That sounds fair. Cooper at the end of last season and the start of this season has looked a new player. I was worried last season that he wasn't going to make it and I was frustrated that the best players (in the first team) from the academy were from Wales/ Warrington and Cumbria/ Warrington. I wanted a Roby (a star that plays for his true home town club)

I think a good example of Cooper (and to an extent Evans)'s abilities is to look at the last try in Hull game.

With less than a minute on the clock after the drop out and when we really needed a miracle, Cooper moves what looks like 20 metres down with a load of players around him and then he offloads. It was, and I know this is heracy here, Jammeresque.

Trust me, there is nothing I want more than Saints to churn out great players and produce exciting rugby.

I do have a soft spot in my heart for saints (now the streak is well and truly put to bed). That is something I will never have for Wigan or their laughable Ultras.

I would also like to say, as I have in many other places, Lomax is brilliant.

Better than most youngsters in super league and is as humble as anyone. The one player I would move hell and high water for to have at Wire (including Tomkins)

I'm not sure "bulk" is the right word. The implication is he needs to hit the weights, gorge himself on protein shakes and such. I'm sure he's doing more than enough of that at the moment. The problem is he hasn't hit his final growth stage. You see this time and again with youngsters. They're as thin as a plank up to the age of 20/22 (depending on genetics) and then - almost overnight - they pile on 8-12 pounds and flesh out.

I've read a few pieces about Dixon training hard and his performance improving. I've no doubt the kid has trained hard - but the reason he's suddenly become far more dominant is he's gone through the last growth phase before becoming a fully grown adult.

We just have to be patient with Gaskell. His time will come and believe me - 8-12 pounds wrapped around this kid will turn him into something special.

Read the discussion with jdrocket, I'm sure you'll find it fair.

Also instead of hiding behind emoticons why don't you put forward a reasonable argument as jdrocket did?

Name names. With the exception of Evans, I've not seen anything from the youthful Warrington backs (Those that came through Warrington's academy) to match those. Who am I missing?

got to agree with BackrowSaint

Forever In Radlinski's Shadow

Sorry missed this post until now.

Cooper sounds a bit like Dixon has been progressing this year? Was solid but unspectacular last year but is starting to make some good line breaks and offering another dimension to his game?

Evans could turn out to be quite handy, his support and offload for Ratchford's try against Broncos(?) was superb.

Would this be former Man of Steel, Pat Richards, who has topped the try scoring lists in both The NRL and Superleague, been superleague's top points scorer, not once but 4 times, one of a select group of players to win Granf Finals in both hemispheres has recently become Wigan's 3rd highest points scorer of all time? Hilarious!

Please tell me you aren't a Wigan fan? Acrually, no unless you started watching rugby in 2010, you know that you are talking out of your .

Pat richards is one of the worst fullbacks Wigan have ever had. Fact!

Either learn to read or learn your facts.

Yeah. That's a good parralel. I've always been a fan of dixon. He has the right shape and mindset for the game. I think cooper's run at LF (I think) has helped him at prop. He wasthere at the end of last season and with harrison injured he may well take that position again. I would rather have coops there than bridge (who I think is the best centre in SL again) also, it feels great being able to say that one academy player can cover another, injured, academy player and they both be great in that position.

I think the try you are talking about won the try of the month from sky. Evans is looking more at home in the team every week.

I think it'd be fair to say it's been an interesting opening to the season. I thought of a fun point today. After longy left for Hull. The first game was against sts at hull in the fog and sts lost. After pryce left for cats he won the first game against them.

Thinking back to when saints was the best side, everything started with wello. He used to beat the first man on every kick return that put us on the front foot but now wello is stopped dead which puts us on the back foot from the start.

We even had Meli and Ade who was good at kick returns (if they caught it) but now with wello and Jamie foster both are stopped dead in the tracks.

I'd kick to these two all day as the is no danger of either breaking the line.

I heard about this from a Saints friend!
Whats it all about? Does he really not play 1 of the 4 interchanges and just leave them on the bench?

Most of past year and this year, he leaves our back on the be ch for either the full 80 mins or if they lucky they get 8 mins at the end.

Most cant understand why we play with 16 players but there are some on here that we ain't at disadvantage with 16 v 17 every week.

Whilst Wellens is an issue. He is not the cause of our loss. It's more of a polishing issue than the base problem.

1. He has just come back from injury so may not be fully fit yet
2. Even if he is fully fit and that's as good as it gets, the lack of team effort in the defensive line was the cause of the loss.
3. He could do a job in other roles
4. I don't think we can say Royce is fixed with who he plays. (dropped meli for Wheeler, dropped Lance for Gaskell)

Care to quote these "facts"? Or perhaps you'd like to respond to my post with something other than vague generalisations and veiled innuendo? Or maybe you'd like to stop talking until you've something to say that's actually worth listening to. The simple truth is you know less than feck all about Pat Richards, his qualities at fullback or for that matter the difference between your a*rse and your elbow.....

Let's start with these "facts" you keep quoting shall we? I await your statistical feast with bated breath. Especially the vast amount of data you've presumably aquired on Makinson's many performances at fullback that support your claim that he's better than Richards.

Richards isn't a fullback, Makinson is, so of course Makinson is the better full back. Just cause he's a Wire doesn't mean he's wrong. Jeez some people on these forums are ridiculous.

Wellens could make a good centre in my opinion.

Far too slow. Wouldn't be a threat with the ball and all the opposition would need to do to score would be to go the other way then come back to his side and they could walk through to score.

He needs to retire, he's rapidly destroying his legacy and he's going to end up being an embarrassment to himself and the club.

Way, way OTT and hugely disrespectful IMO.

gotta tighten your defence before worrying about the attack tbh

wellens would be a good centre option for you right now.

puts into perspective what Radders did, having been retired for a while, and having dodgy knees, came back out of retirement for the love of his home town club, and still could cut it at the highest level - legend

Good idea. Stick him in against Warrington in 3 weeks. That's the highest level in the League. Maybe if you get to a CC final, stick him in then.

Great respect for the man but they are apples and oranges.

I agree. He need to step aside and let someone with else take the spot. Wellens as been great for us but I don't want him to embarrass himself. It's adds nothing to the teams and causes no threat whats so ever in attack.