Very true, the years of poor recruiting and sometimes lack of recruitment is now catching up with us.

Just a shame we've been a good team in a crap stadium and now we are going to be a crap team in a good stadium.

In that he is just like Jonny Lomax, isn't he? As Simmons has just said about Lomax's possible call up to the England squad, he could play in any of a number of positions in the future at that level. Given the opportunity to address areas of his game that may need addressing, Hohaia could be a very good halfback. Jonny Lomax might not have played in the halves either had Eastmond not decided to leave and Pryce been fit all season but would he have automatically been poor at halfback? He has no kicking game either. (I have seen Hohaia kick, as I think I've said already - lovely little chip kicks in fact, just the kind of thing we are missing at present) Lance is incredibly quick from a standing start and an illusive runner. He is also very experienced and valuable as a utility player, something we have needed over the past few seasons due to injuries. I think he is a good acquisition.


I haven't seen Laffranchi play at all so I have no idea whether he will be any good or not. He'll probably take a season to settle in. I wonder whether it will be his hamstring or groin that will get him in the end?

I don't think he is any better or worse than what we have at present.

I think some people are forgetting that this season we have had few of our strike players on the pitch at any one time and quite often the ones that have been on the pitch have been playing busted (Roby and his infected eye against Hull being a case in point). We need a few weeks of stability with the majority of our first team playing together to judge just how good or otherwise our recruitment has been.

Either way, Saints priority has been to get the new stadium up and running and secure the financial future of the club. That Warrington are awash with cash just now is in part because they have a good turnout of fans and numerous income streams into the club. We have had neither for years and why should the directors keep plugging the gaps? The club has to be self-sustaining and that has to take priority. If that means no flashy imports for a few years then I'm all for it. Encourage rugby league in the town by showing the local lads that there is actually a possibility of them getting their moment of glory at Saints if they have the talent and commitment to go for it rather than looking at a bunch of imports blocking their chances.

It will be the ankle that will get laffranchi.

Saintsfan, you say lance will be a good halfback and I agree he most prob will be in terms of running and taking the line on but who do you vision being the other halfback with lance?

Pryce or Wheeler or Lomax or Gaskell!

I'm glad you said that. We agree on something.

I don't think lomax and lance will work.

Chris wanted to sign for Saints. Had his agent approach the club, but we didn't show any interest. Warrington came in in early this week and the rest as they say is history.

From a personal view, we have lost out on a good British front rower, with good ball handling skills (started his playing career as Stand Off) Warringtons gain our loss.

The min another club comes in for a player we are after en that's it as we won't battle for a player as we won't pay the money.

We have a secure Super League future thanks to the work of our Chairman, quite rightly that has been the priority.

We've managed to remain at the higher end of competitiveness, with still hope of silverware this year. I'd also hoped for a star studded line up to take to the new stadium next year, but again the re-signing of Roby and TP are as important and high profile as any new recruit. Our two additions are quality players and if Perry does a Soliola, it'll be like a third top drawer signing. I'm still not convinced we're finished with the 'ins' either.

The future is bright, and top flight, and that's what really matters.

agree with all of this

The thing people forget about warringtons salary cap is the players that do get overlooked nowadays, such as Jon Clarke, who was playing for England just 2 years ago are still going to be on good contracts. Clubs cant just lower a players wages just because he is not being used on a regular basis, people go on about the players warrington bring in and why are they not over, but the players leaving were signed arnt going to be on small contracts.

I thought bewareshadows had looked at things subjectively to examine whether in truth Warrington are likely to be paying more in salaries than Saints.

The only thing I'd pick him/her up on is Riley will be on pea-nuts compared to Gardener and he has ignored Ryan Atkins (no 23) from the Warrington squad, beyond that I think if anything he was being generous towards Warrington.

I'd suggest you have proved yourself to be the stupid one by not being able to understand the point being made.

I think it's safe to say the point he's making is a load of rubbish. I could list Melbourne cap-busting squad from last year and say all the Gateshead players were on more. Matt King is on £750,000 a year, everyone knows that.

What interests me is that Warrington were ones of the clubs mentioned about a year ago in relation to them being in massive trouble with HMRC over the image rights issues. There was talk of a £2m liability. That just seemed to disappear into smoke, what happened there? I remember there was talk in the press of several SL clubs being in trouble and one or two potentially facing closure over it. Has this been sorted?

It's still possible some clubs are using different methods to pay their players than other clubs. If Saints are paying anywhere near the cap on our ensemble of children and the odd decent player then we're managing the cap horrifically compared to the likes of Wire, Wigan and the Giants. Entirely possible I suppose but we'll never know. The cap is run by the RFL. The clubs could drive a bus through the loopholes and the auditors no doubt. I've always been banging on about it, but third party payments are impossible to find and I'll bet they don't even try to look for breaches of cap rules, preferring the lack of bad publicity their ignorance brings.

