Dirtbag - I agree, after the great year we had last year I dont want to give Madge a bad rap but I think the club needs to comment on this and refute it.



If they dont deny it we can only assume it is true. If it is true, the club needs to seriously question whether our current coach should continue.

I heard direct from The Insider that Leluai and Richards were the players Maguire wanted to go to Souths with him. I guess he saw them as realistic targets to make the move to the NRL.

Even if it were true, why would sacking him stop him from asking current Wigan players to move to Souths next year?

In a similar situation in business, as soon as you declare you are moving to a competitor, you are given gardening leave or allowed to leave immediately.

A sensible line of thought.

So Madge approaches IL and says: "When I leave, can I take Tommy with me?" IL says: "No".



Is that really so controversial?

I don't think the above is an issue if it's done out of season.



I think the issue would be the fact he's concentrating on recruiting players for his new club when he's still got a job to do here regardless of whether they're from Wigan or not. The fact they're from Wigan rocks the boat even more.



If true, I'd genuinely want him to step down now and allow Wane to start his reign earlier than expected and that's not me over reacting.

But hasn't Tommy already stated that he wants to return to the NRL? If that's the case is there anything really wrong with Madge saying "If you are coming back, do you fancy coming to Souths?"

I find it suspicious the way these rumours only seem to surface on occasions when we lose.



It's like we're looking for a reason that's not related to our on-field quality (which on this occasion was lacking).



I will admit that these rumours, and there's now been more than one, are starting to tarnish Madge's reputation a little. It perhaps wouldn't be a bad thing if he made a statement of some sort.

It's a bit underhand though isn't it? If TL leaves to go to Australia then good luck to him, but I'd hope our current coach wasn't spending his time here trying to persuade our current players to go to Australia, and for what it's worth I don't think he would.



If Maguire/Souths want Leuluai, then Souths have plenty of officials who can have a chat to Tommy's agent.

No, not at all. And I said that in the above post providing it's done in the off season.



It's nothing to do with us losing at the weekend either. I like Madge as a coach and as person but wouldn't want him in charge if he's got his eye on next year in any way, shape or form. Leave that to Russell Crowe and Souths. Michael Maguire isn't employed by Souths.

Pat was out of contract and had subsequently signed a new deal and rumours from down under have suggested both Finch and Tommy have expressed an interest in returning to the NRL, so it makes sense that Madge would have a word with them. FWIW from what I have read it looks like Tommy will at least see out his current contract. It's not like hes been tapping up all our players hes probably just spoken with the ones who he thought might be available, which is fair enough imo. Listening to Madge's interviews he still seems to be 100% focussed on the job in hand over here.