Didn't belive at first but heard / seen a few times, 1st on here...

Paul only been offered a new 1 year deal at Saints but wants longer and could be off to Widnes?

Seems a long shot, but anyone know of anything?

I know something this story is the worst rumour ever.

I can't see it.

Reason.


When Long and Cunningham go then Saints will only have one player with 10 years service. (Wellens)

For that player Saints get up to £50K EXTRA allowance on the salary cap.

We wouldnt let an old timer depart, we would simply offer them a 2 year deal not a 1 year deal...honest .

and we will have very few players of 30+ yrs old so we need him to keep our average age up

I'm glad I didn't say that.

It's an absolutely ludicrous rumour. Just because he is one of our old guard people lump him in with the likes of Long and KC, but the fact is he is still only 29. If it became known he was available there would be SL clubs queueing up for his services, regardless of lacklustre international performance and much vaunted lack of pace. Widnes would be so far down the pecking order I suspect they wouldn't even bother enquiring. Which is immaterial anyway as I'm sure he'll be at Saints for another couple of years or so yet.

Is Wello out of contract this season?

I said it for you

Not certain but Im fairly sure he has one year left.

So we can have the "we offered him 1 year but he wanted 2" debate again next year, yippee

No deal Noel.

Me again,

Both Long and Gilmour have stated that they were not officially offered even one year deals.

i.e. nothing was ever put in writing to them.

I have a feeling the dciding factor will be young squire Lomax, and how he improves/integrates into the team next year.

So if he is contracted next season 2010, how many of you would give him a 2 year extension to take him to 2012?

Well not in writing but it was made clear by both sides that Saints were offering 1 year and thats it, which is fair enough, the players said they wanted more which again is fair enough. If its clear two parties arn't going to agree a deal its not worth paying lawyers to draft a contract that will never be signed.

Not atm - Id look at how he goes next season and decide which is what I assume Mr Big is gonna do. If he has a crap year and spends most of the time on the sidelines like Cayless and Scully then I'd be suprised if he is offered more than a year with a 1 year option.

Shockingly to myself, I dont think i would, at this time.

I for one wouldn't.

I can see why the club would do this though, if Eammon is happy with MP then he'll be giving him free reign to mould the squad/bring the kids through. It could go wrong though, as Wigan's last few years have shown, but it could also click next season and go forward.

Interesting times, for sure.

It screwed us up big time.
Farrell, Craig Smith, Lam, O'Connor, Cassidy etc all leaving around the same time.

The kids (Robinson, Brown, Wild, Hock, Locky etc) had come in and done well but when asked to do it on their own weren't quite up to the task.

Time will tell if the same thing happens at Saints.

Eammon "Well Sean, we can only offer you a one year deal"
Long "But I want 2 or I'll leave"
Eammon "Oh well. I suppose I'll waste money getting the lawyers to draw up a contract that you don't want to sign anyway. After all they only charge £250 an hour"
Long "Fair enough"

Why would anyone bother drawing up a new contract if they knew the player wasn't going to sign it?

What screwed you up also was some pretty poor recruitment over the years from Australia - Vaeliki, O Neill, Johns, Davico, Ainscough etc all spring to mind. Good recruits can help the afdorementioned names. Those recruited hardly helped.

Davico was very unlucky, Johns and Lam were very good together, but Johns went home for family reasons IIRC his mother was very sick.

But in essence you are correct and maybe we should have kept Dave Furner for a couple more years particularly as we lost all that experience in the pack.

Many thanks for not doing so.