New 2 year deal at Saints apparently

Good thing for Saints that, very dangerous player.

Been our best forward with Graham this year. It would have been a disaster had he off left.

Great pack of forwards at Saints in 2012 with good depth. I would guess the first choice would be:

Perry
Roby
LMS
Puletua
Soliola
Wilkin

Laffranchi
Clough
Magennis
Moore

Waterhouse?

Sorry, big rumours but not confirmed, have amended!

Cracking signing for Saints that. Puletua's a top, top quality player.

Glad he's stayed with Saints. A strong Saints is good for superleague and the derby games.

Cracking player.

Laffranchi behind Wilkin? doubt that will happen IMO

Laffranchi is playing front row for us in 2012 according to Simmons.

FWIW Wilkin has been tremendous for us at 13 this year, definitely his position.

If you sign Waterhouse that would be four forwards (mostly props) over the age of 30 for the next two/three years.
Do you think that's a wise move?

It's a serious question btw. If I asked that on the Saints site it would explode with vitriol.

Ideally not but you do what you have to, to stay competitive. Losing Graham is the equivalent to losing two excellent props for most teams beacuse of the amount of minutes he gets through. I think that if there is one position you can get away with older players it's prop. We had some brilliant years out of Britt, Fairleigh and Ward (Kevin!) who were over 30. Anyway, it brings our average age down, what with having such a young squad coming through. I can't rememebr the stat but was it 22 of our 33 man squad under a certain age? 22?

I prefer some forwards to be in the older age bracket - we do have younger ones coming through, and LMS and Clough aren't old. We have lost a lot of age and therefore experience in the last couple of years and a lot of the rest of our team is young - therefore we need some old heads about. Age tends to lead more to a loss of speed than anything, which is not a massive issue in the forwards. Young forwards often struggle in SL for a couple of years - week in week out appearances would be no good at all for them. I don't think it is a problem at all, in fact I think there are more positives than negatives to it.

Not quite vitriol



To be fair, that was my first thought when we signed Laffranchi, maybe Waterhouse, Perry is hitting 30 soon if not already there (cant be @rsed looking) and now Puletua.

It can work 2 ways, we have an ageing pack that is always injured as it cant stand modern day SL

Or we have an experienced pack, in their prime who can bring on the likes of LMS, Magennis and maybe Chris Hill if his rumoured arrival from Leigh turns out to be true.

Yes, if those players are Tony Puletua, Trent Waterhouse, Anthony Laffranchi and Josh Perry.

If there's any position on the field where being 30/31 doesn't concern me it's prop. Look at your own Andy Coley in the last couple of years.

y is no1 telling them off for signing aussies? and letting young british lads go?
they seem to be getting praised for it,

I think it's a risk, but "probably" worth taking, but only time will tell.

agreed

lol nice try...

try what?
you lot would be slating wigan if we did that,
typical saints cant do no wrong,

Starting their contracts at 30/31 is ok, it is the last of the three years that may trouble them.
Still, Puletua re-signing is a very good for them and SL.

Lol apart from all the other British talent we have come through the ranks this year, plus the British Talent we bought last year, plus the British Talent we are looking to buy this year.

like I said. Nice try

Who are we "letting go"?

well you certainly didnt try hard enough to keep eastmond and graham,
just using ur arguments that you used against us,
=#FF0000Less of that word please. Mods

Absolute Rubbish. From what I hear we offered Graham one of the most lucrative deals in the clubs history and were gutted when he decided he wanted to go to Australia.

Eastmond we basically offered him what we thought he was worth. He wanted to go to union full stop. I dont think any rugby league club would have been able to change his mind unfortunately