Its hardly that big of an assumption considering we werent spending up to the cap to start with and the players that have left.

Wigan hold no aces.



His RL registration means nothing to the RFU.



Sarries have lots of cash.



RU has huge attraction in terms of media profile and the international game.



Ultimately he could walk out on Wigan and Sarries could make Wigan an offer to settle their claim for damages and Wigan would have to do a deal.



People need to get real. Wigan and other RL clubs are in a very weak position here.



The lack of growth in club revenue is now a crisis.



If RL clubs can only afford to pay 70% of what they could in real terms 10-15 years ago (which is what the inability to raise the SC means) then the authorities, clubs and fans need to accept that the game's structures have utterly failed and we need a revolution in the way the game is run.



Or we accept that before long the game is going to become a semi-professional competition (at best) with third rate players.



It's a very simple choice.



If we carry on like this I doubt we'll even have to worry about RU raids in 20 years' time because talented youngsters won't even get involved with RL clubs in the first place.

If he breaches his contract and just does one to sarries or wherever and it goes to court as long as we dont get Jim Carey representing us we will get the value of his contract at least.

If Deano G is correct about wigan's weak position in negotitions then theSC hasto be adjusted as a matter of urgency. Other clubs must realise ru will come after Ryan Atkins, Rangi Chase, Foster, Ryan Hall etc. as well as wigan players. If that happens they may as well go to amatuer status. Like Ru was when we took theirbest players, this poaching is as much about killing RL as obtaining players.

Why do you say that? I'm not sure what you mean by the "value of his contract".





Damages are compensation to put the party who has suffered loss in the position they would have been if the contract had been performed (and bear in mind that Wigan will save the 80k a year because they won't be paying it to Joel).



The party who has suffered loss also has a duty to take reasonable steps to mitigate their loss.



Wigan's losses will therefore be the costs involved in finding a new player of similar quality and the difference between any higher salary they have to pay that player and what they would have paid Joel. I suppose if say a sponsor or potential pulled out of sponsoring Wigan because Joel was no longer at the club there might be an argument that there was additional loss, but while that scenario might possibly be relevant to Sam if he moves to RU I can't see it being relevant to Joel.



The courts would simply view this an employment law matter, the fact he is an employee of a RL club is not really relevant. Wigan's damages would be relatively small.

Tuilagi according to todays Daily Star

To be honest, I don't think RU raids are the biggest issue in the long term. The erosion of player pay in real terms is the biggest danger for RL - I don't think there will be many top-class players in British RL for RU to poach in 20 years time, the game will have moved down a level or two by then.



RU isn't the biggest threat to RL. The people running the RFL and RL clubs are the biggest threat to RL.

If hes on 80k with 4 years left the value of his contract would be 320k we would get that in a court case if we were represented correctly. Theres no way they will set our losses at the cost of finding a similar quality player because it will be much higher. Wigans damages would be small in what way?



We have nurtured his talent from a young age and we could argue he would be on a much bigger salary at another club. The cost of training & coaching his talent for however many years we have had him would also become a factor.



If we were in as weak a position as you make out he would be signed up for whoever he wanted right now.

Linked to us? Sweet baby jesus, him and Hock together would make any coach tear their hair out

And then there's the threat from the NRL, as highlighted by this Aussie player:



[urlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/15295811.stm[/url



We are at 5 minutes to midnight. Action must be taken now to put the British game on a sustainable growth path, before it is too late (perhaps it already is

).

Tuilagi would be fine as long as we didnt let him near the Mersey Ferry

I agree totally that we need to take action quickly but i dont think its quite as bad as your making out, not yet anyway. We need serious changes at the top because if any organisation stood still for as long as ours has there would be major overhaul.



The RFL need to be more tranparent and actually tell us what the f*ck they are doing because at the moment it seems like not a lot.