Wigan have confirmed they made an audacious bid to take Bulls' Shaun Edwards back to Central Park.

As revealed in the T&A on Tuesday, the Lancashire giants were keen to re-unite Edwards with his former boss John Monie, who is back at the club after a spell with the Auckland Warriors.

"We did make an approach to Bradford for Shaun through legitimate channels, but they turned us down and that is the end of the matter," admitted Wigan chairman Mike Nolan.

Bulls coach Matthew Elliott had previously refused to confirm whether an approach had been made, but did issue a hands-off warning.

"They can forget it, although we might consider a swap for Jason Robinson and Gary Connolly," said Elliott.

"We are more than happy with the way Shaun has conducted himself at training and he has given us every indication he is happy with us."

Meanwhile, Elliott will have to come up with an alternative plan to keep his large squad match fit after the disbanding of the twinning arrangement with First Division neighbours Dewsbury Rams.

The link was scrapped by Dews-bury amid claims that Super League clubs were wielding too much power and were intent on a breakaway.

Bulls chairman Chris Caisley said: "It was a fairly petulant act by Dewsbury and the only losers are themselves and their supporters.

"Despite that, we will continue to work very positively with the amateur clubs in the region and I would expect all of them associated with it to have seen the benefits that we bring.

"To be fair, Dewsbury have not contributed in any meaningful way to that, so it will be business as usual."

Meanwhile, Featherstone and Great Britain prop Steve Molloy is determined to do for rugby league what the Bosman ruling did for football.

Molloy is ready to take his freedom-of-contract dispute with Featherstone to the highest authority in Europe in a bid to win his case.

"It looks as though mine will be a test case in the courts," said Molloy today.

Under rugby league's current laws, a club can retain the registration of an out-of-contract player so long as it has offered the player a new deal.

"Unlike soccer, there is nothing to stipulate what the new deal should be," said Molloy. "Soccer clubs must at least match a player's previous deal. In my case, Rovers slashed my offer by two-thirds and then slapped me on the list at £100,000 when I rejected the deal."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.