Only on other club's forums from the like of yourself.

The only time I remember Warrington being linked to this was when Gatcliffe had a press reports issued saying that the club were in the clear on this issue.

Amazingly on this point Wigan fans seem to claim the moral high-ground of Wigan not being involved yet their own auditors would not pass Wigan's accounts the other year unless they were allowed to add their own statement to the effect that the club were looking at a possible liability not reported in the accounts due to an on-going investigation by HMRC relating to image right payments.

Here's one to think about - despite bewareshadows not being able to split them I reckon that Gardener will be on 4 times the salary of Riley. A lot of it comes down to value for money.

So the image rights issue was never an issue then? And all the talk of £2m liabilities for SL clubs isn't true? I remember reading a couple of months ago about image rights in an article about the football financial fair play regulations and it mentioned the issue was going to rip the RL salary cap apart.

Has the payment whilst on the plane loophole been closed now as well?

Personally I'd give £10,000 to see the salary cap calculations for each team. Just to know what we're doing with our's firstly. How Warrington use their's would also be fascinating. You always seem to match senior players in with out, yet are still able to renew youth players contracts. Something we seem to not have room to do. We've shedded twice as many senior players over recent seasons, so perhaps we're just massively overpaying our youth players, but that doesn't explain why we don't ever pick any up from other SL clubs.

I thought it was Leeds that had the massive potential liability and were the test case (which they will win and rugby league clubs will be cut the same deal as union clubs). I reckon Saints were also one of the big users of the loophole - remember the Sonny Bill contract offer that was leaked (it was on an internet forum so must be true) and are having to cut back on its use now hence the apparent in-balance of players in against players out.

Warrington also use transfer fees to secure players who are under contract and therefore as nobody can match us on transfer fees we negotiate with players over contracts with no other parties to be played-off against. I bet Saints are paying whay over the odds salary wise for Shenton and McCarthy Scarsbrook due to their Bosman status when negotiating; Myler, Atkins, Carvell, Bridge, Westwood and Grix were all signed with over a year left on their deals at their current clubs and wanted out. Cashed-up Warrington offered an exit, with pay-rise but not top dollar as a bonus.

Warrington also award long contracts, 4 years being the norm for good players, and then look to re-negotiate to extend well before the end of the contract before any other club is sniffing around whispering into agents' ears. Players are happy for the security that a long deal gives and if things crop up and things need to change, well ask Chris Hicks about that.

I know Saints fans like to praise the savy business skills of McManus (what happened to the other billionaires

who supposedly joined Saints board - I hope their not waiting on the new stadium to cash-in on their investment) and no doubt he is a grade A* banker but I don't think he has the entruepernal(sp) vision of Simon Moran at Warrington and the savvy of how to get the best from dealing with "prima-donnas".

Too straight-laced bankers and not known for taking risky decisions.

Things change from maurice lindsey in the late 80's to early 90's and then to mcmanaus and the chap at leeds who ever since iv'e watched rl has tried to
buy leeds the title, even signing doug laughton and ellery hanley to no effect. saints have always had good backing and a strong foot in the transfer
market especially in the sl era. if you look at the sides saints have had over the sl period then you also could question the money they were on.
yes there was some home bred players, but those players matured into world class players and i'm sure kc wouldn't be happy on a
'how you doing thatto heath' salary when bought in players would have been on much more.

Yeah, obviously the performance warps the perception of things. If Warrington dropped to third or fourth next season no one would be questioning their cap spend.

?

You made the point about Saints of old (When we were good) seeming to have a squad too good to be under the cap. That was because they were always top and winning trophies.

Warrington are doing similar now, because they are well coached and performing well. But, if they had a bad season and dropped down a few positions people wouldn't allege they were cheating the cap. Performance on the field warps how people see the cap issue.

If Wire were top after 20 games of next season and unbeaten, everyone would be moaning about them being over the cap. If they weren't doing so well, had a few injuries and were running third or fourth, people wouldn't be saying their over the cap.

agree with this.

The same applies to Referees and the RFL...a team performs well and fans from other clubs think the refs are in their back pocket along with the RFL.

fair play. i know what your saying.

I think you maybe getting a bit confused, Gary Hetherington wasnt at Leeds in the days of Laughton, Hanley, Gregory etc and Saints were run pretty poorly pre McManus , sure we had a brief boost just pre Superleague when Howes was at the club but that from what I gather was a bit of a 'wigan' i.e unsustainable. Some of the great players we've had have either come through the ranks or been picked up cheap, Longy for instance wasnt a bank buster.

His agent spoke to a few clubs! Saints had another target and didnt push for him! Wire didnt hang around!