a major fight on their hands to claim a spot back.

Last night was just magnificent.

[den]

Injuries, ten first team players out. I see first teamers, some will have a major fight on their hands to claim a spot back.

Last night was just magnificent.

Impressive. Looks good for the future.

[cn174]

Aye looking good.

As an aside, if ever there was an advert for not having video technology in games then yesterday was it. Ref didn't make a decision himself all night long, so boring!!

[Claytons Left Boot]

Credit to the club and Shaun Wane in particular for the way youth is being given a chance. We've lost so many quality players over the last three years or so it's untrue and this season we've been hit by injuries very badly. You've got to say the most recent crop of young 'uns is extremely talented - Hampshire, Powell, Williams, Manfredi and Burgess to name just five - but because of the way they've been eased in to the side, it's worked seamlessly. The last three wins, all on the road, against Hull FC, Leeds and Salford have been nothing short of superb, especially the Magic Weekend Leeds game where I honestly thought we would have been on the end of a 20+ beating.

[den]

Credit to the club and Shaun Wane in particular for the way youth is being given a chance. We've lost so many quality players over the last three years or so it's untrue and this season we've been hit by injuries very badly. You've got to say the most recent crop of young 'uns is extremely talented - Hampshire, Powell, Williams, Manfredi and Burgess to name just five - but because of the way they've been eased in to the side, it's worked seamlessly. The last three wins, all on the road, against Hull FC, Leeds and Salford have been nothing short of superb, especially the Magic Weekend Leeds game where I honestly thought we would have been on the end of a 20+ beating.

So why have Wigan lost so many good players CLB? Are all the British clubs losing them to the Southern Hemisphere sides, or is it just Wigan that have lost them?

[Claytons Left Boot]

So why have Wigan lost so many good players CLB? Are all the British clubs losing them to the Southern Hemisphere sides, or is it just Wigan that have lost them?

A mixture of reasons den. Lima, Finch and Hoffman came to us because of Melbourne's problems with the salary cap. Hoffman returned after one year, the other two after two. Pat Richards returned home after seven years here. George Carmont retired and Sam Tomkins and Lee Mossop went to the NRL to further their careers. It seemed like there was a mass exodus to the NRL when in fact most of it was coincidental and happened over a couple of years. Other fringe (but still decent) players moved to Super League clubs, like Matty Russell to Warrington.

The good side of all this is that it has opened doors for the youngsters mentioned above. The average age of the starting 13 at Salford on Thursday was an incredible 21 and we had only one overseas player in Anthony Gelling. This has not gone unnoticed and we are actually receiving praise from other Super League supporters and especially the way Shaun Wane is promoting youth.

The problem initially from a Wigan perspective was that top players like Tomkins and Mossop were chosing to leave one of the best clubs in England to ply their trade down under. This after all the other returning players to the NRL and additional rumours that Charnley and Scott Taylor were likely to follow. It felt like a mass exodus was taking place whilst a club like Leeds was able to keep their side intact and, indeed, add to it. A few other Super League clubs have/will have returning Aussies but these are relatively low key and I can't think of any other quality English players from here that have agreed to move in the same direction as Tomkins.

Money talks in Rugby League as it does in other sports. Unfortunately we don't have much of it. We are the poor relations financially to both the NRL (triple our salary cap) and Rugby Union. The lack of action by the RFL means our tv and sponsorship money is dwarfed by the two other bodies just mentioned. You can't blame players for wanting to up their earning potential and securing their futures financially. Until the RFL get their act together (no one is holding their breath) Super League's loss will be Union's/NRL's gain.

[koi]

If only it was still May 2014. Utter disgrace on Friday night.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I was on another football site the other day and the subject was bad tackles. They showed one from Rugby League, Cas versus Wigan a year or two back. It showed Kelvin Skerrett come in as third " tackler " and absolutely poleaxe the Cas player on the ground. The Cas guy doing the commentary went ballistic, it's really funny. I seem to have a dim memory of Dean Sampson doing Neil Cowie in another Cas v Wigan game. Is there a history of bad blood between the clubs ?

[koi]

I don't remember anything particular between Sampson and Cowie, Sampson broke Skerretts jaw in a prem final, he went in with the elbow. Kel got up and went looking for him but Sampson ran off. Skerrett and Cowie were both old school props; hard as they come, enforces who loved to bully the oppo pack, they never took a backward step. Very dirty though and Skerrett in particular was very bad tempered, they both were quite regularly banned. Would love to have them now, would be easily the best in SL but they'd be in NRL...or banned for the season. Not sure what Cowie is doing now, Skerrett last I heard had a pub and dabbled in brewing his own ale. last time I saw Sampson he was with the Cas academy when they were playing Wigan.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Yeah you're right . I was looked at some old film on YouTube yesterday and it had the incident with Sampson were he broke Skerrett's jaw leading with his elbow. Really cheap shot, and Sampson got clean away with it. The referee's eyes were painted on. The next time Sampson carries the ball in is interesting through !

There's another video clip of a Hornets v Wigan game were Skerrett sparked totally sparked out an Hornets player at a scrum with a right hook. He got his marching order for that. I can't recognise the Hornets player but my pal tells me the victim was Martin Hall of all people !

I must have been there but I have no memory of the incident at all.

[koi]

My mate reckons it was Martin Hall.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

My mate reckons it was Martin Hall.

Mm, my memory isn't what is was - did Skerrett and Hall later play in the same team together ? If you see the video, you could have counted a hundred over Hall and he wouldn't have beaten the count. No play acting there.

[koi]

Yeah, signed in 93 I think, played many times with Skerrett. Martin Dermott had problems with his elbow and we had no cover (I even think Jason Robinson was tried at hooker) so Hall was signed after impressing against Wigan, went on to be starting hooker, was instrumental in the grand slam of 94-95 and played well in the victory against Brisbane in the WCC.

I've just watched the vid on YouTube, camerman manages to miss the punch but you can clearly see he's well and truly sparked out, he must have punched from a short distance too. I notice some of the Rochdale speccies giving him some grief has he goes down the tunnel!