Dave K.:
Not too bothered about Ashworth, last year, spent half the season injured, this year has been hugely inconstant, one great game followed by 2 poor or average ones. He was also signed by Smith and Clarke, so based on their recruitment strategy, he is probably on a much higher salary than he is worth.
We do need another starting prop (17) though happy with Hill, Knight and Ese Ese, Aydin and Fash ok for squad members, but need a better quality bench prop, hopefully Eseh, but if not , we might need to pay a transfer fee, Rovers have shown it's possible this week. I'd love us to test Hudds and made a bid for Wilson.
Ashworth is a strange one. I watched him for your earlier this season and was really impressed, and given we are likely to be looking for a 2nd row was thinking he could be a possible. Then i realised he was 30 (looks quite a bit younger or i'm getting old
). But equally seen a couple of games since and he's been nowhere near as effective
Eseh as i've posted on here and in the Wigan forum is going to be very interesting to see how that pans out. Cartwright is clearly getting a tune out of him at the minute and he's getting good game time with you. The interesting bit is that you can make a play for him in December this year as he's out of contract at the end of next season, so Wigan clearly have a decision to make on him based on his season with you, and how he goes in the 1st month or so of pre-season. We cant / wont be able to chuck big money at him as he's likely be 6th choice prop, so you could be in a very good position if he decided his future is elsewhere. As we've seen this year with Byrne and Hill opting to move on for next season, we cant keep them all, and a decent offer from elsewhere and / or the option of a starting spot may be enough to tempt them to a move. Wigan next season have Eseh, Walters, Chan, Mago and Dupree all out of contract, so we need to be on top of our recruitment / retention. We currently IMO have the best front row rotation in the league with Thompson, Havard, Walters, Dupree, Mago, Byrne, Hill plus Eseh and Chan on loan, but take 3-4 of them out, and it looks a whole lot weaker in terms of numbers.
