DO NOT MERGE THIS THREADLeague Express said today he is set to join Castleford on loan for next season.
It is nearer to his home given his family still live in Wakefield but given that Cas have Luke Dorn at fullback, Ben Roberts and Luke Gake in the halves, Milner and McShane at hooker and have just got rid of Liam Finn I cant see much point in him moving there. He will only be a stop-gap reserve utility player there just as he is at Wigan. Barring injuries, I imagine he wont be starting many games for Cas.
The positive is that Darryl Powell and Danny Orr there both have success at bringing half backs on in terms of improvement with Luke Gale and Marc Sneyd both great examples.
Negative is that he will be in a much more unprofessional environment (just look at the Justin Carney and Nathan Massey soap opera) and he will be forced to forget the Wigan attacking and defensive systems that he has learned through the academy. Also, we tend not to have a great record of seeing improvement from players sent out on loan these past few years Greg Burke, James Greenwood, Logan Tomkins, Jamie Doran etc.
In my opinion this is a bad move when you take all these factors into account. It suggests to me he doesnt have a future at the club, especially given the fact there is now talk of reintroducing a reserve grade - if ever, now is the wrong time to leave.