Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 6:49 am  

Doomed! We're all doomed!
Without throwing the baby out with the bath water, and bearing in mind we're in a salary capped sport, i'd suggest the following

For the backs-
Sign a big winger and move Meli into the centre to replace shenton.
Sign an experienced half back who can organise play from 7 and, most importantly, can kick the ball. Ship Hohaia to make room - I'm sure, given the salary cap situation in Aus, there's a club that match his wages with us. I'm sure I've heard names like Hornby and Prince banded about as available.
If we do the above and assume Ade Gardner can start playing again, then we will potentially have Lomax, Gaskell, Makinson, Wheeler and Swift to fill the #1 and #6 shirt.
Wellens to leave. Whilst he's playing ok at the moment - certainly scoring tries, he in many ways embodies our predicament; good enough to see of the mediocre competetion easily, but now inneffective against the elite.

For the forwards-
Move Laffranchi to 13 and ship out Wilkin. Whilst I have a lot of repect for his contribution and I know he has a lot of abilities, his utilty value not only dilutes his own game because of the way we use him, but it compunds the problem that we lack bite and forward direction. You may also be able to get a few quid for him.
A starting pack of Perry, Roby, Puletua, Sia, Manu and Boof is massive.
Next, sign one more forward who is HARD, someone who has big balls and likes to get amongst the oppo. Someone who, the harder you hit him, the harder he runs the next time - like Fozzy used to do for us, like westwood does for wire. Someone who comes of the bench and makes the opposition crowd/team think "Oh Bugger!" and the home crowd/team think "Here we go!"

We're not far off, assuming we get some good coaching. Players like McCarthey and Grix are far from world beaters, but they played their part in shalacking us t'other day, because the Wire squad is playing well as a whole. We get that and do the above things I suggest, then we'll be a real threat to the title.

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 7:03 am  

Wigan brought in a coach and a fairly old, decent, but not earth moving half back and went from also rans to top of the league.

There are failings which have been brought about in our team, mainly through competition from outside of SL. That great prop went to the NRL, we could not compete, that decent halfback should have been Eastmond who went to union. He would have been in his 4th or 5th year by now and getting into his own stride. These things could not be prevented, we could have replaced but whether we would have ever got equal quality is debatable. The prop we missed out on last year (GRiffin) has hardly been of La Franki quality for Leeds, never mind a Graham replacement.

Halfback wise I just think from our first contract talks with Eastmond we did it all the wrong way round letting Long and Smith go, before getting Eastmond to sign, this allowed Eastmond and his agent the upper hand in contact talks, if we had not told Long so early he was not required, then when Eastmond asked for 2 years rather than 3 or 4, we could have said no thanks and let him go to union then and have brought Lomax on with Long at that point, or smith.

But we are were we are and it's not disaster, alot will depend on how brown changes players attitudes, can he get our wingers to be better under the high ball, will he mix it up a bit at FB with Lance and Wellens, will he get a new prop, will he get another halfback or can he develop Gaskell to iron out those parts of his game that are keeping him out the team.

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:30 am  

Whats happened to Wheeler by the way, he was supposed to be our Tommy Martyn replacement by now, surely he isn,t afull time injurist.
Same for Swift looked promising, fast and elusive, whats happened to him.
Big concern is we can,t develop our young promising players in the same manner of Wigan, Warrington and Leeds.
Lomax, Gaskell and Makinson have flattened out in performance, they should be star players and a constant threat but they are not. Is this very bad coaching or have we lost that winning structure and culture in what is a poor standard of superleague.

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 8:35 am  

Saddened! wrote:

I'll believe that when i see it.

Me too, sadly. Can hardly remember a player ever signing for Saints when everyone hasn't been talking about them for months already (Turner and Manu being the latest example.)

It's August now so if we were in for 2 more players I'd expect to have heard some names linked by now. But it's all gone quiet.

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 9:09 am  

Get rid of them all...3rd in table and losing 4 games since March is not acceptable in my book whatsoever!!

Why not sign up all the Bradford players who are available as they are obviously better than what we have and see where that gets us?

Whilst I agree we could do with 1 or 2 more players, why sign people just for the sake of it. A player must be available in order for us to sign them. Instead of just saying "a prop" or "a stand off", look at players that are available and we would have a realistic chance of signing and see if they are an improvement on what we already have...I think you will find most available players are no better than our current options so until that changes why sign them??

