Quote ="Northampton_Saint"Ages of the our current overseas players when we signed them:
Soliola - 24
Meli - 26
Hohaia - 28
Perry - 30
TP - 28
Flannery - 27
Frankie - 31
Which of these would you consider the kind of over-the-hill, clapped out, past-it players that we should be avoiding the signing of and instead be recruiting non-existent, equivalent quality, unsigned young British talent instead? Only Perry and Frankie were 30+ when we signed them, and 30 and 31 is hardly "past it" for recent Aussie international forwards.
Once again, those inconvenient facts disprove the knee-jerk reactionism. Curse them.'"
I wouldn't say we've signed over the hill overseas players, we've just signed overseas players to play in the wrong positions. TP was signed as a back rower and has played the majority of time at prop (until this year), Soliola was signed as a Centre, Laffranchi is a back rower converted to a prop and Hohaia is never a half back. Only Meli, Flannery and Perry have consistently played in their regular positions (and bar Perry, both were signed several eyars ago). Our recruitment decisions the last few years have been poor particularly overseas players.