Re: George Williams : Sun Jun 20, 2021 5:24 pm  

jonh wrote:

Not that simple as players have to have played a certain number of NRL games or International games to qualify for a visa.

That's another thing that bugs me, somebody from Libya can come here to work in a warehouse on £250 a week then disappear when the visa expires but a professional sports team can't get permits for giving somebody guaranteed well paid employment thus pumping thousands into the tax kitty. Baffling.

Re: George Williams : Sun Jun 20, 2021 5:44 pm  

A lot of rewriting history going on here. Williams was very good for us and always near the top of the SL try assists chart. He cemented his place in the team as a 20/21 year old - Harry Smith is struggling to do that now at 21.

Williams was exciting to watch and often made breaks from nothing, he is deceptively quick and usually backs up breaks, very good kicking game close to the line and very strong defence.

He is only “worth” £300k+ now because of the NRL’s inflated salaries vs. SL. Most of the top NRL halfbacks are on £400-500k.

Shaun Johnson is on £550k - people on here the other week wanted to sign him.

We paid George Burgess in the region of £300-400k so the club is obviously willing to part with large sums for top players.

The difference between us and Wire is also that we know exactly how much we paid GW prior to his NRL move which was barely 18 months ago. If that was £175k and Wire are giving him £350k (for example), the club knows full well his value hasn’t risen 100% in 18 months.

Re: George Williams : Sun Jun 20, 2021 6:30 pm  

Williams is absolutely worth a marquee spot. Let's not pretend he isn't just because we didn't get him. The big question is who we do get.

Re: George Williams : Sun Jun 20, 2021 6:39 pm  

Grimmy wrote:

Williams is absolutely worth a marquee spot. Let's not pretend he isn't just because we didn't get him. The big question is who we do get.

Undoubtedly he was a better fit for us than most other HB's out there. Simply because of the cap relief we'd have got for him. We might get a better player, we might get a worse one, but very few would have matched the value of GW on the cap.

That doesn't mean he's worth an inflated salary though. Ultimately we'll never really know how much Wire are paying him, but I'm 100% certain that if any club knew his value, it was ours. We'll have offered him what he was worth and that's the way it should be imo.

I also don't buy into the "we're broke" BS that you read. We've paid plenty of top dollar for players and I'm sure guys like Hastings and Bateman will be on big money. Just because we don't want to pay that for GW, doesn't suddenly mean we don't have it.

Re: George Williams : Sun Jun 20, 2021 7:10 pm  

Pie_Eyter wrote:

Does he get the extra 300k for free or do the club still have to pay it out of their budget?

Only £75k counts on the cap. You stated you would be “spunking most of your cap” on him. You obviously don’t know a lot about RL

Re: George Williams : Sun Jun 20, 2021 7:41 pm  

There’s one thing for sure, we absolutely won’t get a half that’s better than or even as good as GW full stop, never mind for less of a salary.

Re: George Williams : Sun Jun 20, 2021 8:14 pm  

Poky wrote:

Only £75k counts on the cap. You stated you would be “spunking most of your cap” on him. You obviously don’t know a lot about RL

Oh do Warrington only have to pay 75k?

You're right, i obviously don't.

'Spunking most of our cap' A back handed dig at Warrington i.e Warrington have. You obviously don't know a lot about a subtle dig.


This is Warrington though. They are probably paying him minimum wage on his official contract. Where the rest comes from, god knows.

Re: George Williams : Sun Jun 20, 2021 8:57 pm  

ralvag wrote:

There’s one thing for sure, we absolutely won’t get a half that’s better than or even as good as GW full stop, never mind for less of a salary.

Then we need to take the opportunity to add extra quality in other areas.

Re: George Williams : Mon Jun 21, 2021 3:49 am  

Pie_Eyter wrote:

Oh do Warrington only have to pay 75k?

You're right, i obviously don't.

'Spunking most of our cap' A back handed dig at Warrington i.e Warrington have. You obviously don't know a lot about a subtle dig.


This is Warrington though. They are probably paying him minimum wage on his official contract. Where the rest comes from, god knows.

Toronto used to pay huge signing on fees, which I believe do not count towards the cap, and a fairly standard salary £30-60k per year. I don’t know if Wire have done this with GW mind but notably they haven’t announced his signing as of yet so there’s clearly a few issues to iron out.

Re: George Williams : Mon Jun 21, 2021 7:00 am  

Bottom line is that he didnt want to come back and play for us, just as Edwards didnt want to come back and coach us.

If its not about money, then there is something going on behind the scenes that is putting folk off coming back to Wigan. Something that IL doesnt want to let the fans know - otherwise why wouldnt he push for a compensation package from GW/Wire for reneging on a legally binding deal?