Got the makings of a great side

Board and managment need to be ruthless - only ay to kick on and get us over the line

Royce - need to prepare the side for big games and give them the belief that they can win. Why did we not do any moves in the first 35 mins?

Meli, Flannery - not good enough now despite some good service. LEt them go and bring in a back - cheap Carmont style ideal
Wello - love the guy but move to 13
Makinson / Hohia need to fill the 1 jersey for next year
Perry - needs to be on pay as you play
Wheeler - centre spot is there for the taking - get gime on the most gruelling pre-season fitness regime
Gaskell/Lomax - evaluate your performance, learn from your mistakes

Its been a good season - let's make next year a great one

I wouldn't move wello in to the 13 position. If he can't hold his fullback spot down then I'd not pick him at all.

Flannery was kept because the is nothing out there and he's cheap. With our injury record it's better to keep him than have no one.

Perry would never agree to pay as you play and it's not entirly fair. He's not chose to be injured and pretty sure he'd loved to been out there tonight.

100% with you on this one to.

I agree with the being ruthless. But then the club goes and resigns Flannery, Meli and Gardner.

Those three plus Wello must leave. Wello, as much as I love him, is an absolute joke these days, he's as mobile as a manequin and that horrific comb over. He is nothing more than a roadside statue in defense and contributes less than nothing in attack.

I agree, wello is slow but his positional play can't be bought and has been very good the last month and has been carrying acpretty bad thigh injury.

Jamie foster ain't got much more to offer with the ball in hand. Still waiting for him to go past a defender.

It's no shock we resigned the three players named above as our recruitment policy has been poor for to long now.

Its all very well and good saying they must leave,but who would you sign ? you want to get rid of 4 players ok fair enough but which 4 non quota players would you get ? now play fair and pick the out of contract ones no the imaginary ones that we could never buy,also no overseas players as we have no room for them.

this is so easy to solve, and we have cover at all these positions too. We're stuck with ade, so 1 Lance/Makinson. 2 Makinson/Ade. 3 Shenton/Wheeler. 4(soliola wont play here) Meli/wheeler. 5 Foster

Could be wrong but isn't it illegal to have a player on a pay as you play contract ?

no, but you'd be dancing with death as far as the slary cap, unless you account for them playing all the games

Not sure,but i think we did it with Scully when he tried to come back from all his injuries didnt we ?

I'm just sure it would break the visa rules.

The cap would count them as playing every match. It wouldn't be likely to happen, but perhaps it might result in one or two players actually getting onto the field.

just put them on the mastacard then!

I'm meaning more for an overseas player, I doubt a pay per play contract would be allowed with immigration services or whoever deals with all that stuff.

you'd fly through on a working holiday one

And be replaced by who? Bearing in mind that they would need to be English and coming out of contract now as we can't pay transfer fees? Name a suitable realistic replacement for each that would be vaguely an upgrade I dare you...

Give Makinson the No.1 spot next season, Royce, please.

Personally I would like to see:

Makinson
Foster
Shenton
Wheeler
Gardner (Brotherton if ready, Ashe maybe if not?)
Gaskell
Lomax
Perry
Roby
Clough
Puletua
Wilkin
Laffranchi

Flanagan
Hohaia
LMS
Soliola

If you are seriously suggesting there isn't a single (affordable) player - old, young or foreign who could not do a better job playing in a top side than Meli, Gardner and Flannery then the game of Rugby League has officially come to a dead end.

Name some?

We areall gutted we lost last night but you seem more bitter than disappointed. We are a young team who did the club proud last night. We can't just bin all our players because we lost the final.

Meli is being made the scapegoat again but the was others on that side also

Instead of calling everything the club has done this year, just stop and think what this team has gone thru and maybe you'll see that we've done a hell of a lot better than expected.

I'd drop Meli and Moore without a moment's hesitation.

Flannery doesn't come cheap.

Ive said all year, saints made massive mistake in keeping meli. The fact we play him centre just to keep him off the wing is a total joke!

Anyone with half a brain can see we need a real centre, not just someone who can play ok there but someone who knows how to beat a man, someone who knows when to give to his winger, someone who knows when to go himself, a proper centre!

Scott Moore gets me nervous everytime he's on the pitch. Everytime he makes a tackle I think penalty, everytime he gets the ball I expect him to drop it.

The OP seams a bit lets say off his nut. All that would result from following that would be multi million pounds of law suits from four players for breach of contract.

I would agree with letting Meli go but it would be down to him to ask for the move. Basically we need a fit Wheeler otherwise its going to be 2013 before we can get a new centre.

If Wheeler can get fit the centre spot is their for him to make his own. Makinson on the wing next year for mine. Wello did nothing wrong last night but get injured. However if he has been playing injured we cant do this next year.We have lomax and lance who can play here. Playing a half fit wellens is not better than a fully fit lance or lomax.

Give over. We could have signed Hoffman. We could have signed Ratchford (who can easily play at centre). We could have signed Waterhouse or Westerman. We could have signed any number of promising kids from other academies, the lower leagues or Australia/NZ. Let's get something straight - Meli, Gardner and Flannery are NOT great players. "Solid" (another word for modestly gifted) is the best description most fans can come up with. Aside from Flannery (who admittedly makes few mistakes) I'd be guarded about using that word alongside Meli and Gardner who are demonstrably NOT solid. Meli should NEVER have been given his original contract extension. He did nothing to warrant it and all subsequent ones beggar belief. Leaving aside 18 months of good form (which is so long ago I can barely recall it) Gardner has been living off the backs of other more talented players. If all three had been playing for Widnes or Hull I doubt we would EVER consider signing any of them. Most fans would consider such a proposal a joke.



Another straw man argument. NO ONE has suggested binning all our players. We have a very talented core group of youngsters who will undoubtedly go on to achieve much in the game. But fans have been (rightly) calling for the heads of Gardner and Meli for years.



ANOTHER straw man argument. Didn't I see you peddling a pushbike and trailer in Worzel Gummidge? Meli is not THE scapegoat. He is unquestionably A scapegoat. What makes things worse is he has now been directly responsible for costing Saints THREE Grand Finals. No wonder the Australians laugh at our game. They figured out Meli the best part of a decade ago. Which is why NO NRL club is in a hurry to offer him a route back into the NRL.



Let's get back to reality here. Saints were hardly also rans going into this season. Most people had them as third/fourth favourites behind Wigan, Warrington and possibly Huddersfield. Now, how many Grand Finals have been contested by teams outside the top two? Quite a few now. So Saints were always in with a chance of getting to the Grand Final. What's worse is we WEREN'T beaten by any of the pre-season favourites. We went down to a Leeds side which finished BELOW us in the table. Indeed, Saints went into the match as hot favourites. So quit with the "heroic achievement" nonsense. Had we been Hull or Salford I might agree.