Whats happened to Wheeler by the way, he was supposed to be our Tommy Martyn replacement by now, surely he isn,t afull time injurist.

Same for Swift looked promising, fast and elusive, whats happened to him.

Big concern is we can,t develop our young promising players in the same manner of Wigan, Warrington and Leeds.

Lomax, Gaskell and Makinson have flattened out in performance, they should be star players and a constant threat but they are not. Is this very bad coaching or have we lost that winning structure and culture in what is a poor standard of superleague.

Me too, sadly. Can hardly remember a player ever signing for Saints when everyone hasn't been talking about them for months already (Turner and Manu being the latest example.)



It's August now so if we were in for 2 more players I'd expect to have heard some names linked by now. But it's all gone quiet.

Get rid of them all...3rd in table and losing 4 games since March is not acceptable in my book whatsoever!!



Why not sign up all the Bradford players who are available as they are obviously better than what we have and see where that gets us?



Whilst I agree we could do with 1 or 2 more players, why sign people just for the sake of it. A player must be available in order for us to sign them. Instead of just saying "a prop" or "a stand off", look at players that are available and we would have a realistic chance of signing and see if they are an improvement on what we already have...I think you will find most available players are no better than our current options so until that changes why sign them??

I remeber they announced Gidley very late and no-one knew who was going to play centre.

Perry came out the blue, i think, although Laffranchi (a long with waterhouse) had been speculated. I don't remember much being said about Hohaia before we signed him?

That's not a valid excuse. There have been plenty of players available in recent times and we've not moved to sign them. Chris Hill is now arguably the best prop in Super League and moved last season, Greg Eden has the potential to be as good as Billy Slater according to our new coach and he's moved clubs recently, so have the likes of Watts, Lynch, Ellis. Look at the signings other clubs have made in recent years, the likes of Dureau, Atkins, Ratchford and Hardaker. There are enough quality players about, we've just not got the right ingredients. Whether it's a lack of care because we've focused on the stadium, or more that we've simply not got anyone with the right squad building ability I don't know, but we've failed miserably with recruitment over the last 6-7 years and the best young players we've produced have also left the club.

You forgot Gary Wheeler and your mate Wello!

Thank god you lot are in the minority.

Chris Hill being the exception...when Catalans signed Dureau Kyle Eastmond was replacing Long as our 7 and without a crystal ball to tell the future, we didnt know he was going to move to union. Same with Atkins, when Wire signed him we had Gidley and Talau in centres and we wouldnt have played him in front of either of them. Watts is another Scott Moore and often finds himself in trouble so I doubt we would look at him, Lynch (whilst a good player) is past his best now and wont be long til he retires. As for Hardaker...what planet are you on? I live in Leeds and a lot of my good mates are Leeds fans and even they moan about him not being good enough (apart from a handful of games this season) so why would we want him? The players you have mentioned there were no better than what we had at the time they were available (with the exception of Ellis but I am more than happy with Manu signing and Ellis has struggled with injuries of late) so why would we have gone for them?



As for the best youngsters leaving the club over the last 6-7 years, Eastmond went to RU and we let Smith go who has done OK at Salford and moved to Wigan...other than that which youngsters have we let go that have gone on and proved that we should have kept them? Only one I would have kept is Jake Emmitt tbh who looks wasted at Cas.



Dont get me wrong, I would love nothing more than for us to sign world class players like Lyon, Sculthorpe etc again but if those players arent available at the moment there is nothing we can do about it. IMO we have a squad which is capable of beating Warrington (as we showed earlier in season) and I think we can also challenge Wigan in the playoffs, sat 3rd in the league and still in a transitional phase after losing Long, KC, Scully, Graham and moving to a new stadium...things could be a lot worse for us

Hear, hear. It's utter fantasy to talk about all the great players moving clubs that we should be signing. There are very, very few. And we're not the only club desperate to fill vital positions and having to make do with mediocrity for the time being as there is simply nothing better available. Look who's going to be filling the #7 shirt at Wigan next season. Has Wigan's recruitment "failed" too? No - they're simply stuck in the same boat as we are and that every other club is of having to make do. Leeds and Warrington will join us in that boat once their major players start retiring over the next few seasons too. And even if there were loads of great players available - what kind of one-eyed arrogance is it to suggest that Saints should be signing every single one of them? There are 13 other clubs on the market for any players around (at super inflated prices relative to their worth given the lack of talent out there) and Saints have no God-given right to win a bidding war for every single one of them...



We are a couple of players and a good coach away from competing at the top level again. That fact may disappoint the knee-jerkers who want an excuse to start ripping at their clothes and wailing about our desperate plight and need to drown all of our current first team squad in the 'Otties and sign any and every second rate journeyman that comes on the auction block to replace them, but fact it still is. Deal with it.

They could be a lot worse, but if we follow the club's method of not being ambitious with signings, which you seem to support, we'll never get any better. Unless we sign someone for next season, which you suggest we shouldn't, we're not going to improve. Manu is a decent signing, but at 33 he's not a long term solution and his improvement over Flannery is counterbalanced by the downgrade of Shenton for Turner. We'll still be lacking in the front row and we'll still be lacking in the halves and we'll still be lacking massively at fullback.



The current crop of youngsters, Wheeler, Gaskell, Makinson. Clough, Dixon etc are all looking very average players at the moment. We are ruining Makinson in particular, he should have taken Wellens' place two years ago yet is still on the wing and it's questionable whether he'd have played at all this season had Gardner not got injured.



There isn't the basis of a good side there at the moment. The key positions are 1,6,7,8,9,10 for me and we're only doing well in one of those positions currently with Robes at 9.



Super League is so utterly awful that the academy could probably finish mid table, but the fact we're third shouldn't be a comfort blanket.

...and yet that league is apparently stuffed full with quality players better than we currently have up for grabs that we should be signing to replace them....



Do you want to have a little think about your logic there for a few minutes matey?

When did I say it was stuffed with them? I said there were enough about for us to make decent progress towards building a squad. Look at Warrington's rise, they are under the same cap as we are yet they are capable of pulling off the signings of Hill (Who looks like he will become as good as Graham), Ratchford, Atkins etc who would all waltz into our side and who would all improve us significantly. Huddersfield also made some very impressive signings to improve their squad over the years.



Why aren't we signing the likes of Eden, Atkins, Ratchford, Hill, Broughton, Hardaker? If we don't make these signings, we won't ever get the next Long, Cunningham, Sculthorpe etc. We seem to have this blind faith in our youth system, but it's producing SL squad players, but no real quality of late.



Professional sport should be about trying to win. We seem far too comfortable with planning for stable mediocrity right now. There doesn't seem to be any commitment to creating a winning side again.