Our recruitment is poor. The are To many players just not good enough. We play one up rugby which must come from our coach and we can't create anything

I'd phrase it differently to our recruitment is poor - the focus of our recruitment is wrong. We have sacrificed a game breaker for depth - and even though we've not had to throw kids in at the deep end (whether that's really a good thing or not is another debate...) not being able to change momentum in a game is really affecting us. Coupled with poor negative coaching ("Walsh is a much better player now he doesn't throw the ball about"icon_wink.gif, and certain senior players not being able to just focus on the role they're given (*cough*Wilkin*cough*) were left with mediocre backup outside backs left wth no space and little ball.

The fact it's taken KC until Easter to realise we need to play a halfback at standoff (and let's be fair, Fages has generally been a bright spot recently) says a lot out where we're at as a club

And we was super league champions just two seasons ago which shows how quickly we have fell.

To many mediocre players in the squad. I'd disagree with our recruitment, it's been poor. Owens has been a disaster so far, I know he's young but he's never the standard we've grown to expect. Peyroux has been decent. He's better than expected but he's totally average. Tasi has been a massive massive let down. He's to soft, he gets dominated in the tackle. Theo is hard one to call as he's not been picked but we've looked better when he's at 6.

Add this year's poor recruitment wirh the likes of mcdonnell, Dawson who are well below saints usual standard to the under performers like Walsh, Wilkin, Tommy, Burns, Greenwood etc then we not looking to hot.

I feel all Nathan Brown's good work has been ruined wirh our recruitment. He had us back competitive and in one and half seasons we look like we might not make top 6 never mind top 4.

I think thats a fairly accurate summary with the addition of availability of strike players through the present season.

Availability Sample:
Lomax Not played a game yet
Percival Only played one full game
Turner Lost in Project played 3 games in strike mode.
Swift Played 5 games out of 9
Burns Not selected played one long spell game.
Fages Only played 2 games
Roby Played 7 games
Wilkin Played 9 games (50% underperformed)
Walsh Played 9 games (50% underperformed)

Just looked at the stats we are the worse team in Superleague for the amount of strike players losing game time. We could have done a lot worse result wise, Leeds last year the best attacking side and Huddersfield the best defensive side are now the worse in that category, both can't buy a win at the moment with the exception of charitable donation from a saints side.
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The loss of strike players is not to be taken lightly, the early front runners Salford lose 2 strikes and go on a losing streak, Castleford lose 2 strikes go on a losing streak, Widnes lose 1 strike go on a losing streak, Leeds lose 3 strikes and are in free fall. Saints lose strikes and can't get out of boring mode.

Pete, I can't believe you have written that, you were the one that season having a go at Brown and saying we wouldn't get into the top 4, wouldn't win any silverware, wouldn't get to a grand final. I think you said you would do a streak down Mc Manus Drive if we did.
Well we won the League Leaders Shield an became SuperLeague Champions, and now you are using the above statement to strengthen an opinion.

Did you do the streak as promised by the way or was there a "get out of jail" statement hidden somewhere.

Strike players lol. Who ?

Do you know what a strike player is? I can think of an 's' word for the majority of those players and it starts with 'sh'.

Lomax is a write off, the club needs to cut it's losses and release him. Percival, good young prospect and the only player in our side who is remotely a strike player. Turner, Swift and Burns (And Makinson) aren't good enough or a team supposedly challenging. Wilkin and Walsh are two more players who were half decent once but far from what we need now.

We are five or six quality signings away from winning another trophy. How many will we get? My money is on none as Eamon McManus is still in charge. We're trying to sign Ant Walker for next season, that says it all.

Where have you heard that? That would be bizarre one, to say the least.

I don't think we have one single strike player. Maybe percy but he's not really kicked on how I thought he would.

Have you got a specific 5 or 6 players in mind, if so who do you recommend, or have you just come up with an empty number. I can't think of anybody going out of contract being available of real quality to fill up our backline excluding Percival.

Tom Johnstone, Krisnan Inu, Luke Gale, James Green, Sia Soliola, Tariq Sims. All ooc except for Johnstone. Walsh, Burns, Wilkin, Vea, LMS and SMD out and IMO we should be close cap wise (worst case is we lose Turner as well). That'd leave us:

Makinson
Johnstone Percival Inu Swift
Fages Gale
Amor Roby Green
Soliola Sims
Savelio

Turner Greenwood Walmsley Thompson

Lomax
Grace Dawson Wellington Spedding
Richardson Gilmore*
Tasi Charnock Richards
Davies Peyroux
Knowles

Smith Ashworth Nzoungou Haggerty

That being said, we aren't in for Walker. We offered him a contract at the end of last year for our reserves, and he rejected.

I think Krisnan Inu, Tariq Sims and Luke Gale would be my choice and promote Nzoungou into the squad. If Lomax isn't going to make it I would put Swifty at Full Back and leave Tommy Mak on the wing.

Biggest danger is spending most of the salary cap on new quality players and reducing the depth of squad.

I'm no Saints fan by a long stretch, I'll never forget the ribbing you've given us over the years but-

Yourvforward pack is spot on when everyone's focused. Walmsley and Roby would be the first names on the team sheets for
any side. Thompson looks a good un plus Savelio and Greenwood are great players in the making and already good.
Your whole back line is decimated by injuries and KC is doing the best with the limitations he has.
Give KC some time with a fully fit squad and I reckon he'll do well.

Pretty sure Luke Gale isn't o.o.c at the end of the season.

We'd never get Soliola or Sims. Soliola is a key player for the Raiders, he won their POTY last season and does a lot with their youth teams. Sims is a SOO player in the making and will probably debut this season for NSW.

