The years of poor recruitment decisions are finally starting to bite, the succession of Grand Final finishes papered over a lot of cracks.

At last someone else singing from the same hymn sheet as me and saddened

Its not Brown's fault, no. It's McManus' fault. It is his narrow mindedness that has left us with our season over in April and sat mulling over the worst Saints side in 20 years.

Having said that, Brown is not a Saints coach.

Really think once u get a few players back ie Roby, Manu and lomax ul be a totally different outfit

Pretty much sums it up !
Our GF appearances have flattered to deceive

Bang on IMO

The only thing that you can hold against brown is Gaskell, but if they don't rate him currently...well that's what he's paid to judge.

Howarth in at 6 was bizarre, but he's having to try anything to get us through. We need a half. I said last week that if we are going to stick with Wilkin (which I think is pretty much a guarantee) then the club are writing off this season and it's clear that they lack ambition.

I'm glad McManus dragged us out the poop when he came on board, and I'm over the moon that he delivered a stadium, but if he isn't going to invest in the team then what's the point of him keeping saints? We could have had Koukash!

Even though we have not been at our best for a few seasons now I do think some of our players seem to be struggling under Brown compared to last season. Just putting a balanced team out each week would help and stop making changes when they are not needed.

We struggled under Rush playing a 'safe' team last season too, difference now is that we are struggling with a team where the coach is trying something different.

I'd rather the coach do his job and try things.

IMO we are a lot worse this season with virtually the same team than under our "fill" in coach, now CEO.
In fact he has two signingings in Manu and Turner joining the team which should have improved it.

As stated in many threads his choice of HB's is bizzaire even if it is mainly as a result of injuries.
would any of the aforementioned coaches play Wello and Wilkin as a HB pair - would any SL coach, no matter how desparate?

But is it mainly as a result of injuries though? Brown claimed to have spoken to Wello in the off season about Lomax playing at fullback, so that's one of our halfbacks moved but not as a result of injury. Gaskell was shipped out, again not as a result of injury. Wheeler's absence IS a result of injury but then he is injured so often that nobody in their right mind would depend on his presence. That leaves us with whichever young halves we have in the under 19s, and he's played one for one half of a match. I find it bemusing that he hasn't at least tried to blood one of our young halfbacks since ditching Gaskell.

He tried Charnock tbf and he was pretty anonymous (in the snow admittedly) and Yates has been injured.

Well, it was his debut and in the snow, as you say. Didn't I read somewhere that Swift is a halfback?

Think he first came to the club as a stand off, but with Meli possibly be out for the season he will probably find himself out on the wing.
Brown will rotate Lance, Howarth, Wellens and Charnock at 6, none of them capable of controlling a game.

How depressing that sounds.

Charnock and even Lance I can understand but Wello cant pass and runs like he's dragging a truck in a worlds strongest man comp and Howarth is best suited to bringing on the water. Brown will kill what remains of this season (i.e the chance to blood Charnock and maybe Yates) if he persists with these odd and poor selections

Every player that was kept on too long will have his defenders though, look at Meli now.

I've no issue with youth being given it's chance, I know that you did not rate Ashurst, Dixon, et al and time has proven you correct, but they did jobs for the team, didn't let anyone down and have been replaced by more youth who will hopefully turn out to be better (Greenwood and Walker for example). The experienced players brought in have failed to live up to the standard that had been set under Millward and Anderson.

We've bought two big names in Hohaia and Laffranchi, neither have worked out. Players such as Gardner, Meli (one of them should have been binned off 2/3 years ago) and Wellens should have been replaced before now.

Have we been hamstrung by the fact that our youth half backs have been very promising? Eastmond, Lomax and Gaskell all have aspects to their games that promised much, had they not come through at the times they did, would we have made more of an effort to sign a half back?

We've also had the issue of the stadium, which is likely to be the main issue for me, it's obvious that not only has it's development maybe taken the management focus from the team, it's also taken the funding away from the pitch with stories of us not spending up to the cap. The roof redesign and the cladding issue will again take away focus from putting money onto the pitch, but if the club hasn't got it, it can't spend it.

He's got to pick lance at stand off to partner wilkin. Both ain't halfbacks and both ain't good enough but IMO they should be the halves.

Howarth has looked very poor the last three games and doesn't look a super league standard player so I'd pick the young lad until Roby is fit.

I'd also play Percival from the start from now on if he keeps this current form up, he's actually the best centre at the club.

I cant imagine we will see a lot of Charnock, Yates or Speakman until we start to get a bit of momentum back into our game. It would be stupid to throw such young half backs into a team playing so poor with only Soliola showing any quality out of the senior players.

