I can imagine. He seems to be playing really well in the reserve grade, getting plenty of plaudits on Twitter for his performances, including length of the field tries at the weekend.

Would be a great addition. The cynic in me suggests we won't move for anyone. McDonnell was a push, don't see them moving again.

Id be surprised to see Mcdonnell play again for us. Prob one of the worst injuries you can do and not many make it back from that and get anywhere near the player they was

Such horrible news for the bloke after upping sticks to the other side of the world and grabbing his chance well - here's hoping he makes it back.

Let's not jump to conclusions re. McDonnell. Neither him or anyone within the club are ruling out him playing again this season just yet.

If he's snapped his Achilles then he's gone for 5/6 month. It's horrfic injury and effectively ended Paul newlove.

Like you said, we will have to wait until official.

Brad Pitt was never the same when he injured his, in Troy

So much for my earlier optimism, Saints have confirmed McDonnell is done for the season.

Unbelievably bad luck. That's 4 full backs out for the season now.

Can you imagine being the player KC identifies as the fullback for the remainder of the season? "Alright son, you are probably going to need major surgery soon".

Certainly will be interesting to see how we line up on sunday

Terrible news for McDonnell. What a tragedy for the lad, and just such an innocuous fall.

We're starting to get into some serious grief now because of this injury curse. With Wellens, Makinson, Lomax and McDonnell now done for the season, we're now without a very significant portion of our salary cap off the field for a long time. Saints are going to have to be hard-nosed about this, as well as looking after their players as well as they possibly can. It has to make financial sense to try and get one or two (McDonnell and Wellens are the obvious choices) of them off the cap. Maybe that's paying off the contract and taking the one-off hit, and it might need a friendly chat with the RFL, but it's going to be very hard to carry this now.

I would prefer:

Percival
Dawson
Jones
Turner
Swift.

However he may also go:

Swift
Dawson
Percival
Turner
Fleming

I can't see him chucking someone like Bailey in but 3rd and final option would be:

Bailey
Dawson
Percival
Turner
Swift

Is Swift ok after his injury?

I'm not entirely sure he was OK before it based on Thursday night!

He definitely had a bad case of the dropsies!

Yes. The club confirmed it on Twitter today.

did they confirm they've got him some better sticking spray for his hands?

We had a replacement fullback lined up but, for safety reasons, he accepted a job as Spinal Taps drummer instead.

Got told last night that Saints had approached lee Smith the ex Leeds fullback. Source wasn't one of my "normal" ones so I don't know how true it is.

*Mods if you want to move this to the rumours thread feel free. *

Needs must, I guess.

Wonder what the salary cap position is now, surely we qualify for some special dispensation due to having 4 full backs out with season ending injuries. Unless we can get someone who loves Saints so much they are willing to play for free.

I can't stand Lee Smith but if he's fit (big if given he's been scratching around for a while and looked pretty unfit recently anyway) he'd do a job given we're in dire straits.

I'd rather Eden TBH (despite his glaring flaws), and certainly Locke.

It's a tough one. Locke is the one that jumps out, but as KC has stated that is likely to be a bit of quagmire. It's a shame really, as it would be ideal for both parties. Perhaps this legendary press conference that's happening in the next hour will throw up some new possibilities on that front.

Eden has moments of brilliance but, as everyone has been saying, his defence is all over the place. And not just his defence, either: I've seen him make some jaw-dropping decisions in and around his own in-goal area while in possession. I've no doubt that he'd be getting flayed alive on here within weeks if we signed him. He's clearly got loads of talent, but if he was ever going to get moulded into a complete player then one of his several clubs would have managed it by now.

Lee Smith was handy in his Leeds days, but I thought he looked close to Championship standard when at Wakey. Needs must, I suppose.

There's a real risk we can end up hanging ourselves over the long term to fix a short term problem. I don't like Locke's attitude. I wouldn't entertain Smith or Eden under normal circumstances. So I'm not going to start now.

Play the kids. They are on the books. They wear the Red Vee. Replacements are what the juniors exists to provide.

If it doesn't work out during the playoffs - fine. We gave it a try. Ultimately we are right at the limit of injuries which we can endure whilst maintaining a credible chance for the GF. What we don't want is to hurt next season's (excellent) chances with stupid panic-buys.

McDonnell has been directly involved in more tries than any other player in Super league in the rounds he's played since he's been over.

Salford have now accepted Locke's resignation..........

If there is any possibility of a quick fix I would opt for Locke, just get the feeling he would be a much better player in a Saints Side than the Salford Bunch.