Quote ="SecondRowSaint"We'd never get Soliola or Sims. Soliola is a key player for the Raiders, he won their POTY last season and does a lot with their youth teams. Sims is a SOO player in the making and will probably debut this season for NSW.'" Our ins and outs clear out a hell of a lot of cap space. I don't think it's unreasonable to think we could get at least one. Josh Jackson at Bulldogs is another who'd be a a great pick up but he's probably in the category above the 2 mentioned. The point is there are options which mean we shouldn't just bumble on blind offering good contracts to mediocre players like LMS. Quote ="duke street 10"Pretty sure Luke Gale isn't o.o.c at the end of the season.'" Last contract info I can find on Gale is: www.skysports.com/rugby-league/n ... -luke-gale and zerotackle has him ooc too - unless it can be proved otherwise?

Quote ="SecondRowSaint"We'd never get Soliola or Sims. Soliola is a key player for the Raiders, he won their POTY last season and does a lot with their youth teams. Sims is a SOO player in the making and will probably debut this season for NSW.'" Our ins and outs clear out a hell of a lot of cap space. I don't think it's unreasonable to think we could get at least one. Josh Jackson at Bulldogs is another who'd be a a great pick up but he's probably in the category above the 2 mentioned. The point is there are options which mean we shouldn't just bumble on blind offering good contracts to mediocre players like LMS. Quote ="duke street 10"Pretty sure Luke Gale isn't o.o.c at the end of the season.'" Last contract info I can find on Gale is: www.skysports.com/rugby-league/n ... -luke-gale and zerotackle has him ooc too - unless it can be proved otherwise?

I would still keep LMS he is our best player for Tackle Busts and Clean Breaks at the moment he is also in our top 3 for Metres, Tackles and Off Loads so his workmate is good, its only his discipline where he is a waste of space. Biggest worry for me is Savelio he's not kicked on this season, we want the "angry Sav" not the stroll up laid back one.

Do you not think it's a coincidence that LMS only had two good seasons and that's the two when he's in his contract renewal season?

Just saying like

Just keep giving him a 12 month renewable contract, that will sort him out, then we don't need to go back into the past to find out when he was a waste of space.

So LMS is the one to attack, I agree fully with Judder, without him you would be in a mess, the pack is weak and under performing except for Louis, one prop may be Big but England quality Never, and I said this from the start. Makes me laugh with the Sky team how excited they get when forward make two steps forward these days??

Last week I did a comparison of stats between LMS, Ben Murdoch-Masilla at Salford, Matt Ashurst (remember him?) at Wakefield and Ukuma Ta'ai at Huddersfield. All had played in all games this year ( 8 ), and all are OOC. (I was gonna compare with Mitch Achurch as well, to complete the bottom 4 comparisons, but he had only played 3 games limiting the value of comparison.)

Despite being top for breaks, tackle busts and carries, he was bottom for metres made. For me, it means 90% of the time he is completely ineffective. He was also bottom for tackling (though Saints are now dead last for tackles made this season) and the second worst tackle completion % after BMM. Interestingly, he has conceded the second fewest penalties out of the 4.

Savelio is getting disheartened because he doesn't want to play front row. He said this at the start of the year and KC said he had come up with a solution. Since then hes played in the front row. He hasn't thrown his rattle like Hampshire, but a couple of games at lock would surely bring some energy to his game. I also think hes slimmed down too much for the front row anyway.

For me that doesn't say a lot for the rest of the team, Walmsley, Richards and Sav are not playing well this year, Greenwood and Thompson have only just started coming up with expected performances, Tasi is still under review. In my opinion its Amor, Vea and LMS who are the consistent performers so far and doing the longer workload minutes.

I think it was way back in 2012 when LMS was a waste of space, we lost James Graham to OZ and our pack couldn't take up the workload rate, LMS was expected to take that extra load but he didn't and became a "high five showboater", as St Pete says he picked up a bit when he was under contract review. Since then he was nominated to one of the "senior player" responsibility roles and in my view he has been doing OK with the exception of his discipline moments, I think LMS is the least of our worries and is one for future review at a later date.

I've been critical of LMS, but, whatever his motivations, I don't think anyone can reasonably question his effort this year. What bothers me about him these days is that he has plenty of good qualities, but he has shortcomings in whichever of the positions he tends to play in. He's not grizzly and tough enough to be a genuine out-and-out prop. Physically he's most suited to second row, where his size and pace should make him a real strike threat, but his obsession with cutting inside and running laterally back the middle (this, I suspect, is where a lot of his tackle busts come from) both limits his own effectiveness and starves the players outside him of possession. That leaves loose forward, but we have quite a few of those, and, if managed correctly, Savelio could turn out to be one of the best in the country. So I'm struggling to think of convincing reasons to hold on to LMS.

KC sees him as a centre

Just because he's a lower priority worry, doesn't mean he's not a worry - same with Vea. I think were in a position where we have a group of senior players who, as a group aren't where they need to be (whether that's because they're not good enough, or the coaching and tactics aren't good enough could be debated until the cows come home). I think a lot of fans (myself included) would prefer to see the club gutted of this group, and start again with our recruitment moving forward. Whilst the agreed intelligence says that a settled squad with minor changes every year is the key to consistent success, every now and then it is necessary to wipe the board clean (and its easy to point to Warrington's early season success this year compared to last year).

All that aside, LMS fundamentally isn't an international class backrower. With the cap space we should free up this year, there is the opportunity to chase players who are in that bracket (such as, imo the 3 I named) - if we cant get the right person on the right deal, and give LMS a 1 year extension while we keep looking, its not as bad as having to keep some others on the ooc list - but if we can its "thanks for the effort, best of luck" from me.