I like the sound of that, makes sense. I can perfectly understand if he wants to run with Lance this season either for the experience factor or to protect Gaskell (particularly from the terraces, from where he could get direct career-crippling feedback). I'm okay with that and I'm okay with Mike doing whatever he's doing.

When Royce left our expectations dipped and a couple of crazy wins lifted them beyond what we had at the start of either of the past two seasons so we're probably evening out now which is good. We are better than what we showed last week and this week too. This team is still learning what works this year and it may never reach its full potential but it is a team that is trying to make things work and I'm disappointed more people can't see that (some of our ball work around the ruck has been first rate in fact). It's a challenging time for the club but Monday night showed that we have the ability in terms of playing personnel to compete successfully this year despite what everyone else thinks.

How do we know?

Monday night didn't really show us much, except that we are capable of scoring some beautiful tries from deep. We were good against Leeds last time out remember. In fact, we were good against Leeds last season at Headingley (the match turned our season around if you remember), doing the double on them in fact. Beating Leeds is now becoming a habit (except in Grand Finals, obviously). It is no longer the test it once was. That belongs to Wigan, and we have been nowhere near Wigan these last two meetings regardless of what our present coach has said. We were closer to them last season (bar the match at Widnes).

I thought last season that even though we came out with 3 wins to your 2 that you were the better side in most of our matches. This season though, as you say we have been pretty comfortable. You started well in the cup game but only being 4 points up was your downfall especially as we scored on our first two real attacks.

What's that got to do with anything? Gaskell only got the game time he did last season as we had noone else available with Pryce and Eastmond being unavailable the whole season. Gaskell didn't get all those games because he was a brilliant talent who forced his way into the team with dazzling displays and consistently performed at the top level - he played because we had noone else available to play the position most of the time. He's a good young player who may develop into a top SL player with some more game time and experience, but he's not the answer yet. In an ideal world he'd go out on loan for a season or 2 while we got in an experienced half to partner Lomax until (if) he's ready. Relying on a HB partnership of Lomax and Gaskell in the short to medium term would be a very, very risky move both for Saints and for the lads themselves.

Not much to add to the thread really except to say that I'd be disgusted if we allowed Gaskell to sign for one of our rivals.

A long term deal for a mediocre, out of position Kiwi approaching 30 is bad enough without losing a player who has the potential to be your 6 for the next decade because of it.

Fortunately I don't think Saints are stupid enough to let the lad go and I think they recognise his long-term potential.

Gaskell is already better than Lance Hohaia. Lance's continued presence in the side pains me greatly. Especially when you throw in Wello continuing at fullback.

We've got a good record in letting kids go who aren't going to make it, there aren't really any who have gone on to prove us wrong, some are gOing on to carve out a reasonable career, without setting the world alight. The word seems to be that brown wants to bring in a new half for next season, so gaskells future looks pretty bleak, we can't keep him to play in the reserves forever, if he really doesn't figure in tge clubs long term plans, he should be allowed to go and try elsewhere, if he turns into a star then he is one who got away. We will have to live with that.

Gaskell will be another Lee Briers if he's allowed to leave.

And for anyone who says we made the right decision releasing Briers, there are still people clamouring on 'rumours' threads for us to sign him aged 34 because he has rare qualities and that's how I see Gaskell, too, given a chance.

Losing Gaskell to accommodate Lance Hohaia would be right up there with the Pie Eaters getting rid of Sean Long to sign Lee Hansen.

So you'd have kept briers instead of long, or Martyn or goulding or pryce? I wouldn't. He'd have been third choice for years, never getting a game. Or if we had kept him, we wouldn't have signed long, and we'd have had many mediocre seasons, just like Warrington.

Is Lance just not playing to his potential yet??
If this is pretty much what we have signed theres no way he will be staying for his full contract.

The rumours I'm hearing of Gaskell being given permission to talk to Wigan and Hull are worrying. He's a good player, better than anything we have at the club.

I'm prepared to give Brown a chance though, he's shown a decent abililty in squad building at the Giants, so we can't really complain. There is also the possibility that he's after signing a halfback because he's shifting Lomax to fullback and Hohaia to the bench or the NRL?

That doesn't mean we are infallible. If we can make as big a mistake as appointing Royce Simmons as our coach then it's not difficult to envision another mistake being made elsewhere on personnel. Saints is after all run by humans and we can get things wrong.

As said above, letting Briers go and signing Sean Long was one of the deals of SL imo...Long was a far better half back than Briers and Briers wouldnt have got into a Saints team in front of Long, Martyn, Hooper or Pryce for me so wasnt really a great loss

I believe Gaskell has the potential to be a brilliant half back, but as shown at the start of the season, the pressure of running a top SL team alongside a fellow rookie in Lomax was too much for him to cope with just yet. Since Hohaia has moved to 6, a lot of the organising has been done for Lomax and that is why we are starting to see more of his best imo and therefore Gaskell would maybe benefit with going out on a short term loan to gain more experience with a lower club (like O'Brien @ Warrington & Mellor @ Wigan did). this would further his first team experience and come back challenging to get in and make the 6 spot his own...I would have no problems with Gaskell playing at 6 if he is ready, but I think he needs just a bit more work to be our first choice stand off

Ok I'm going to go against the grain here, but I don't see Long and Briers as mutually exclusive. I don't think Breirs was asking for silly money at the time. As for Hooper and Pryce, if you gave me the option of briers over those 2, then yes I'd bite your hand off. Briers for Martyn is a more tricky swap though and it's true that Briers , Long and MArtyn don't all fit in the team together. Although it would be interesting to know how many games Long and Martyn played together as both has injury periods.