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 9:24 am  

(Saint) wrote:

Me too, sadly. Can hardly remember a player ever signing for Saints when everyone hasn't been talking about them for months already (Turner and Manu being the latest example.)

I remeber they announced Gidley very late and no-one knew who was going to play centre.
Perry came out the blue, i think, although Laffranchi (a long with waterhouse) had been speculated. I don't remember much being said about Hohaia before we signed him?

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 9:25 am  

wakey_saint wrote:

Get rid of them all...3rd in table and losing 4 games since March is not acceptable in my book whatsoever!!

Why not sign up all the Bradford players who are available as they are obviously better than what we have and see where that gets us?

Whilst I agree we could do with 1 or 2 more players, why sign people just for the sake of it. A player must be available in order for us to sign them. Instead of just saying "a prop" or "a stand off", look at players that are available and we would have a realistic chance of signing and see if they are an improvement on what we already have...I think you will find most available players are no better than our current options so until that changes why sign them??

That's not a valid excuse. There have been plenty of players available in recent times and we've not moved to sign them. Chris Hill is now arguably the best prop in Super League and moved last season, Greg Eden has the potential to be as good as Billy Slater according to our new coach and he's moved clubs recently, so have the likes of Watts, Lynch, Ellis. Look at the signings other clubs have made in recent years, the likes of Dureau, Atkins, Ratchford and Hardaker. There are enough quality players about, we've just not got the right ingredients. Whether it's a lack of care because we've focused on the stadium, or more that we've simply not got anyone with the right squad building ability I don't know, but we've failed miserably with recruitment over the last 6-7 years and the best young players we've produced have also left the club.

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 9:33 am  

Saddened! wrote:

Makinson, Jones, Lomax, Gaskell, Roby, LMS, Puletua and Soliola. The rest are average and could easily be replaced.

You forgot Gary Wheeler and your mate Wello!

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 9:50 am  

Thank god you lot are in the minority.

Re: Who to keep. : Thu Aug 09, 2012 9:51 am  

Saddened! wrote:

That's not a valid excuse. There have been plenty of players available in recent times and we've not moved to sign them. Chris Hill is now arguably the best prop in Super League and moved last season, Greg Eden has the potential to be as good as Billy Slater according to our new coach and he's moved clubs recently, so have the likes of Watts, Lynch, Ellis. Look at the signings other clubs have made in recent years, the likes of Dureau, Atkins, Ratchford and Hardaker. There are enough quality players about, we've just not got the right ingredients. Whether it's a lack of care because we've focused on the stadium, or more that we've simply not got anyone with the right squad building ability I don't know, but we've failed miserably with recruitment over the last 6-7 years and the best young players we've produced have also left the club.

Chris Hill being the exception...when Catalans signed Dureau Kyle Eastmond was replacing Long as our 7 and without a crystal ball to tell the future, we didnt know he was going to move to union. Same with Atkins, when Wire signed him we had Gidley and Talau in centres and we wouldnt have played him in front of either of them. Watts is another Scott Moore and often finds himself in trouble so I doubt we would look at him, Lynch (whilst a good player) is past his best now and wont be long til he retires. As for Hardaker...what planet are you on? I live in Leeds and a lot of my good mates are Leeds fans and even they moan about him not being good enough (apart from a handful of games this season) so why would we want him? The players you have mentioned there were no better than what we had at the time they were available (with the exception of Ellis but I am more than happy with Manu signing and Ellis has struggled with injuries of late) so why would we have gone for them?

As for the best youngsters leaving the club over the last 6-7 years, Eastmond went to RU and we let Smith go who has done OK at Salford and moved to Wigan...other than that which youngsters have we let go that have gone on and proved that we should have kept them? Only one I would have kept is Jake Emmitt tbh who looks wasted at Cas.

Dont get me wrong, I would love nothing more than for us to sign world class players like Lyon, Sculthorpe etc again but if those players arent available at the moment there is nothing we can do about it. IMO we have a squad which is capable of beating Warrington (as we showed earlier in season) and I think we can also challenge Wigan in the playoffs, sat 3rd in the league and still in a transitional phase after losing Long, KC, Scully, Graham and moving to a new stadium...things could be a lot worse for us