Can't afford to take a chance on a quota spot.

If we are going to the NRL need to have a little more confidence. Looks like we are settling for a Flannery
out of desperation.

Too many negative write ups from knowledgeable pros. He is Penrith's Hohaia
they must be very relieved.

If a HB doesn't mix up his game then it is easier to defend against.
Watching Walsh his one trick is the bomb. He has plateaued.

Would rather take a punt on a up and coming SH home or overseas. Miller Brierley whoever.
They would be hungrier and cheaper with more of a rounded game.

This actually made me laugh out loud. You're getting much funier than you used to be.

Rob Burrow was a runner but never mixedup his game, same run and duck every time. Yet it killed Saints every game.

Now THAT is humour.... We could win every game by 80 points next year and the usual suspects would still be complaining that it doesn't count as there's not enough young local lads and too many foreigners in the team, or that somebody's pet hate player was a liability and shouldn't be playing despite the fact that 20 previous coaches had all been more than happy with them, or that we weren't signing enough new world class players and so weren't ambitious enough as a club etc. etc. etc.

A reality check, please eh?

Have you seen Lance do any running in the 2 years hes been here?

There are people who are always going to be doom and gloom and there are people who just cant see how bad a mess we are in. You sir are the latter, you need to wake up and smell the coffee because we are far closer to Saddened's prophesied relegation fodder than we are to some people's high as a kite 'we can still make the top 4' tripe at the moment.

Hopefully some smart recruitment and a clear out of the crap will fix things up for next year. For me Walsh or someone similar is a start

I remember he chased back once and looked quite quick....... other than that no.

Absolute bloody nonsense. We need a half (preferably 2), a prop (preferably 2) and [isome[/i luck with injuries/better conditioning. That's it. Not great at the moment but hardly the major crisis that all you kneejerk numpties are oh-so predictably sobbing about yet again... "Relegation fodder"? FFS....

Your forgetting we also need to replace at least 1 wing (assuming we rightly let Gardner and Meli sail off into the sunset) and we need to do something about the dead weight that is Hohaia (hoovering up loads of cap space yet delivering nothing).

So

1 winger
2 halves
2 props
Ditch the utility garbage

With the current circumstances with the NRL and Union this is no easy or I suspect quick task.

Oh and I didnt say we were relegation fodder but closer to it than the top , maybe an exaggeration but we've been beaten and beaten fairly by Widnes who are not a good side , London who are also poor and HKR (twice so no fluke) who Wigan pumped for 80. Who are we better than?

exactly, with Robes and J-Lo back we are a decent prop and a halfback away from challenging again. that does speak volumes for the quality of the league ...

No, but with an organiser along side him, I think he could.

No chance. He would look better than he does, as would most of our team but he just isnt a halfback and will always be substandard there. We ideally need a 6 with good distribution to help create a link with the backs, Lomax will do some of that from 1 but if we want to be challenging at the top again we need a genuine 6 (Wheeler if fit would be fine) so we dont end up being predictable. Top teams will soon learn to close down Lomax if we have no other go to player.

Realistically, and ideally, Hanbury would be my 6 next year, here's hoping!

The reason Hanbury excites me so is that he can play 7 or 6 equally well and is a very good allround player, which will help immensley to bring through yougsters like yates or charnock into the halfs when injuries occur. I really hope we get him for next year. REALLY.

I agree sh*te at 6, sh*te at 7.

Come on we can do better than that, he has the look of a lot of players we signed in the 80's and very early 90's.

The love in for him astonishes me. Precisely the sort of player we DON'T need.

Reporter says he's signed. Doesn't say if he's coming over now. I hope he is. That's the dealbreaker for me i.e. if he's not then we should be scouting for a bit longer given League Freak's feedback on him.

So you're the bloke who reads his tripe, I assumed there must be someone who did.

To be fair to him, he's a far harder working version of me. A lot of what he puts is accurate, it's just wrapped up in the whole persona thing. His comments on Walsh are backed up by the likes of Andrew Johns, Mal Meninga, Brett Kimorley and Brad Fittler, who do have some credibility.

It appears to be a very, very risky signing. He has been widely criticised for his performances this season and a lot of the criticism is very worrying. Respected commentators talk of his refusal to take the line on, his inability to organise, the lack of any sort of running game and his positional kicking. In fact the only area of his game that ever gets any praise is his attacking kicks, namely chips to the corner.

I've said previously I've not seen enough of him to make any real judgement on him. But I hope Saints aren't also in that position. If we're signing him because he's the only NRL halfback available, then it could be another costly mistake. We were well and truly stung by Lance Hohaia and his agent and this on the face of it looks like it could be another similar situation. Our desperation for a halfback puts the club in a terrible position.

If thats indeed the case, and he is signed, then we need to welcome it and at least give him a chance, despite (my) reservations about his long kicking game and not taking the line on (he doesn't like being tackled at all apparently).
He may surprise us and be brilliant; in any event he has got to be some improvement.

I see we are getting the prelimanary digs in early.

Can we at least let him lace his boots first.

As for coming this year, that would require one to leave and for us to have cap space left.

Plenty cap space, it's the quota that would cause an issue.

One thing I trust him on is his assessment of Penrith and Matthew Elliot.

I think that's a bit of a silly statement to be honest.

I remember on here being impressed by a YouTube clip of Lance Hohaia and being subsequently ridiculed - as per usual - for my belief that he could be good in the halfback position. I've learned my lesson from that and would rather look criticially and with an open mind at a prospective player (and nothing has been said by the club at all on this - it's all speculation begun by Nosey Parker in League Weekly!) than be fooled again.

I'm no longer willing to gloss over potential pitfalls in a prospective player and that those who know him are saying publically that he doesn't take on the line and cannot organise (the latter being a quality we very deeply need) leaves me feeling uneasy.

But this is just a rumour and so maybe we aren't signing him after all but have someone else in mind who we don't know about.

I thinkwe need to keep a foot in both camps, let's not presume he's going to single handedly solve all our problems, but similiary, we should be able to assume he can do the job of a scrum half. If we compliment this signing by shipping the OOC deadwood and improving the two areas we're lacking (front row and the other half back),we should be fine in terms of a playing roster.