I don't think they are keen on Charnocks aggressive side either pretty much the same as Wheeler when he broke through they wanted it out of his game.

We mentioned this 2 years ago that McManus will struggle to battle on all fronts with a new stadium and new players.
No 1 priority is long term survival with the risk of a longer term transitional player period.
You could say we are in recession with quality player availabilty, just shows how standards have fallen when we are considering Michael Dobson.

I assume you mean OUR standards have fallen?

Apparently we are spent up to salary cap level so we are paying full whack for a lot of dross. (Perry, LaFranc, HiHo etc).
Walmsley, Percival, TM & Lomax will not be on mega bucks.

Its the whole clubs fault and that lies with Mcmanus, he is running our club into the ground. Poor recruitment selections, hanging onto people past there sell by date like a mouldy piece of bread etc....

Were one of the biggest clubs in the world of RL and we have the Stuart Howarth and Paul Wellens (Jon Wilkin) as our half backs. That is nothing short of disgracefull by the recruitment team and owners.

I tell you one thing if this was Wigan then Peryy and Hohiah would be on the first plane home and Dobson and Chase would be brought in, forget the salary etc.. Teams have proved you can get round that. Saints have no intention of putting this right.

If Mcmanus doesent have the funds to take us forward then its up to him to sell, many interested parties would bite his hand off.

I for one will not be re-newing my season ticket.

McManus isn't the one who's changed your team's ethos, he only appointed the man responsible for that. Nathan Brown has tried to change the philosophy that has been running through your club for decades. From concentrating on playing open and expansive football, you now seem more interested in slowing down the PtB by wrestling and targeting opposition playmakers with cheap shots. It's never been Saints way of playing and as a neutral, it doesn't make pretty viewing.

In my (far from humble) opinion, it is the change in your style of play, rather then missing halfbacks, that is mainly responsible for your current shortcomings

We need some home truths here...

We came into the season under equipped again.

Since James Graham left our props simply haven't been competitive in the big games. Against big packs, our pack cannot compete - just go back to games last season against big packs when they've turned up. Warrington at home twice are perfect indicators, James Roby was kicking on the 4th tackle regularly from the 30m and 40m line to get us out of our own half because the pack wasn't taking us forward. Hull KR 's pack completely outmuscled and outgunned our pack, and Walmsley and Soliola apart (again) we have no answer. Without James Graham we wouldn''t have made the 2011 Grand Final. He led us, he drove us forward and on his own he dominated packs. We replaced him with an average 2nd rower who just isn't upto the job. Look at our current pack, we have just two props in the whole squad - Perry and Walmsley. In three years Perry has played about 20 games, which is a pathetic return. When he plays he's half decent and he does give us some go forward, but he has been a huge disappointment and should go at the end of the year. We cannot afford to be wasting a quota spot and big chunks of our cap on players who don't play a 2/3's of the season. The rest of our props bar Walmsley constantly disappoint. Laffranchi is really average. The decision to sign him to replace Graham was a head scratcher. I genuinely can't think of a highlight in Laffranchi's Saints career, he just isn't of the standard required for us and he should go at the end of the year. LMS is another that consistently disappoints. I think as a 4th choice prop coming off the bench he would do a decent job but as a 1st choice prop he just doesn't do it and goes missing when the going gets tough. Clough is another blown up 2nd rower and should be 5th choice prop at best. Puletua is very hit and miss. When he's good he's fantastic but in too many big games like Laffranchi and LMS doesn't give us the go forward required. It is a must that we bring in at least TWO big men for next season otherwise we'll be playing on the back foot in the big games against big packs.

We came into the season with just one half back - Gary Wheeler. I'm fed up of reading about Lee Gaskell. He had one half decent season in his debut year in 2011. Last season when he played he was poor, when given a chance early on this season he was poor. He's moved to Salford and he hasn't been playing at 6 or 7 for them. If he isn't playing there for Salford, what makes anyone think he's good enough to play there for Saints? He isn't the answer, end of story. I feel for Jon Wilkin, because he isn't a number u and is being asked to do a job there. To be fair to him, he's done OK but it's like asking a bus to race in formula one. As for Wheeler, his injury record is terrible. We can't rely on him to be our 1st choice 6 because we don't get more than 4 games out of him at a time. We basically came into the season with no halves, the only team in the league without any. There is no control to our play, no direction and no kicking game. We need a new 6 and 7.

This leads to the problems we're currently seeing on the pitch. There is no lack of effort from the team, we simply haven't got the players anymore to compete in the biggest games. No coach can turn this around without recruiting good players at prop and in the halves.

I disagree entirely.

So do i