Wigan Warriors - wiganrugbyfans.com • Re: Eddie Hearn
I'd agree that the days of megastars are sorely missed. But I'm not sure that buying big was ever the whole story. If you look at the likes of Edwards, Lydon, Hanley, Gregory - they were all homegrown, while Offiah, Tait, Davies etc came from RU (and of those three, only Davies arrived as a really big name). We did get some top-drawer Kiwis, but thanks to the Aus selectors' policies, few big name Aussies came over until they were veterans. (Gene Miles was 32).
What's different now, and where some kind of relaxation of the cap might help us, is the loss of our homegrown talent. Granted, there are no Hanleys knocking about at present, but as we speak, the Burgess brothers and James Graham are in the NRL, unlikely to return until they're looking for their pensions, while Owen Farrell never even got to play the game at 1st grade. The loss of players to Union is particularly galling (not least because it seems to be a total destroyer of talent - Karl Pryce, Lee Smith, Iestyn Harris, Joel Tomkins!), but even losing personnel to the NRL is a bind. Yes, they can still play for their country, but it's no help to us domestically.
I wouldn't just dismiss Hearn's views because our current crop of chairmen are less cavalier with signings than Maurice was. I'm sure some of them would be glad of some extra room in which to manouevre when RU scouts come along and dangle contracts containing nonsensical clauses about guaranteed England shirts, etc. It certainly can't hurt.
What's different now, and where some kind of relaxation of the cap might help us, is the loss of our homegrown talent. Granted, there are no Hanleys knocking about at present, but as we speak, the Burgess brothers and James Graham are in the NRL, unlikely to return until they're looking for their pensions, while Owen Farrell never even got to play the game at 1st grade. The loss of players to Union is particularly galling (not least because it seems to be a total destroyer of talent - Karl Pryce, Lee Smith, Iestyn Harris, Joel Tomkins!), but even losing personnel to the NRL is a bind. Yes, they can still play for their country, but it's no help to us domestically.
I wouldn't just dismiss Hearn's views because our current crop of chairmen are less cavalier with signings than Maurice was. I'm sure some of them would be glad of some extra room in which to manouevre when RU scouts come along and dangle contracts containing nonsensical clauses about guaranteed England shirts, etc. It certainly can't hurt.
Statistics: Posted by Cruncher — Tue Dec 11, 2018 11:18 am