Being charitable to IL (because of what he has done to turn the club around) I am taking his comments on Sky (I don't know if anyone else saw this - about being proud that our best players are leaving the club to play in other sports/competitions and that we shouldn't be negative) as attempting to put on a brave face and rally the troops in the face of the bitter disappointment of losing one of the best players in the world and the greatest British player since Hanley.

The reality is that this is a huge blow for our club and sport. The only potential good news is that England might get a bit more competitive at international level because of the number of players in the NRL, but the international game is so low profile and so poorly marketed in this country that I doubt this will feed back into the domestic game in a significant way.

It would be good to hear IL acknowledge the wider problems of the game and offer some leadership. Instead he has spoken about the SC as a good thing and his comments on the Tomkins saga give the impression of a man who is focussed purely on what is going on at Wigan and us remaining top dogs in RL. I do hope that is not the case.

The game is in a difficult situation and seems to be going backwards. Most clubs can't even afford to pay players 2/3 of their real term wages when the SC began. We can't even find proper sponsorship deals for our sport and the World Cup has had no real publicity and is likely to be a failure as a major sporting event. The future is looking grim for RL.

I don't want a future where Wigan remain the leading British RL club but in a semi-pro league similar in status and quality to the French domestic league. That is unfortunately where we are heading in the long term, unless there is radical change. Being the best of a bad bunch is not my vision of Wigan's future but I'm worried IL doesn't see the long term direction of travel in the sport - being the best of a bad bunch is all we are likely to be able to achieve if nothing changes.

We need IL to take up the mantle of leadership in the sport. He is the custodian of the greatest club in the game. It is time for Wigan to lead the rest of RL again and drag the sport kicking and screaming into a better future. I know Ian (and people close to him) read these board and hopefully he will hear this and other calls to action.

Very Churchillian I must say

The thing is, it's not his problem. His job is to keep Wigan challenging for honours and profitable. People should be looking to the RFL to sort things out not club chairmen

=#0040FFI agree with most of the other stuff tho' !

I am as parochial towards Wigan as most on here, but even I can see that the current administration isn't fit for purpose.

The RFL also stand by the excuse of "it has been voted for by the clubs and there chairmen"

Now you can see that we have a sporting governing body that chases its own tale around

That is not leadership.

I fully agree, it's daft that they put these things to the clubs to vote on. The RFL should be looking at the bigger picture and making these decisions based on what's good for the game.

do you mean the RFL or Wigans?

there is no quick fix for rugby league no matter how many times they change the league structure or teams. we need dedicated people to go into the schools and help set up a proper school root rugby and get the next generation interested and understand rugby league (Not just lancashire, Yorkshire and cumbria).

The international game has more of a chance developing in Australia, kind of like state of origin and let the international scene grow organically and not through gimmicks.

just a thought but could we have short term pain for long term gain?

Lets be honest rah rah's popularity went through the roof when England won the world cup, so could it be that if we have loads of people playing in the NRL England will win the world cup, this then drastically increases our games exposure and therefore sponsorship could go through the roof meaning clubs can pay players more and we'll be able to keep more of our talent.
The reason no one else is interested in us is because England/GB haven't won anything since Jesus played left back for Bethlehem united. If the England team did something stupid like win a world cup then our game could take off.

the down side to this is of all our players go to the NRL and England are still rubbish then the game over here is knackered!!!!

Some of the clubs (four I think it was) were "tasked" with putting together ways of improving the state of the game particularly things like marketing. At the following meeting when they were to show their plans etc half of the non participating clubs failed to show up.

It's frightening.

Thought it would be obvious, but I meant the RFL!!!

I've no problems with how the club is being run by the current set up (despite the Tomkins saga, player drain etc.)

They should have been fined or had competition points docked. These kind of things really important for the future of the game, baffling that some chose not to attend. The RFL need to get tough.