The frustrating thing for me is that without these daft results, we would have had the league leaders shield in the cabinet already and we could have used the remaining games to throw in Charnock or Hewitt and see how they went against a good side. If you remember, the one and only game Charnock played was in three feet of snow so hardly a good yardstick for his potential effect on the first team.

I coached Swifty at Saints service area level u14/u15 and he did play in the halves. One solution would be to put him in there and see how he goes. His poor defensive positioning would be less of an issue 3 in from the touchline rather than on the wing. At least with players either side of him he could be more structured and disciplined.

What surprises me is that this may be last chance saloon for Gary Wheeler. It's is one opportunity to string a run of games together and show that he really does have the nads to make it as a super league standard half back. He should have grabbed that game by the scruff of the neck and strangled the sh*t out if it. As it was, he was pretty anonymous.

If he carries on as he is for the remainder of the season, unless he's got lewd photos of the coaches wife, I can't see him being given a second/third/fourth/fifth chance to see if he lives up to his potential.

To be fair Wigan would say the same thing after losses to Cas, Wakefield and Bradford.
Wire would say the same thing about losses to Wakefield, Bradford and Widnes.
Leeds would say the same thing about losses to Huddersfield, Wakefield and Bradford.

Would it not be worth moving Makinson to fullback and having Swift and Dawson as wingers with Wellens in the halves?

Wellens in the halfs???

Is that the solution, I'm not so sure. Last time he played in the halfs was a very very long time ago.

At least Swift would have recent experience there and we would not be shifting several players around and we could keep turner in the Centre to keep up some threat out wide.

As we are throwing wild suggestions about. How about this. Jones on the wing for Percival.

He's a big lad and the ball does get stuck in his hands at least on the wing he does not have to worry about the pass and could just use his bulk to barge over after Percival has made the hole.

Just swapping duds around wont improve things. I cant really see what Wello can add, he has no pace , he's not renowned for his passing or creative ability and he has no kicking game. The only things he brings to the table is experience and allegedly leadership

Pete, stop it your are now sounding like Saddened. What about your home game against Wakey? Surely that has a Saints win written all over it.

I mentioned this last year and early this season when Lance was struggling to operate at 6.
Swifty started as a stand off and was suprised he was pushed out to the wing, Makinson was a centre and was pushed out to the wing, Jonesy was a half back and was pushed out to the centres, Charnock was a half back and pushed into the pack.
Does this mean our transition development to superleague is poor or is the coach not willing to take the risk.

Tim smith will take us apart. Wakey playing very well.

No, most kids develop into different positions as they grow older. Hock was a halfback as a kid for example.

Isn't it fairly typical for young backs to start their first grade life on the wing? I think it tends to be viewed as the least risky place to blood them. Makinson has actually turned out to be a very good winger IMO even though he played centre and fullback at junior level. I can see his fullback instincts in him as he covers for Wello sometimes.

I'm in the camp that we have nothing to lose now by trying out young players in the halves. If Swift has played in the halves before then give him a go. He needs to be on the pitch somewhere that's for sure as he is one of our remaining attacking threats.

Is this a club structural failure in targeting players into key postions, how many home grown half backs have we developed from Alex Murphy and Wilf Smith.

Wasn't murph a centre as a youngster ?

The fans are as bad as the coaching staff in super league for not letting kids develop. Josh Jones is a typical example of the problem superleague faces in certain areas.

There is no doubting Jones is a talented kid who has the potential to be a big part for us in the coming years: but if he a centre or a second row? His problem is lacking attacking flair, but instead of playing a defensively sound centre, allow him to develop a relationship with a winger, and develop his overall attacking game (which we have seen glimpses of) we as a fan/club/country would sooner ship him off to the second row (where he's not big enough and will go the way of Ashurst and co.) for being "steady" and bring in a kid like Percival with all the flair you could hope for but useless in defence. We then hear things like "why can't we have a proper centre like Talau".

We as a country would sooner move a solid kid into a "safe" position for fear of lacking strike than put the time and effort into developing them.

Don,t know signed up and developed as a scrumhalf, who was our next home grown scrum half after Neil Holding.

Eastmond

Smith,

Does that mean we have only developed 3 scrum halves in the past 25 years!!

This, nail on head. I just hope Percival is not shipped out to the wing when he has bad games.

Lomax, Gaskell, Jamie Ellis

Scott Moore

Lee briers

How many have canterbury bull dogs developed in 25 years??


If Oldham find a gem then obviously big clubs will be interested and overlook their own youth players for the golden boy.

There are lots of amateur and semi pro clubs who are also scouting for the best in their area.

Look across SL and how many halfs have been developed by their own club, Wigan have a Saint directing them about the park, yet our fans are sniffy about him not being good enough. Not good enough for Saints but good enough for GF winners.

We set impossible expectations.

No he always a #7, but strangely never played there for Saints in his two Wembley finals with them.

Sure I read in his book he played centre for army/raf.

That was Rugby Union.

It was a while ago I read it tbh.