Damien

I don't think they were. It's pure deflection. There's no need to even mention player welfare or Hull.

Yeah this is pretty much it. Warrington's fault and those responsible should own it.

Same difference.

London really are woeful.

Big, big money:

Got an email yesterday saying Sky Sports element of my package is going up £5.

Hanley who left Wigan for more money at Leeds? Offiah who according to John Monie in his autobiography almost signed for Leeds on more money than Wigan were offering? The trouble is you are being awfully selective with your recollection. Widnes won the league twice in the late 80s with an extremely good team and other clubs also had stars like Schofield, Crooks, Ward etc. Wigan by no means signed them all and always had a fair smattering of players that would be considered average at other clubs or journeymen. The typical starting lineups often included the likes of Mather, Cowie, Panapa, McGinty etc. Before that you may have had the likes of Preston, Myers, Byrne etc. The likes of Hampson, Preston and Mather were nobodies even in RU. Then there were all the homegrown Wigan players who were a core part of these teams. Indeed Wigan only won the league on points difference at times in the 1990s. For a team that was supposedly the only full time team and that signed all the best English and Aussie players it seems odd that this could be the case.

Except they weren't until 1992/93 and only went fully full time after Leeds. Before that it was a mixture with many part time players. Other teams had full time professionals too in the same manner.

I always day this. It would have evolved into what Rugby League now is for exactly the same reasons.

I was never in favour of your first paragraph because of your second. I guess where I do disagree is that for me the traditional half back pairing never went away. Almost all, if not all teams, still had a pairing consisting of someone playing more of a traditional scrum half and stand off role, whether they played left and right or not.

Definitely

I was going to post something like this. Even in teams that split left and right usually you see one of the halves play much more like a traditional scrum half and the other as a stand off.

What was the logic behind this? I can't see why it should be any different than what we have seen for some years.