There's a lot of things I'm looking forward to in 2011. Hopefully a full season out of Eastmond, Magennis with some more game time under his belt, can Wheeler kick on and become the player he's shown glimpses of? How will Meli go if played at centre for the year? What sort of rugby will we be playing under Simmons.

But far, far more than anything else, I'm looking forward to having two props who aren't averse to a bit of fisticuffs.

Teams have taken liberties with our pack since we lost the likes of Nickle, Apollo, Scully etc in my opinion and with no KC, we ran the risk of being a bit "easy" up front.

I reckon Perry and LMS will be happy to put an end to that.

Bring on Wigan first up - wind them up and let them go!

Bring back the Biff !

According to the squad numbers, he is on the wing, with Gardner on the other wing, Soliola and Shenton as the centres. Dynamic backline there!

But you've still got that wimp Graham.

We can see you

, hiding behind that keyboard

What is with Saints fan's wanting to play Meli in the centre's. Yes with ball in hand he's quite a handful, but defensively as illustrated in the GF he's not up to scratch. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe he's got any experience of playing centre before his time at Saints, plus he's 31 now soon to be 32 the time for making him into a centre has passed.

Again as I've said before Saints have the best starting frontrow in the league, but that's where the "almighty pack" ends. A poor backrow apart from Puletua who at the minute seems incapable of playing many minutes anyway.

Can't wait for the season start regardless, should be a real humdinger to kick the season off.

Shaun Magennis is out for 3 months with yet another knee injury.

He's not up to scratch defensively on the wing, either, as has been illustrated in the previous Grand Finals (and almost every match where a high ball or grubber has been sent in his direction). Francis Meli is a defensive liability which IMO negates his strength of being hard to handle 10 inches away from the tryline.

But sadly (for us, not the opposition!) Saints have signed him for another two years. We will have him and Soliola on one edge, moving at about 5mph, and Gardner and Shenton on the other. Well, at least Shenton will never be caught for a forward pass. In fact, he had better start learning to lob, American football style, because Gardner will never keep up with him once he gets some space!

Btw, apparently Meli has played centre for Samoa but I don't know whether he played centre at club level.

If that is true then he should be dropped. Clearly his knees are just not up to rugby league. He should retire and find another job as all he will do is cripple himself too young.

I'm getting the feeling your not Meli's greatest fan.

A wimp you wish you had in your team.

You have only just realised this?



Apart from him being a carthorse - which to be fair all our backline is bar the halfbacks and Shenton - any admiration I have for him in being able to score tries from 10cm away that really no human being should be able to score is usually ruined by the tries he will let in because he is too busy tweaking his hairdo.

Alas, our chairman sees matters differently and so Meli will continue to be a Fans Favourite for the next two seasons.

I'd put him in the pack myself. He could do some serious damage there. And then give his spot to Jamie Foster.

I'd put him on a plane myself.

Theres got to be some biff in that first game in Cardiff!

The 2 packs look outstanding on paper and there won't be an inch given from either side.

The first Saints and Hull KR game should be interesting if some of the stuff has been said down under is true!

Aye,a certain Mr Perry and Mr Newton might have words.

Josh Perry ran off with Newtons missus

he played on the wing in the Grand Final.

IIRC he played centre for NZ

I've mentioned that our pack has lacked edge of late. Scully and hoops are really missed.
Players that are coming in are good, but are mostly quiet characters. Even the collosus that is Tony P has that passive feel about his actual character.
Soliola may be a bit different, though, but the extra biff from Perry and LMS will be well appreciated.

I thought Lomax played wing in the GF? But I could be wrong. To much celebrating afterwards has left me with little recollection of that night.

No. Lomax played as Meli's centre. That was a good example of Potter's tactical genius. When we had an almost full squad to choose from, he decides to put two players together who had never played together before and play one of them (Lomax) in a position he hadn't played before - for a Grand Final. You can tell McBanana and Potter spent time together: they both make dumb personnel choices.

Let's be honest, we are soft as sh*t at St Helens.

Said it numerous times over the years, you look at Leeds, if one kicks off then they're all in, what happens if someone kicks off with one of our lads, we back down like little girls and just get smacked about, no aggression at all.

Hopefully Perry can put that right and bring us some proper grit and a bit of hardcore.

Tony Stark wouldn't dare take on Perry.

Perry's tough, but I reckon I'd back Iron Man myself.