I didnt list the young lads I'd keep like Percival, swift, greenwood, walker etc

The squad needs a radical change. Like I've said many times, the best teams build on success and not go into decline. We started to lack ambition in retention and recruitment and that's why we are in this mess.

I hate to say it but I told you so.

so true, we took the eye off the ball and look where we are now. great stadium poor team and no plans to fix it.

McManus promised us " a team to grace the new stadium".

He's broke that promise.

He also promised us cladding and we all know how that ended up.

Once we get our influential injured players back, I would only make one change and that is to bring Charnock into the stand off role, the pack can be fixed as in most of the games the problem has been an attitude one.

Are Saints fans the only ones in SL who don't know that Chase can't get a visa once his current one runs out?

Charnock , yes, maybe Yates into the squad too. They couldnt do much worse that what we have and at least they are specialists. Like I said on the Longy thread get him on board asap and see if he can help polish the turd that is our halfback situation

When he said that, Eastmond and Wheeler were going to be our half backs for 5+ years.

I can't be bothered quoting all the posts.

People need to get out of this manic depressive mode you are in no one is enjoying watching Saints at the moment but fully fit we are not that far off. If we had our injured players fit today we would have won. The players we have out are a massive loss to us and are a big part of our team.

For the stupid post asking wich one of them are halfbacks.. Obviously none but whats your point?

The point is we dont have any halfbacks . You dont win pots without halfbacks and if your not winning or competing to win what the point in bothering?

The only stupid thing round here is your baseless optimism.

I'm GUESSING here but I SUSPECT he was suggesting that demonstrates how poor our recruitment has been!

I think Saints and eventually other clubs will realise half backs will have to come from within. There will be no one to recruit from the NRL, Union, the championship.
If you look at the first 8 years of superleague the half backs then were outstanding compared to the last 8 years of Superleague.
As I,ve said before the club has hit the problem first, maybe Yates, Swift and Charnock can bring us back to standard, not at the moment though we,ve too many loose cannons, Lance being an obvious niggling problem always playing hot and cold.

It's obvious to everyone we need halfbacks so it doesn't really need pointing out constantly, does it?

It's not optimism though can you quote were I said we would win silver? I said we're not that far off with a fully fit team which we're not and beating wire away showed that. Just cause we need halfbacks doesn't mean returning players wont make a massive difference.

And like I said at the time, you can't put all your eggs in one basket with the young lads like we did.

Your right , having some players back will mean we'll possibly beat most of the mid table teams. woohoo well I'm over the moon with that.

This is Saints, not Wakefield or Cas or any other team who would be ecstatic just to make the top 8 . Unless we discover a halfback or sign one this season is done and dusted . Next season is over before it begins unless we show some bloody ambition and shake up this tired squad. We are or where a top team , we used to play with flair and be entertaining even when we wernt the greatest side , now we have nothing and havent since Anderson left and the slide really took hold

But we've had half's and shuffled them off. It's not down to bad luck.

I'd still say we are a top 4 side, injuries have been horrendous. But today's pathetic effort was simply down to poor poor poor retention of the ball.

We did a defensive effort for 20 minutes straight. It was not poor defense as a team (although Lance was shocking), it was poor effort going forwards.

TP gave a few drives but looked like an injured player coming back. Sia drove the ball in and the rest were dross. No aim of tacking the ball in, looking to run some daft angle and drop the ball off.

I still hold we have some players who are good enough players, but trying to run a side with no halfs is pathetic. For me it all comes back to signing Lance. Before him there was a problem with the centre position, but we had enough about us. Signing Lance has tied up money and position in a player who should never have been signed.

Laffranchi may not be a prop but for a year he managed to hold his own. Lance has contributed 0. In fact I would say less than that as his presence is negative.

If we are naming teams I still remain with the same line up I said a week or so ago.

Lomax, Makinson, Turner, Percival, Meli (or new winger)
New 6 and New 7.
Warlmsley, Roby, New Prop, Sia, Manu, Flanaghan.

New prop, Clough, I'd have Laffranchi as a 2nd rower or not at all,

The out's

Wellens, Ade, LMS, Perry, Laffranchi if we are persisting with prop, Howarth, Lance,

These I would let go for different reasons to the above

TP as I think he has served us well but maybe it's just his time
Wilkin he's doing a job at the moment and it steadied us, but once back out of the number 7 shirt, is he a better 2nd rower than.

Sia, Manu, Flanaghan, Laffranchi?? Even Jones is looking a bit more solid there.

But would that have meant Dr Koukash having some power as well as Mr McManus?

I agree with your post about acceptance - but is it going to be any better next year?

Rush as CEO; really ?

Brown coming out with this:
"It was a great effort to get to the front with 12 men. [uIt was just unfortunate[/u, with the incident that happened, that we couldn't hang on.

What planet is he on? We were worse with 13.

I think he's just putting a brave face on in public, at least I hope he is because if he's not he has serious vision problems

Amended for accuracy.

Although I have to add that Greenwood gave it a go too. It's just our experienced forwards (bar Sia) who really should be fired and replaced with forwards.

A good halfback pairing would improve the team as a whole so much, before he picked up his knock you could see Dobson setting up plays , demanding his runners and generally doing what a 7 should. It made me sad seeing what we were missing.

They won the Grand Final in 2010.

Yes, we were actually better off without Wello in a HB "role" as he then became a sort of centre/second row after Meli's exit where he did some good tackles, which is all he really knows now.

Perhaps it will be become part of Browns's master plan - one (still useless) HB.

I think so too, he,s not one for doing his dirty washing in public, I bet the uncut version to the team was completely different.
In my opinion he,s doing a better job with our annual injury crisis than Potter and Simmons.

At the end of the day its the players attitude thats inconsistent, thats probably why he selects Gardner, Wilkin and Wellens the only players with any remnants of that winning mentality that is required.

Maybe we should be looking at the culture and structure of the club in the same way the Wigoons have done over the past 3 years. In the past we would play the game mostly under our terms within our strength and weakness, these days we invite the opposition to dictate the game, very un saint like.