Saints had 5 overseas signings on display on Friday, Wigan had 9.

Saints recruitment from the UK includes Long, Gardner and Wilkin from lower divisions and Hargreaves and Gilmour who were apparently surplus to requirements at their previous clubs.

And would 20 year old Goulding be in our first choice 17 if 25 year old Mathers was not suspended?

And last week 29 year old Coley was the squad ahead of 20 year old McIlorum.

How many from your own academy?

Yeah, thats a good idea to encourage teams to bring their own lads through and not have to use the exuse of not having room under the cap. Half of what the homegrown players earn counts on the cap.

6 I believe, Wigan had 7 I think!

How would you rate the relative quality of those who played from the youth set ups?

I am a big advocate of scouting in Union for talent but i think you are living in cloud cockoo land if you think we can realistically target the top international players.

In my opoinion very few international players are suited to our code anyway, i think a much more feasable group to aim at are players in the lower leagues whose style may not suit Union which is holding them back. Being a good Union player does not mean you will be a good league player and vise sersa, it is about which code suits you the best, i think there are many players capable of being good SL players in the First Division of Union, who cannot make to top flight Union as they are not suited to the game but skill, size and mentality wise are suited to League, this is one reason i was hoping to see Jones at the club in some capacity as he will have the eye to pick up on these players, have the contacts and will lift the ignorance that exists in some League peoples minds.

From Wigan on Friday.

Goulding
O'Carroll
Hock
O'Loghlin
McIlorum
Hansen
Tomkins

Saints
Wellens
Armstrong
Cunningham
Roby
Graham
Clough

.....and the relative quality question?

Noble only wants the finished product - he doesn't want to develop young talent - he never did at Bradford - I would be amazed if he is still in charge by Easter.

The club will be investing hundreds of thousands on youth development for Noble to bring in the likes of Smith, Riddell, Bailey and Phelps - who are no better than the likes of Goulding, McIlorum and Tomkins who will not see the first team unless the Aussies get some serious injuries

I'd take any of The Wigan backrow forwards over Clough.(Doesn't mean I don't rate Clough)
Obviously there are the two International hookers at Saints.

You're quite welcome to Wellens.

Graham over Eamonn (Doesn't mean I don't rate O'Carroll)
Goulding before Armstrong.

On Friday night Leeds had 11 players out of 17 that had come through their academy and that excluded Burrow

How many are locals?

"Wigan - A local team for local people"

Marketing at it's best

The Clough one is a big call, although back row is probably Wigans strongest area of the pitch.

Graham / O'Carroll is a no brainer

Amazed you wouldn't take Wellens given your full back strength.

Cunningham / Roby are the best combination in SL I feel.

Goulding has the edge due to his experience so far, can't fairly judge Armstrong on just one SL game.

Noble saying this is somewhat daft, as mentioned, given his reluctance to put more than one young player in per week.

I did not see the show but if he did say it what chance have the youngsters at wigan got with him in charge????

Some people obviously didn't understand.

What he said was that EVERY Superleague Club should be allowed to bring in ONE top class Rugby Union player.
Only £50K of that players salary should be counted on the salary cap.

The reasons

1) We could target top class British players

2) It would be good publicity.

3) It would help the International squad.

With the obvious dearth of quality outside backs in our game, it's not such a stupid idea.

Difficult one this, I can see the merits of this if the correct players were signed.

I would prefer to reward the promotion of youngsters through our own academies though.

Let a fixed % of a players contract be removed from the salary cap if they stay with the club that has developed them.

As you know that's something I've always advocated.
The Rugby Union one is interesting. Another Jonathan Davies, yes another Iron Man Davies no.

But for International Rugby League it could be great help.

The 50K thing is interesting.

If a club sign a RU player then his salary less 50K to count on the cap would be a better system than just saying he is worth 50K a year.

What I think would happen is that someone would throw a fantastic amount of money at SBW for example just because it would get around the cap.

Got to be strict conditions if this was to be even considered.

This is true but it could be so much stronger if Noble got the selection right.

I think it would be at its strongest if we had

Hansen
Lockers
Tomkins

with Hock off the bench

Instead of

Hock
Bailey
Lockers

with Hansen and Tomkins off the bench (no need for both but he hasn't got the balls to drop one of them)

Both second half tries were from forward passes.

I like Noble's idea. He says that only one ex Union player per club would get the SC concession. That would not affect anything concerning youth development.
Also agree with Jonh that we go below six nations level for players.
After all Boston never played for Wales and Offiah didn't play for England.
A wingman of their calibre would do very nicely thank you.
Before he brings a number of youth players through he needs to bolster the front row by at least one of not two experienced props.
When he's done that lets have a look at Tomkins, Mossop and Farrell.
Given the injury to Phelps it is time he brought Ainscough in.

A salary cap concession just means the union player would get paid more. The players agent would inflate the salary demanded to take account of the fact they know clubs can spend some more money on wages.

Why can't anyone see this would be divisive? It basically says RU players are worth more than established RL players.

It is a ridiculous idea.

Dave

Like you say Dave it would do nothing for team unity in the slightest.

How could you justify having someone just walk into an RL team and get paid far more than players who are better than them.

I know in the past RU has provided some great players to RL, but that was before RU went professional. Any decent RU player would surely want to stay in that code and earn the money that only RU has at the moment.