Scully had to cover for long periods at halfback. It's more likely that Wellens would be the one to be excluded at the price of having Martyn, Long, Briers in the team together. But then none of those 3 where renound for tackling.

In the end the way it went is the way it went and we benefited and Briers to my mind lost out. Although he is reaping the rewards of his patience now.

Indeed - according to the man himself (overheard down Thatto Heath clubhouse after a few beers many a time apparently) Saints refused to give him a pay rise above his youth team money at all which is why he left in the first place. Whatever the reason, he would have been surplus to requirements at Saints until about 3 or 4 years ago and so we made absolutely the right choice at the time.

The fact is that Briers being such a top class SL player now is a sad sign of the times. 10 years ago we had better halves than him in the team, and there were a fair few other halves knocking about in SL better as well. Now that those other players are all gone though he just stands head and shoulders above most of the younger talent in the league that just isn't of the same calibre.

It's also worth noting that Gaskell is better now than Briers was at the same age.

That is complete and utter rubbish. Briers in his half a dozen games or so for Saints did a brilliant job given he was only 17 or so. Briers skill level even then is far better than Gaskell is now. I know coz I was there!!

Removed cartoon so as not to cause offence

I think you will find that McClennan was there too, and probably writing FMM at about that time too (?) so his knowledge of Briers is pretty fair, and certainly not deserving of being patronised as if he is a school kid.

Don't mean to sound patronising but when a statement is so wrong it has to be commented on.

See below for briers's full Saints appearances ( info courtesy of heritage site )

W/D/L Pos Date Opponents Comp Season Venue F A T G DG
L 7 26th Dec 1996 Wigan Fr 1996 A 22 32 1 1 0
L 15 24th Jan 1997 Leeds Rhinos Fr 1997 H 30 36 0 0 0
W 7 23rd Feb 1997 Hull SCCC5 1997 H 54 8 1 5 0
W 7 9th Mar 1997 Keighley Cougars SCCC6 1997 A 24 0 0 2 0
W 7 16th Mar 1997 London Broncos SL 1997 A 28 24 0 4 0
W 7 22nd Mar 1997 Salford Reds SCCCSF 1997 N 50 20 0 6 0
W 7 28th Mar 1997 Wigan Warriors SL 1997 A 22 10 0 3 2
W 7 31st Mar 1997 Sheffield Eagles SL 1997 H 32 12 0 4 0

2 Tries and 25 goals plus 2 drop goals in 6 Appearances isn't that bad.

Briers for Hooper - yes. But not Pryce. The two of them are completely different players so comparison is difficult. But Pryce did more than enough at the highest level in SL to give him the advantage. When Briers asserts match-winning influence in a Grand Final an exchange is worthy of discussion.



Only in some weird kind of fantasy land. It would be like swapping Captain Mannering for Alexander the Great.

Give over man. He had a good run of games [iin a very successful side[/i and looked good but he never looked like he was ever going to have a decent defence or running game (which is pretty much how it played out for him). He was solid passing, certainly not that much better than Gaskell and I rate Gaskell's long kicking game better than Briers then and now too. I would have been happy with us keeping him but at the time there was no way I would have kept him over Goulding or Martyn.

Briers turned out to be a decent club guy who has had an Indian summer thanks to Tony Smith sorting him out. Gaskell doesn't appear to have the same brain malfunctioning as Briers which also makes him a better investment to me as well.



LOLZ.

Briers performed admirably given the circumstances and it is true that he was instrumental in several Saints victories. But let's not forget that he was a complete rookie who came pretty much out of nowhere. Given the Goulding situation prospects looked bleak at the time and it would be false to claim Briers' effectiveness wasn't exaggerated in some way - as tends to happen with all kids who exceed expectation on debut. We've all seen fans proclaim such-and-such-a-kid the next GB/England scrum-half, centre, winger etc. purely on the strength of two or three good games.

Comparisons with Gaskell are not as easy as you think. At the time of Briers' debut defences were nowhere near as restrictive as those Gaskell is currently up against. Placing him in a Saints jersey back then I'd expect he'd run riot.

I meant that it's more tricky to swap Martyn for Briers, as Briers would have been Martyn's Junior, Martyn was already an experienced player and so Martyn would never have been in competition with Briers, were as Long may have been given that they where both relatively young. In the end those 3 just don't fit in the same team, briers would have been an understudy and filled in well during injuries, but unless he could do a Roby and take bit parts for years until Martyn was removed it would never have happened for him.

So even though he jumped ship early, even if he stayed he would probably have jumped ship in a year or 2.