Or maybe you are going to increase the contracts of the likes of Gaskell, Lomax, Makinson, Foster etc.

It's a risky business if you go down that route without having some top class experienced players to go with them.

Probably, but we need to be realistic - no clubs are going to sign 7 good quality players in an off season.

I've no doubt we will go down that route. We will keep saying how well we develop young players and suck all the fans into thinking we are building a new team round youth. In reality it's just the cheap option.

Of the above players, only lomax has a chance of making it but IMO he's totally over hyped.

I keep looking back to 2003/2004 at Wigan.

Briscoe, Hodgson, Aspinwall, Brown, Robinson, Hock, Wild, Tickle and O'Loughlin were all at similar ages to the Saints youngsters in your side now.

They were better players than Saints have, with the possible exception of Lomax, but failed because we didn't have sufficient experience around them.

I think a lot of saints fans get carried away with our youngsters. IMO only lomax has half a chance of making it to be good player and I have my doubts with him.

That would be why Foster has just been invited to join the Knights programme. Makinson is looking good on the wing too, for a 19 year old who has played half a dozen games there. We haven't seen a lot of our rookie squad members, as opposed to those in their second full seasons (eg Dixon, Ashurst) so I really don't know how you can make that kind of comment. It's a good thing to be positive about our young players but only time and plenty of first team experience will tell us if they can make the grade.

Just because you say you are spending upto the cap doesnt mean you are doing so.

After all if you tell everyone you are £300k under the cap, then current players will want a pay rise, fans will be querying why you are not spending to the limit, agents for players looking to move to Saints will also be looking for a big pay rise etc.

The only people who truly know if we are upto the cap limit are the RFL and Saints directors.

My personal suspicion is we are operating below it by some way, because it would make business sense to reduce salary cost base at this time. My rationale is that income will be massively reduced this year, and in the immediate years ahead we will have a large expenditure in the stadium to pay for, during a time of economic depression.
Moving to a new stadium makes financial predictions a bit of a gamble for the first year or so, as Saints wont truly know if they will get a boost in crowds attending, and by how much if any they will increase corporate and other income. Only after they have firm data showing what their income levels will be in the new ground, will they be able to properly analyse if they can afford to pay the full salary cap.

Remember the new stadium is supposed to be Saints financial saviour. Therefore Saints need to ensure that this is the case, and not take the view that a new stadium means they have won the lottery; and as a consequence start spending money they havent got.
I think Leigh Centurions may be a fair example of a club that has recently moved into a new stadium, but have since hit financial difficulty, because they assumed they would have money flooding in. The reality was the new stadium also introduced certain costs they may not have had in the past, and which they dont appear to have budgeted for. At the same time they didnt get any meaningful boost in attendances.

Before you try and start and heated debate, I'll just say, I hope to god these players turn out to be world beaters but IMHO I don't think they will.

I'm not going to over hype these players or get sucked into the ub saying we building from youth when it's obvious they are going for cheap option.

Anyone with half a brain knows you've got to be very lucky to bring thru a batch of good young players and the likely hood is that your lucky to get two out of say ten that will make a quality player.

I agree with the chair that we are probably comfortable under the cap, and saying otherwise is for the reasons he has mentioned. As for our youngsters, as far as skill goes Lomax looks a gem to me, and if the lad's luck changes, Wheeler too. After that we have Gaskell, who is a year behind those two in development and has done well thrown in before he was expecting. Foster looks good, but not great, i agree with Rogues that their young lad Charnley is a better winger. Makinson also has done well in his first season and has a lot of promise. After that we have the likes of Ashe, who has been well hyped but hasnt had the time in the team yet.
What we need is some quality forwards in our youth team. Wigan have brought through alot recently, and after Cloughy we've been sorely lacking there IMO

OK so you are now the chairman, which ENGLISH players do you propose we get to replace full back, centre, 2 props and of course the ridiculously over hyped Lomax, not forgetting Gaskell and Foster?

I think sometimes people listen to our pink and white spec wearing wigin friends a little too much.

Listen mate, if I was the chairman we wouldn't be needing all these players at once. It's called planning ahead. As I've said it's over a period of 5 years the recruitment has been poor, not just this year or for next year but for the last 5 years!

How many clubs only have one reconised centre at the club? None, we've had it since talau went.

It's keeping the likes of Gardner, meli, flannery, wello to long and not replacing them over a period of time. Meli should of gone two years ago and replaced, flannery shouldn't have got his 1 year deal and replaced and so on.

Instead we've kept these type of players and they have got old and all need replacing at once now.

In simple terms, plan ahead.

what do you think they have been doing? if you want good examples of not planning look at Warrington OR Leeds they really will be up the creek over the next 2-3 years when all their 30 yr olds drop off.

Gardner will be replaced by Makison - and before you or anybody else screams the "we need pace" mantra - I would suggest we sign Penny if that is teh criteria. Meli is STILL one of our strike options and his scoring rate is way up there - true we havent effectively replaced Talau but then Wigin are trying to convince themselves that Joel is the great white hope in centres, and when Carmont goes they will have 0 centres. Flannery is a solid hardworking 2nd rower who we miss dreadfully when he isnt in the middle of the park.

Wellens is still probably the best British full back in the british game - true he is getting to the end of his career but when he is on - there is no one better.

