2023 Out | Zak Hardaker - Leigh Centurions : Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:38 am  

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ns-3887027

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/ ... ns-3887027

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:39 am  

Sounds like he was offered a lot of money from another club - there's not much we can do about that

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:41 am  

christopher wrote:

Sounds like he was offered a lot of money from another club - there's not much we can do about that

Yep, reads as if we couldn't offer him a big enough contract as Leigh have done. From the looks of it another addition is coming in with the money they were offering Zak, assume that will be Nene McDonald.

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:44 am  

I really like Zak as a player. However he’s not getting any younger and we are steadily recruiting younger, probably faster players. I think on balance a Nene Macdonald would be more useful to us now.
Hopefully Hooley will be first choice FB by end of next season…

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:44 am  

Trebor1 wrote:

Yep, reads as if we couldn't offer him a big enough contract as Leigh have done. From the looks of it another addition is coming in with the money they were offering Zak, assume that will be Nene McDonald.

Leigh is an odd choice if he left Wigan to be closer to home!

Anyway as Ive said elsewhere we are in a bit of a SC mess because of paying players too much money, so doing it again with Zak would be daft.

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:48 am  

christopher wrote:

Leigh is an odd choice if he left Wigan to be closer to home!

Anyway as Ive said elsewhere we are in a bit of a SC mess because of paying players too much money, so doing it again with Zak would be daft.

Yeah agree Chris, I'm gutted to lose him but if we're bringing in someone like Nene McDonald, I think on balance that's a good signing. We can make more major moves end of 2022/23 season.

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:52 am  

Trebor1 wrote:

Yeah agree Chris, I'm gutted to lose him but if we're bringing in someone like Nene McDonald, I think on balance that's a good signing. We can make more major moves end of 2022/23 season.

I'm not gutted per se Id have liked him to stay but I don't think its a disaster as some are making out.

There is also no guarantee he won't have another 'incident' at some point aswell.

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 11:02 am  

I'm a bit conflicted here tbh. I'm not a fan of Zak as a person at all and wasn't particularly enamoured with him coming back. I do think in rugby terms we're a better team with him in it. If he's taken the £££ at Leigh over a reasonable offer at a team who've just been in a Grand Final it's interesting in terms of his ambition. Appreciate he's not getting any younger but surprises me a little and that's before you take into account the significant fuss he made at Wigan about the distance from home. Do we think he's taken just a one year contract there? Sounds like he was wanting more commitment so would be a surprise. If it is a longer deal will be interesting to see how he responds if they go straight back down…

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 11:14 am  

Probably a combination of amount and length of contract better elsewhere. I don't blame him going for the money. If he were a few years younger ambition might have been a bigger driver, but this is likely to be the last big deal he gets. If he squeezed an extra year out of Leigh then good luck to him.

We'll be weaker without him than with him, but if we're now playing hardball on contracts it will pay off in the long term.

Re: 2023 Out; Hardaker : Thu Oct 20, 2022 12:23 pm  

Leigh perhaps will be making him one of their marquee players which will have made it really difficult for us - and Hardaker himself to be fair.
Do you stay at a top (we think) team in a decent club or go to somewhere like Leigh knowing it's a bit unstable and unpredictable and won't offer him the same chances of winning things, but the money is so much better.