No it ain't bad and I've not bagged them. I think we doing great in transition but our backs IMO our not good enough. They are slow, boring, lack creativity and not exciting.

The only exciting back we have with genuine skill, explosive power and pace is Kyle eastmond and saintsfan wants him dropped because he's leaving.

I think we will know how good or how bad our backs will be next year when we know what Leon is doing.

Name me the teams that have four or five backs that beat men regularly?

Shenton is no Paul Newlove. But to say he simply can't beat a man is daft. For someone so easy to tackle his try scoring record is rather surprising. Or were they ALL overlaps? Leave the kid alone. He's in his first season playing with inexperienced halves. Only a fool would write him off so early. As for Makinson - he doesn't seem to struggle beating men with PACE.

If you watched Gaskell in the academy you'd know he never struggled to beat a man. Unfortunately he's now playing against fully mature players whilst wearing the skin of an immature one. No different to Lomax, who before maturity struggled to beat players also.

Even Meli, who whilst no twinkle-toes, has little trouble running [ithrough[/i men.

Quit the nonsense. Please.

We will see mug but IMO our backs ain't good enough to win anything or beat Wigan or Warrington.

When we sign a centre who can make things happen and add pace to that back line we will win nothing like the last few years.

Again, name me the teams with four or five backs who REGULARLY beat men.

Tomkins, Carmont, Richards, Charnley and Leului.

Hodgson, king, Atkins, Monaghan, bridge,

You could see that coming a mile off

But true

Sorry bu just seen the tried from Friday and Foster beat quite a few men for pace. Unless we are not counting Cats as being an important enough team to beat.

All this beating a man for pace is entirely subjective, lets face it we are not talking the 100m dash here. I've seen Saints beat quite a few backs for pace this year. But in the end it is very rare that teams get a clear 1 on 1 race for the try line. RL is about breaking down defences, by drawing men in.busting through tackles. If we just want a set of backs that are 1 trick ponies and all about pace and nothing else, then we should just go ahead and buy the likes of Kevin Penny, Karl Pryce etc

They are both player with pace to burn, but very little else to their game, making them liabilities in both attack and defence.

There were alot of people saying they expected us to get beaten by les Cats. Well we didn't.

We are better than this current popular doomsday opinion that is floating about. I reckon we'll end up 3rd probably by 4 points (2 games) and for a season that has been so disruptive until the last couple of weeks, that is no bad result.

See disaster and strife of you like, but we have a great hooker, 2 centres that made the top 2 in the england and exiles teams.

2 Young and fast wingers

We still have class in the half backs with Lomax and Leon, Gaskell will get their in the proper time when he's had a few years floating in and out of the first grade, just like Lomax has had for the past 2 seasons.

TP, Soliola, Wilkin are all players I would not want to lose.

Graham is world class.

So for me we have an issue at FB, but players available to fill that gap, Eastmond this year, next year lomax, pryce or lance.
Perry needs a run of fitness
LMS been slightly disappointed but he showed class at Quins so not willing to give up after 1 season with this guy
CLough needs a run of fitness
Flannery is a solid player ( not every squad has amazing in every position)
Moore has been good when he plays


I really don't see the impending doom where we are struggling to make the top 4.

I'll go as far to say I reckon we'll win the CC and make the GF again.

We could do with some more bulk in the forwards, but we have more than enough for most teams and we can still challenge the top 2 on our day. In the CC we will only need 1 good day to beat either Wigan or Warrington.
In the playoffs, we only need 1 good day in the semis to make the playoffs, but can't see us having a consistent enough run to win it. If we had Perry and Clough fit, as well as Leon returning then I'd maybe change my mind. As it is, is been a good season, if some only accept top spot and nothing else well then that's tricky to achieve in sport, where teams will cycle up and down. But I have no idea why we cannot cycle up in 2012. In 2004 we finished 5 with a team of great players, the next year we ended top.

I seen fosters tries and I don't mean like that. I mean going past somebody one on one without overlaps, without being put thru a gap, I mean actually taking a man on.

And by the way mate, foster hasn't gig genuine pace, he's not slow but certainly not fast.

There is only one way to find out Fiiiiiiigh (oppps Race)..

I'm not going to say it, I'll leave it here about Jamie.

Christ, we're really scraping the barrel here.

Aye, there's only seven or eight of the league top try scorers in there.

Scraping the barrel? Most if not all those players listed would walk into our side.

Lolz

He'd walk into our team. Don't forget we've only one centre at the club.

Really? Here's the top ten try scorers for 2011 so far, according to engage:

Kris Welham with 20
Kirk Yeaman
Joel Monaghan
Ryan Hall
Tom Briscoe
Sam Tomkins
Damien Blanch with 15
Brett Hodgson with 15
Josh Charnley with 15
Jamie Foster with 15

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I'd say we're more short of quality half backs than backs. Meli has done a fantastic job at Centre and Shenton given space is dangerous (as shown on Friday). Foster is a points machine alongside Meli and Gardner is a good winger especially exiting sets. The problem comes at full back for us which is why I'd go with Hohaia or Lomax there next season, along with re-signing Pryce. That would make us pretty strong in the backs and would allow us to focus on recruiting another prop forward.

I'd have Shenton, Meli, Soliola and Wheeler ahead of him. That's four players which is pretty damn good if we only have one centre at the club.

Meli is winger
Sia is backrow
Wheeler is a crock

The point is, we only have one specialist centre in shenton. Carmont is a very good solid safe centre.

Erm according to [url=http://www.superleague.co.uk/statistics_playerEngage[/url there are seven of those players who are in the top 25 try scorers this year.

The point is all three of them are more than capable of performing at a higher level than what you call a "very good solid safe centre". The move of Meli to centre has been brilliant. He gets more work, is devastating near the line and he's not defending bombs. It's a win-win for us

I'd still take a out and out specialist centre before meli and sia any day. Sia hasn't got the pace and is a very good backrow. Who would you play in the backrow when you move sia centre?

Meli has done a great jon, his power has give us much needed threat outwide but I still think he's a weak link in defence against good clever teams as positionally he's not sound.

I don't disagree with you about that but when you throw Carmont into the mix I'm obliged to argue. In fact, on behalf of the real world, I am bound by duty to do so