Over the last 5 years we have lost - Joynt, Lyon, Long, Sculthorpe, Cunningham - any team would struggle to replace one of these (all of whom are hall of fame players) yet we have done this job quietly and efficiently. I cannot believe the dummy spitting going on because we aren't winning everything like in 2006 - that team was unique we are rebuilding get over it.

.

Who was the last player Saints sold? PROBABLY Gary Connolly in the late 80's (can't exactly remember). Big Mac has [unever [/usold a player and anyway if you listen to St Pete we dont have any players the wolfs would want. You at the all stars are going to make some difficult decisions over the next 2 years like replace piggy, your entire front row and full back - good lucK

Good posts Steve.


I think Saints have managed our transition very well. Granted, we probably need another mature prop (as opposed to a young up and coming, who will hopefully get a chance next season as well). But other than that we don't need anyone else for next season.

we need to put our transition in context. Wigan nearly got relagated, the bulls are struggling to get in the 8, leeds struggling for top 6 and we're 4th after being decimated by injuries in key positions and the eastmond afair leaving us without our first choice halfback pairing yet this season!

Gleeson,and Brechek(spell?)

Ok.

Bollox we're spending the full cap.
We've space for another couple of players, I don't doubt that.
I remeber before they announced Gidley being convinced it was too late and thinking they we're going to move Hooper into the centres to save money. We often announce a signing quite late on, I think Perry was the same.

perry announced 15th of june last year, but as you say its far from too late for a significant signing, LMS was only announced on the 3rd of september last year

I think everyone knew that lms was coming a good few month before 3rd September. Same with Gilmour and fozzard, we knew they was coming but wasn't made official until September.

My point is, we was being linked with players but at the moment we are not.

We could be spending up to the cap!

This does not mean we are spending £1.7 or .6 million, what ever that is at the moment. The cap is about 50% of revenue as I recall as well as the £1.6 max. Well revenue from the fans is definatley down this year, whether that means revenue from sponsors and sky and marchandise is enough to make £3 of revenue I don't know.

Personally I just think we are a bunch of panic monkey's who cannot cope with the cycle of sport. The nature of SL makes it a cup competition not a league competition, so even in years where we have done relatively well during the season, ie finishing top, we have still come away without the title as it boils down to one off games in the playoffs.

Our last trophy was 3 seasons ago now. Yet in each of the last 2 seasons we have finished above the cup winners. 2009 by some way 2010 by points difference. This year we are behind by some 3 matches on Wigan and Warrington, in a season where our biggest earners have bearly been on the pitch. Pryce, Eastmond, Perry, all been out of the team for lengthy periods and could easily be pulling down £300 - £400 k between them.

Effectively we did invest in our halfbacks and we did plan ahead, but I've yet to know a season where the primary half back pairing have been unavailable to the team for 90% of the season (if not more, I've not done the figures). Perry was our big forward signing for this year and basically has added very little mostly due to injury.

I think Pete has a point over the centre position but that's about as far as I would take it. I think Saints where hoping to replace talau from within, the young lads where given oppertunities but no one had the quality to step up. The centre position was trialed with verious 2nd rowers, then last season we invest in an international centre and he goes and gets knackered 2 games in for the whole season and by the time he returns , he's suddenly a 2nd rower.

You say that saints wanted to replace talau from the youth team but it didn't work out. That's the risk with going with to much youth. If wheeler, makinson, lomax, Gaskell, foster ect don't make it, then where do we replace them from?

It's great we are bringing young kids thru the system and it would be great if we didn't need to sign players and all players was replaced with youth but it's not that easy. For every 10 or so young lads I bet only 1 or 2 make it.

Just for info from 1 - 17 first team games this year, our 1 - 17 have played 237 games between them, Eastmond has played most of his as a sub.

Warrington 1-17 have played 262 games all season

Wigan's 1 - 17 have played 268 games all season (that includes Gleeson sold mid season and Fielden out injured same as Pryce)

You can make up what you like about stats, but for me our 1-17 have not been on the pitch enough to win those 3 games that we are short on Wigan and Warrington. If you could take the money for Eastmond and Pryce and buy 2 more half backs, that where not learning the trade then we may just have have had enough about us to be a game or 2 further on. Certainly in the Warrington games our half backs where our weak spot.

Lomax and Gaskell have done well, but especially for Gaskell it's a rookie season and to better 90% of the half back combinations in SL in your first season is no small feat. So they are not finished articles like Finch, Deacon, Lululi , Briers, they are a couple of seasons behind Myler and look what he did last year to this year.

I for one don't think the board have been slacking off on recruitment, I just think it's been a year where we've not been able to deploy all our assets as much as we would like.

We tried youth for Talau for 1 season Tyer and it did not work out, that was it, after that it was Gilmore and Flannery and then we bought Soliola, who then got injured (go figure).

Gaskell was not a plan for this year, neither was makinson, Lomax and Wheeler would have had spells ideally this year. But lets not say we are replacing with youth when that is basically untrue. They are filling gaps created by injury to in Eastmonds case an unwillingness to play.

How many youth players in our 1-17... there is 1 Wheeler.

You can moan that after the 17 are youth players but that's the same for every team it's the rules. You must have 8 players trained from within in your squad so most of the 18 - 25 are going to be from within the Saints youth structure, the difference is we are using them alot more due to injury where as the likes of Wire and Wigan can put 1 in for a few weeks and see how they go.

Sorry Pete I think you are seeing replacement by youth were as I see we are coving injury with youth. Lets not forget Foster did not get a game for the first few rounds until we had to move everyone around.