All the talk on here regarding the lack of an organiser in the halves involved various solutions. One solution was we should not have let Pryce go. Having watched him play today has made me realise that it was the correct decision to let him go. His contribution was nil; I never expected to say it but I would have Wellens at S/O rather than Pryce.

Wello over pryce!!!!! Are you mad?

You can't base it on one game, Leon was very good last year. I'd have Leon back in a flash.

Pryce is 100x the player Hohaia is and would walk into our team. I'd have him back next season to play 6 for us no problem

The Wello comment is just daft. Wello cant pass , cant run and cant organise.

....can't tackle, can't kick.

Leon is a dummy spitter who wouldn't even train at the end. We had three good years out of him be thankful. Wello gave us ten, even though he is a bit of a father Jack now

Pryce just seemed the usual Leon, a day when he did not look that interested, over the years we have seen many days like that as Well as some when he uses his natural Talent! Hull clearly showed what Youth they are developing!

Agreed! It was just typical Pryce IMO.

Anyone saying they'd have Wellens over him are nuts.

Leons legs are shot.

In his final season at Saints you could see he had lost a yard of pace and no longer could go the distance.

Now he doesn't even have the pace to go through a gap.

Still offers some threat due to his size but looks like a player in his final playing days.

For me we let him go at the right time.
What we failed to do was bring in the correct replacement.

I would suggest that is wisdom with hindsight. When Lomaskell first came on to the scene during the Eastmond/Pryce dying days they created a lot of excitement because lots of people (and no, not just me) thought they had potential and let's face it, there would have been nothing better than to see two homegrown local talents becoming our halfback partnership would there? As it is things haven't worked out for those two as a halfback pairing for whatever reason and so now we are stuck.

Without a doubt we let him go a right time due to his age and injuries catching up with him but anyone who'd play wello at 6 before Leon is mental

Pryce had plenty of moments of magic last year and was invaluable for the Dragons, now I wouldn't even pick him in the 17.

Id have Pryce back without a doubt!

Lance wouldn't even know how to lace his boots!

You are talking Pryce in his pomp in a good team. When the team started to fail he failed with it. Whilst he is a better stand off than Wello or Wilkin he really was not in it for the club. Those two have been. He could have behaved better in his last two years.

I think sometimes this allegation was made against Pryce and I think is/was unfair.
There were plenty of games when we where behind or struggling and Pryce pulled us out of the . Do you remeber the game we won at Wigan with a scratch team, when Pryce kicked a 40-20 and then scored himself from the scrum base? Leon could do things that most players could only dream of.

Indeed. He scored game-breaking tries in three separate major finals between 2005 and 2008. And people accused him of not turning up in big games.

Leon was a greta player and i do think we had him when he fancied it the most and made it possible for us to win all those trophies.

I do think he has rapidly declined though and it would be tough for me to say id have him back now. As many have said, we got rid of what was becoming a problem and replaced it with another problem, our inability to replace him!

It's about pragmatism I'm afraid, Leon Pryce may not be as good as he used to be according to some/most but he is still miles better than anything we have at the moment.

Also worth noting for the eternal optimist and apologists on this forum that always hide behind the 'hindsight' argument that we replaced Leon (a proven Standoff) with a fullback who 'might' have been able to make the change to standoff. We also decided to do this after releasing our other scrum half option (the season before) before we bothered to tie up the best prospect in RL and our long term 7 Kyle Eastmond on a long term deal.

I'm just hoping the club has developed a short, medium and long term strategy now which will get us out of the mess we are in and that this is reflected in the nature and length of people contracts. If we haven't we'll be floundering around for many years.

When we signed Leon he wasnt a proven stand off though,he was a winger/utility back but we had the luxury of world class players to make the transition easier,had we re signed him we still would be struggling as he wasnt a playmaker and needed a good 7 to run the show.

Pryce isn't anywhere near the player he was.
You have a new 7, now you need a new 6.
Pryce isn't at the standard you now need!

We didn't though. We replaced Leon with Gaskell and Eastmond with Lomax, both of whom were recognised halves albeit young and inexperienced ones.

Hohaia may wear 6 on his back but it was quite clear from press statements at the time that his utility value was crucial to his appointment.

Easy to look back and see what a mistake it was letting Pryce go, and naturally I think we would have been better for his presence over the last 18 months rather than Hohaia's. I agree completely with the first post though, Pryce is completely shot now and carries very little threat any more.

The sad things is he'd still walk into our team at Stand Off right now.

I think Mark Bailey would.

He'd have the best hands and fastest in our backs

To be fair to Bailey he was a solid pro who played in almost every back position in his Saints career.

He had a few critics but was a victim of circumstance some of the time because he ended up playing 3,4,6 or 7 when we had injuries or when the promised big signings had never materialized.