Top clubs, mainly Leeds, with their crop of McGuire,Sinfield,Burrow, Bailey, Walker and Calderwood showed the rest that a constant flow of youngsters was the way to sustain your fortunes with less room for error. Its a proffesional era, so good strategies are going to be copied.

The mistake McManus made was thinking other clubs would simply accept a dominant Saints academy and lie down. Not that our academy setup was ever perfect. I've talked at length about our appalling record of producing props.



I'd argue Saints' youth development setup has pretty much always been oriented toward the backs. From eight to thirteen (excluding hooker) our record is sketchy to say the least.

Did he mention this to you personally? I think we should give credit to Mr Mc for being a bit brighter than that don't you?

You must be going back a while. I can't remember any Saints side dominating the academy and reserve competitions. The only two that have, would be Leeds in the early part of the Millennium and the present Wigan side, who last year won the reserve comp for the fourth (maybe fifth?) time in a row.



As for producing props. You may not have created many but you did produce the best prop in the last 20 years IMO, and are now paying the price for his departure.

It would be silly to claim players such as Eastmond, Wheeler, Graham, Lomax that emerged a few years ago weren't part of a dominant Saints academy. Did they win every trophy on offer for years - of course not. But the academy consistently performed well and these (and other) youngsters were pretty much universally regarded as an outstanding crop and certainly the best the club had produced in years. This (along with salary cap constraints) was the reason McManus felt confident in letting older squad members go. Players which - with the benefit of hingsight - were never replaced because these kids were too young to compete physically or weren't capable of making the jump to first team football.

Bright enough to offer Francis Meli, a player who has cost Saints two Grand Finals (and had a hand in a third), repeated contract extensions?



Bright enough to let the Eastmond saga drag on six months too long, which threatened, at one point, to blow the team apart and has ultimately left us with NO scrum halves?



Bright enough to offer repeated contract extensions to Ade Gardner, a player who has had possibly eighteen months of good form in his career and undoubtedly one of the slowest wingers ever to wear a Saints shirt?



Bright enough to be spending up to the cap for the last five years (his words) whilst the team has been hemorrhaging talent like blood from a severed limb?



Bright enough to turn a team which has ALWAYS offered a potent attacking threat from the backs (Ledger, McCormack, Quirk, Hunte, Sullivan, Albert, Gibbs, Iro, Newlove, Lyon, Gidley, Martyn, Long etc.) into one of the slowest in the league?



Bright enough to keep Paul Wellens two years past the point when he was shot?



Bright enough to sign Royce Simmons?

The new stadium really does paper over a lot of cracks in many peoples eyes!

I think he looks like a very good player. He's got great feet, speed but maybe lacks a little size for front row at the moment.



I'd 100% sign him if possible, he's already better than LMS and clough.

He's a fine player, get him!

i did warn you, goodbye

With regard to spending up to the cap, or not - let's say he was fibbing. Would ANY Saints fan [ireally [/imind if McManus came out and said something along the lines of, [i"Look, we're a bit strapped for cash funding the new stadium so squad expenses are going to take a short-term hit"?[/i I can't be certain but my best guess is almost all would accept the fact because Knowsley Road was shot, it was costing us a fortune to run and a choice between a new stadium and a successful, highly-paid team playing at a dilapidated ground is no choice at all. So he really had no need to hide the truth. But if he did he created a stick with which to beat him from the outset.



On the other hand, if we WERE up to the cap limit then serious questions need to be asked of McManus' business acumen - [ipurely insofar as contractual negotiations are concerned.[/i



Any fool can see an enormous difference between Millward's team of experienced, highly-skilled internationals and, say, Royce's first season team of - for the most part - greenhorn kids. The former commands high salaries across the board resulting in a maxed out cap. The latter teamsheet certainly doesn't leap off the table and say the same. Sure, Wellens, Roby, Graham, Wilkin etc. are likely to be on a comfortable salary. But Gaskell, Lomax, Foster, Makinson, Wheeler??? Surely not.

Ok I don't think we are spending up to the cap, but having said that there is a massive difference which I think is 2 fold.

In the Millward era, we where spending so close to the cap we busted it a few times, and we paid money offshore and in image rights. Those loopholes are now close which would equate to 1 or 2 players wages dropping off the books.



The 2nd part is where we splash the cash



Long/Sculthorpe/Cunningham/Martyn/ then say Joynt , basically the money was spent through the spine, you would then have a very good prop, maybe 2 and the rest where club men. 2nd rowers, ok there was Joynt, but his partners, bennett, yonkers would not be on the money that say wilkin, sia, even flanaghan will be on. I think we are spending our money in slightly the wrong areas and the spine has weakened. Who takes our big bucks? I'd guess



Perry/TP/LMS/La Franki/Wellens/Roby/Wilkin/Lance, maybe shenton.



So we have spent our big bucks on a pack and 2 fullbacks. The creative spine has not been invested in to the same extent. Now the young kids have done well but 2 half backs developing together, is not like Long who came into a team with Goulding, Martyn, Hammond to help him out. Long used to run around alot but his kicking took years to develop. If we spent a little less on the pack maybe 2 very good props and the rest would be jonkers, stankovickes, bennetts, edmondsons, etc, not on major money but good money, then we could spend more on other roles.



A 3rd thought that has also come to me is the competition far fewer teams spent the cap in the past, so you could throw large chunks of cash at your stars and what you offered the rest was still competitive with the likes of the underspenders. Now if you don't pay enough, then a player like Emmit will go to Cas for more money. In the past we would not have offered more to keep Emmit but our offer would have been enough and Cas would not have been able to blow it out the water.