Expect an announcement tonight or tomorrow. Widnes just released statement saying they have agreed a early release. I'm excited to see this young lad. His comming on the cheap but could a star

Widnes will be gutted

Not what the Vikings fans say. They say he's failed to hold down a starting position at Widnes. Not sure why this would be a good signing for us. Which position is he being signed to play?

He will probably be signed to play full back thats his best position im gutted he has left widnes hope he furthers his career with saints

Failed to hold a place down at Widnes. Would be very surprised if Saints went for him. One thing I would say is you couldn't lack his effort. Also with the quality around him at Saint Helens, he may flourish into potentially a very good player.

Got limited ball from our centres, scored his great tries from Kevin Browns chips to the corner.

He scored a great try near the end of the Leigh game, you'll find this on the highlights.

Very highly thought of at widnes and was their example to young players when trying to sign them

Is this another sign that we're not going to see much of Lomax or are we perhaps thinking of moving Lomax back into the halves?

It does make you wonder how he's gonna keep Lomax, McDonnell, Owens, Makinson, Swift, Burns, Walsh and Fages all happy!

Would Owens expect to be straight into the first team?

SMD
Makinson Percival Lomax Swift
Burns Walsh

Owens
Grace Wellington Ashworth Fleming
Richardson Fages

Half of them will be injured, he'll be fine!

Fleming is a centre by trade, i'd expect him to feature there and for Ashworth to play at second row. Don't forget, out of the young lads Ashworth along with Charnock are the most physically ready i'd imagine as they're the oldest.

There's also Spedding whose fulltime now as well who is iirc a wing/ centre.

The reserves opens up some interesting options - the line ups were missing Peyroux and Dawson who will probably spend time in both

Yet we only got one real centre in percy. God knows what Turner is this year.

I hope we don't out peyroux in the centre or we in big trouble. His defence is very soft

I'm treating Peyroux as a complete unknown, I really haven't seen enough to make a judgement, and the NZ team I have seen him in can make anyone look bad,

Assuming Owens is coming, it makes sense to move one of SMD/ Lomax to the centre while we figure it out (assuming they're both fit).

Turner to play the odd job man Flanagans played for the last few years.

Don't think we can pin any hopes on Lomax. His speed at changing direction made him the player he was, 2 serious knee injuries will have undoubtedly dulled that somewhat

Are you seriously suggesting SMD can play centre? You've made some utter crazy suggestions in the past but this is up there with there with best.

I see your 5th prop for 2016 is on loan at Salford. How you could put him in your squad is unreal. The lad never ever played super league.

Imo jack Owen is a good player but do we need him ? I feel it's just a waste of cap. I know what he's on at widnes so I imagine we will match or pay more and the money should be used elsewhere.

The balance of the squad will be all over the place. We will have 3 fullbacks or four if include Bailey. We have one centre in percy. I just feel the recruitment doesn't make sense when we need a centre and prop massively.

I also agree that centre should have been priority over a full back and I wouldn't fancy McDonnell there.

However, to be fair with regards to his comments on Haggarty, I also named him in the squad numbers thread. For him to play Super League in 2016, 12 months after signing for us, wouldn't have been unreal at all for me. We gave Walmsley his debut much sooner than that so it wouldn't have been unrealistic for us to blood Haggarty next year mate.

I'm not talking squad numbers. I'm talking like 5th prop. That's crazy as he's not played one single first grade game. Plus I'm hearing he was pretty Avg last year but big Alex was ripping the championship up and was clear he was a level up from thst league.

I've said for roughly 6 months that Richards should be 5th prop in rotation and that leaving him in the regular 4 was crazy for this stage of his development. I've had Haggerty behind Richards and Thompson for everything I've ever said on here, so I'm not sure why you have this opinion.

I've also said for a very long time that a centre should be our priority. Given we had 2 fullbacks, and we went out and got another one, it seems an obvious conclusion to draw that one of them won't be playing at fullback - putting 2 and 2 together suggests one of them will play centre. Lomax played a lot on the edges when he was first coming through, and I'm about 80% sure SMD has played there before too. As I put originally, Lomax is the obvious choice, which is why I put him there on how we fit everyone in response.

Why the anger bro?

For me, SMD would have to be starting next season as our full back as that is his best position...but that said he has played both wing and centre for Wests Tigers in the NRL before he came over here so it wouldnt be that strange to stick him in there (although I would only use him there as cover for injuries should we need it)

He's that highly thought of we're releasing him with a year left on his contract!

Welcome to him - good luck to the lad. But I'm amazed he's signing for you when he can't get in our side.

SMD has also played at 6

SMD wasn't good enough before his very serious injury and I highly
Doubt he's going to improve after a very serious injury.

I'd have lomax at fullback any day of the week ahead of SMD. We have missed his attack so much it's unreal. He scared the life out of teams on the edges and at times in attack it was the Jonny Lomax show. He's safe on kicks and good in defence.

SMD is a upgrade on Quinlan but he's still nowhere good enough for a top 5 team in super league.

I'm pretty sure peyroux will be centre

That's the story of our 2016 recruitment. Peyroux, Theo, Tasi all struggled to get in pretty poor teams but we've took them on so signing Owens is in line with 2016 recruitment.

I think you'll find the is more to the jack Owens release than you know. Maybe he was promised tell number 1 jersey and told widnes will not bring in Avg aussies and then widnes sign a Avg fullback from the bulldogs.

Just saying

It's another shocking signing. Add to Tasi, Peyroux (I'll give Theo the benefit of the doubt, for now) and Dawson and it's clear out recruitment has gone south spectacularly.

Owens was unable to hold down a spot at Widnes, that should automatically exclude him from being looked at by us. Worse they felt it was better to sign a very average NRL fullback to play ahead of him and then released him. If we have paid money for him I'll be very shocked.

Why not just throw Grace or Wellington in?