Its got to improve. I have said many many times before there are quality up and coming players not only in the Saints squad but in the Championship that need a chance in Super League. Not everyone will be a success but at least its better than signing over the hill Aussies on stupid wage cheques.

...and in the meantime the RLFans server burns through to the core of the earth with the heat generated by hundreds of Saints fans angrily complaining on "The Entertainers" how appallingly "unambitious" our recruitment is because we only ever sign cheap, raw and unknown quantity kids and never invest in quality, proven, experienced Aussies like everybody else does instead.

I will never, ever understand how someone could consider it "unambitious" to sign a proven quality Aussie or NZ international, nor how they could consider it more "ambitious" to sign some strip of a lad off the street instead. You couldn't make it up...

I would be quite happy for Nathan Brown to sign some up and coming youngsters from the Championship whilst giving our youngsters experience in the First Team. Its high time we stopped signing over the hill Australians and concerntrated on bringing through our own youth.

No team relying on home-grown players and ignoring Antipodean talent could ever hope to compete at the top of SL. A balance is needed and Saints generally do that balancing a lot better than most.

Oh look - we're finishing 3rd in the table despite no coaching worthy of the name for 2 years. Maybe you're right - maybe our player recruitment really does suck big time, eh? We'd have finished top easy if we'd binned off Sia, TP, Flannery, Meli, Hohaia and got in a bunch of Blackbrook and Tatty Heath amateurs instead wouldn't we?

I wouldnt class Sia Soliola, Lance Hohaia as over the hill players. Im all for blending youth with experience.

Ages of the our current overseas players when we signed them:

Soliola - 24
Meli - 26
Hohaia - 28
Perry - 30
TP - 28
Flannery - 27
Frankie - 31

Which of these would you consider the kind of over-the-hill, clapped out, past-it players that we should be avoiding the signing of and instead be recruiting non-existent, equivalent quality, unsigned young British talent instead? Only Perry and Frankie were 30+ when we signed them, and 30 and 31 is hardly "past it" for recent Aussie international forwards.

Once again, those inconvenient facts disprove the knee-jerk reactionism. Curse them.

No idea. I thought it was a bit strange when I was told but I suppose he is very young for a prop and shouldn't hit his peak for another 5 years at least. The main thing for me though is that we seem to be in the market for the kind of players we need for a change.

I wouldn't say we've signed over the hill overseas players, we've just signed overseas players to play in the wrong positions. TP was signed as a back rower and has played the majority of time at prop (until this year), Soliola was signed as a Centre, Laffranchi is a back rower converted to a prop and Hohaia is never a half back. Only Meli, Flannery and Perry have consistently played in their regular positions (and bar Perry, both were signed several eyars ago). Our recruitment decisions the last few years have been poor particularly overseas players.

Yes please. As long as your clubhouse has cladding.