Meet him at the airport, yes. Roll out the red carpet....are you having a laugh!

The only thing he needs to realise is that, wigan is a special club and he will no longer be the big fish in a small pond.......assuming he has the bottle to come over that is.

This is exactly how it went with |Cas and Denny Solomona. Despite a mini van with Sale Sharks on the side doing a removal job from his Cas house and him posting pics of himself training with Sale in their kit Cas stuck to the line that they expected him to return to training at the agreed date.

With hindsight I think this was the way to go to extract maximum compensation.

Still hoping he comes to you and gives 100% as Super League needs players like him.

He’s not a champion though. He bottled the final

I didnt say he was. I said he needed to start dressing and acting like a champion.



Neil Cowie turned up to Wigan in his scruffs when we signed him and the first thing Dean Bell did was pull him to one side and told him that he had to dress like a champion if he wanted to play for Wigan. Its time clubs got stricter with players IMO. A lot of the SL players have lost their way and need a rocket up their backsides. Then you will see an improvement in the game over here. Less show boating and more professionalism needed.

You make a great point there.



A champion attitude isn’t just from training, it starts from the whole way the club and its staff act 24/7, even down to dress. Small things matter. Being a champion is an attitude.

Hastings just posted on Instagram that he’s coming !!

What’s he said?

I gave up following him a few days ago as got sick of his pretentious & cryptic crap.

Aye, posted the squad list saying he’s glad to be number 31 again this year.



Good to hear.

Meh ! Bloody Hastings spoiling a good conspiracy thread

What’s his excuse for ignoring the subject for weeks then? Did he want to it be on his terms, today?

He’s come across as a bit of a billy big these last few weeks.



He’s got plenty of work to do now for a year, before he swans off to the NRL next winter.

seriously. This has gone beyond embarrassing. 24 pages of scapegoating our MOS signing before he's even played a game, all because he had the audacity to spend a bit more time with his family over the off season and wasn't at our beck and call on social media.

Ultimately we’ve no clue what’s been going on behind the scenes. I personally believe he should’ve commented sooner (it has only been a week though) but if there were issues to iron out and they’ve now been sorted it may be the first opportunity he’s felt able to comment (not that it’s a statement, he’s just said he’s ready for 2020 playing in the 31 shirt again alongside a picture of our squad list).





Whatever the ins and outs are we need him and hopefully he takes to the club and the town like he’s done with Salford. If he does and plays his best rugby it won’t take long to win any doubters around.

Eh? What? Having an opinion?



I honestly think he’s come across as a bit of a tit these last few weeks. If he wasn’t allowed to comment he should’ve done the obvious thing and just left his insta & Twitter accounts for a few weeks, whilst on holiday, at home & out of respect for his new club.

It’s not hard (however hard some people make that notion sound, these days).



It’s no wonder this board has gone to rack & ruins these last few years and more and more people have given up bothering, if you’re not allowed an opinion.

Of course you're allowed an opinion. I'm allowed mine too, which is that we have unrealistic expectations of players and he's done nothing wrong.

That’s entirely fair enough. So why not just say that?

For those who don't have insta.



'31 again for 2020! Lesgoo @wiganwarriorsrl'

Apologies, it was harsh in hindsight and I didn't mean to aim it solely at you. Have a good Christmas and I hope he proves the majority wrong next season. FWIW I agree we're only getting one year out of him, but that's worth it as long as we use the opportunity to find out more about Smith.

We have to do that with Smith. Not only do we need to look down the track with replacing Hastings but we just need to give the lad a chance because he’s extremely talented. That last bench spot would be left open IMO to look at Smith and Bourouh. They’re both excellent young players and whilst later in the season in play off games and cup games you might want to go with four forwards or Tommy as your interchange hooker, I’d love to see us be brave early in the year and get plenty of minutes in to those two.

Phil Wilko's spoke to Jackson in a 10 min interview. All seems well with Jackson as a Wigan player. PHEW!

And yourself!

He’s hoping Jackson H helps to provide a good 2020!

I had some serious doubts but I never really thought he wouldn’t come.



I made a point somewhere in these 24 pages that I started to not see the point in signing him as we all know as well as him and the club that he will be off for 2021. I don’t really get the “train Smith up” mantra either and whilst I’m happy Smith will get an extra years development part of me queries whether we would have been better off just going with Smith and French at HB and putting the money invested into JH elsewhere like hooker.

If Powell carries on where he left off last year we’re fine at hooker, we’ll have Powell and Tommy rotating which is a good pair and we’ve got Borough and Roden coming through

Don't agree on Powell. If he can show the form he showed 3/4 of the way through, he will be fine. But he faded at the end of the season and offered no threat going forward.

One would hope/assume that training alongside Hastings at a time when he's getting some SL gametime might improve Smith. We also give ourselves the opportunity to take him out of the firing line if he's struggling/takes a knock/we're in a big game. As I wrote earlier, French and Smith have about 3 SL games in the halves between them; starting with one of them in the halves is a risk, never mind going into the season with both of them there as first choice.

Really don’t rate Powell in the slightest...he wouldn’t get a big minutes gig in any other sl side other than us. (If Huddersfield replace leeming)