What's you verdict on it then?

Meli is and always has been a lazy ass. He's having a bit of a larf with the Exiles, playing with his bros. Playing for Saints week in, week out demands consistent effort and that would be against Meli's philosophy.

Meli is the great Satan and responsible for all ills and evils in the world. Only the counterbalance brought about by the anointed God-child Makinson prevents the descent of the whole world into the fiery pits of hell. All praise him.

Makinson couldn't have caught that ball on the full against widnes, it was WAY over his head (from what I recall).
[iedit: watch it on SLTV, the first bounce is a shocker - nothing he could have done about that (unless of course you want to talk about his orginal positioning), although he didn't handle the situation that followed very well.[/i

Compare it to the ball Foster let bounce when Karl Pryce scored, he was right there but let it bounce, either thinking (hoping) it was going to hit the touch line or even bottling the catch. A worse mistake, imo.

IIRC, if Foster had taken that ball he'd have been bundled into touch by the tackle that would have followed. He took the gamble on it bouncing out, and lost.

Yes he has messed up in finals,players can do that,it happens to the very best of them,Billy Slater has made errors that have cost Australia dear,Don Fox missed a goal from in front of the sticks,Mark Elia had the ball punched out of his hands,Scott Gibbs made a couple of blunders in a regal trophy final.The point is even the best players mess up,get over it and move on instead of constantly banging on about mistakes in the final,remember he played a part in getting to those finals in the first place.

Meli is a big part of the reason Foster looked good last year,he made room for Foster and yes some of the tried took an element of skill from Foster to finish,but you expect that from a first team winger.On the overall team balance the left hand side is stronger having Jones and Meli there than it would be having Jones and Foster there.

Meli has scored some sensational trys over the years and offers a lot going forward,obviously in the eyes of several coaches now he is worth a place on the wing.People moan on and on about Meli not being able to catch or being out of place,but Foster does exactly that as well,now i dont want to knock Foster to much as hes young and i hope he can pull himself around from this,BUT on balance Meli has more in his favour in size,speed and experience whereas Foster only really has goalkicking.

I think you're probably right, I just think not playing safety first in that position was a poor show.

Anyone who thinks Foster offers more than Meli to a Rugby League team needs to start watching a different sport.

Agreed, it was a mistake. Pretty much the kind of mistake that most, if not all, young players make at the start of their careers.

Foster's been quite unlucky, in some ways. He started to rack up a few poor plays which, as you say, isn't unusual for a young guy, but his mistakes were compounded by our team playing poorly and each bad play being another nail in Royce's coffin. Most other times, you could see him perhaps having a break for a couple of weeks to regain some form, but with the new coaching arrangement moving Meli back to the wing, Ade Gardner initially coming back from injury and the sudden emergence of Jones and Swift in the 3/4s, Foster's found himself with a lot of work to do just to get back to where he was.
Sometimes situations just don't work out and Foster's not (with all due respect) a Cunningham/Newlove/Sculthorpe type that's [iso[/i good that he doesn't need a bit of luck in his career from time to time. The rest of the season at Hull will give him the chance to get his SL sharpness back and prove he can do a job. If Saints still don't want him then someone will.

I cant see a way back for Foster at Saints.

I think we got excited about having an excellent goal kicker plus a try scoring winger.

However it looks like we now have an embarresment of potential goal kickers and young lads who can do his job on the wing.

Whats disappointed me the most with Rush (especially) and KC is that to me they haven't brought on the youngsters as much as Royce did and instead relied on the old guard considering Rush works with the youth.

If anything some promising players have gone backwards and the treatment of Gaskell in particular shocking.

I really dont want us to resign an ageing Meli AGAIN - BUT we cant replace him with our youth and we haven't lined anyone of superior quality ( for all the time he's been here)

KC and Rush were charged with steadying the ship. That they've done. Their team is winning, although we've been making bloody hard work of it the past month.

Whilst the kids need chances and senior players shouldn't be guarenteed a shirt on rep alone, they are better, the only realistic exception being Hohaia at 6 infront of Gaskell. The long term plan for #1 is a talking point, but Wello's been playing pretty well for us.

Interesting in hearing your thoughts on who these players are? The only one I think you could include is Dixon and I wouldn't necessarily disagree.

I'd argue that Foster and Gaskell had already gone pretty radically backwards in performance under Simmons in 2012 before losing their place in the side? They lost their place because they were playing badly enough to warrant it, they've struggled to regain their place because the team is winning. That's sport.

Good debut from the lad after an early mistake. If you watched the game you must have been pleased with his contribution.

Also if you watched the game you should be drooling at the though of having Manu in your team next year.

Sheer quality. I rate him and Hock as the two best back rowers in the league (and did long before we signed him) and I can't wait to have Manu in the vee.

I've always rated Manu from first time I seen him at cas.

Do you honestly believe this? Or are you just too stubborn and pig-headed to back down in an argument. If it is the latter, then fair enough, it is something we are all guilty of from time to time and I and presumably others would respect you far more if you admitted as much.

However, if you honestly believe that Foster's performances this season could be described as "not too bad" then you are losing any credibility you ever had, albeit very little. Any person with the slightest Rugby League knowledge would recognise that Foster was woeful in the games he played in this season. He was at fault for at least 5 tries off the top of my head, and probably more if I went and had a look.

Please, for your own sake, admit he has been terrible this season. If you insist on carrying on defending him then I fail to see how anyone could ever take you seriously again.

Being bundled into touch results in a scrum. What he did, bottling it and panicking, resulted in a try. Which would you prefer?

Another club is now chasing Jamie, that's three clubs wanting him for 2013.

He wants to stay but if one of these clubs throw the cash at him then IMO he will go.

In terms of whether or not I want him to stay, alot depends on what Wellens and Meli do. If those two stay then I see no place for Foster next year. However if one of them go then he would probably be needed as backup for when someone is injured. If both of them go and we sign nobody else then its a no-brainer, we have to keep him.

Hear bloody hear!

Wellens is definitely staying next year

I keep hearing that. Yet nothing has been announced. So until it is official, I don't think anyone can say definitively what he is going to do.