I think it would depend on who you can recruit. If you can recruit a winger, he stays at centre, if you can recruit a centre then he can take Meli's Wing.

To those sirens shouting we must make a signing now, i give you one name Hohoia.

That is what happens when you make quick rash decisions.

Lance is a decent player, but when we signed him quite a few of us thought, yes he is a good player but were will he play for us? For me his best two positions are fullback and hooker, however we have better players there.

Sport is as much about luck as it is about skill in decision making. All the planning in the world can blow up in your face if a player suffers a key injury or someone you were looking to build your team around decides he wants to play RU or move to the NRL. In Eastmond, Saints lost the then England halfback, and in Graham we lost the Worlds best prop forward. No team would be able to handle such losses without repercussions.

A good example of luck in signings is Sean Long. He was a Wigan reject playing lower division football. Saints took a punt on him despite having other players in the halves. Many people at the time were wondering were he would fit into the team as we had Tommy Martyn, Bobbie Goulding, Lee Briers and Karl Hammond to cover in the halves, yet look how that all turned out.

Paul Wellens has for me been a St.Helens legend. He has been an anchor at the back for club and country, being one of the best British players of his generation. However for the last few years its been increasingly plain for people to see that the Anchor has been turning into a lead weight that has been dragging the team down. Last year Paul had an excellent season being our top try scorer, top tackle buster, top clean break maker and fourth best in try assists.
To a significant extent we were dependant on Paul last year to pull things out of the bag. This raised the conundrum in my mind that I felt it was time to hand over the number one shirt to a new player but in doing so the side would take a hit due to the readjustment the team would have to make in terms of playing style. I was worried about the scale of the hit we would take. We are seeing that hit now as by moving Lomax from the halves to the fullback slot it has left a gaping hole in the halves. It is to Nathan Browns credit that he has been prepared to take the tough decision and move things on rather than play it safe. Other recent coaches were not prepared to do this, and that has made the task all the harder for the team to adjust to life without Wello.

Saints have the nucleus for a good side. I can see that Brown is looking to give us more pace in the backline, we can see that in his signing of Turner, the use of Lomax and Makinson at fullback and the promotion of the pacey but young Percival that there is the makings of a strike threat from deep.

He has identified that the pack is small. I think this was masked in recent years by Graham and Roby. Graham did the work of two props, and Robys scooting made us yards that the forwards themselves couldnt make. Robys injury has shown to everyone how easily out muscled our front row is. By ridding ourselves of the addiction to scooting which was started by Milward, then we should have a more balanced side that in big games would be harder to combat. It wont simply be a case of stopping Roby from running at dummy half. I noticed before Robys injury that he was playing a different game this season. Gone was the obsession from running from dummy half, instead he was merely stepping out of dummy half and using his self as a foil for the other forwards to run onto. This to me was an indication of the change in style to a more orthodox gameplan of letting the props make the yards rather than the hooker.

I also think he knew we were short in the halves. Comments from him indicated that he was unsure with lance as a halfback, and selections have shown that he isnt keen to play Hohioa there, preferring him at hooker.
Lomax was moved from scrum half were his talent was being wasted, and Gaskell was fired off due to alleged lack of professionalism.
Wheeler i suspect is in Browns plans as one of the halfbacks, but has unfortunately suffered that serious injury.

I therefore suspect that next year Brown will want to bring in two big props and a scrum half.
Get that right and we will have the makings of a very good team.

Percival and jones are better than him.

Turner is one of them players that really frustrates me. If he put a extra 10% in he'd actually break the line. Hes just happy to be out there and go thru the motions.

Disagree with you. I thought Turner showed again against Hull KR that he can give a wingman some lovely passes.
He lacks the agility and change of pace to dance around people, but his size and pace does mean he sucks in tacklers and makes yards in the contact zone.

I get the impression Pete that what you are asking for is Mal Meninga, and because you arent getting that, you have dismissed his ability as a player.
Funnily enough when Meninga was at Saints there were some who felt he was lazy.

Excellent post mate.

No mate I wasn't looking for a mal meninga (would be nice). Like I said, Turner had done ok and I've backed him on here when most have give him stick.

He just frustrates me because he's got ability. He's big, fast, strong, good footwork but he lacks that little desire to actually break the line.

Me saying he's a winger isn't put down, I just think he's more suited to Wing but could make a good centre if he tried that little harder.

He's only been here for a couple of months. The current squad had nothing to do with Nathan Brown so you can't blame for that side of things. For me, the main issue this season is the pack, and has been for a while now. We aren't talking about an issue than has just popped up this season, we have had this same problem for a while now. Luckily for us, we had James Graham who carried us on his back for a couple of years, and who do we replace him with? A Second Row in Anthony Laffranchi. I have no doubts that he would be a quality second rower, but out front row is so poor that we have no other option but to throw him in there. Even when we had Jammer, we were still struggling against the likes of Wigan and Wire's packs and what ever way you dress it up, we have been overachieving for years now. We reached the Semi Final last year - in fact we were 40 minutes away from Old Trafford. The worst thing that could have happened IMO. We needed to reassess things and start a fresh in Pre Season, and unfortunately 2012 papered over the cracks once again.

Wigan and Warrington have both been through periods like this one, but the fans got behind there club and backed them 100%. It may take a year, it may take two or even three, but we will come back stronger, I have no doubt about that. Leeds are coming to a stage now where the likes of Sinfield, McGuire and Burrow are approaching the end of their playing careers, and I expect that they will go through a similar sort of period to what we are going through. Brown has given a great amount of young players an opportunity this season, and although that may be down to the injury situation, he has trusted in them to do the job which will prove to be highly beneficial in the long run.

Our pack consists of five Second Rowers, and our only real Prop is Alex Walmsley - a signing from Batley who I imagined would only play half a dozen games this season. Paul Clough has been superb for us this season, but I still see him as a Back Rower personally. Our only other Prop, Josh Perry, is out injured once again, and LMS doesn't look as though he could care less at the minute. When things start to go wrong, the first man looked at is the coach, but there isn't anything he can do at the minute. He is doing his best with the squad he has, and he deserves a chance with a full squad before people start pointing the finger. We are the only team in the competition without a decent set of props and halves, and they are ultimately the key positions on the field. Look at Hull KR. They aren't superb out wide, but in Dobson and Burns they had two halves who knew exactly what they were doing, and we playing behind a set of props that ran hard and straight and took them forward. Nothing fancy, just hard work, and the halves gave them direction on the back of that.

We have had the same problems for years, and I can't understand how any of that is Nathan Brown's fault. Any coach in the world - no matter how good would struggle to coach these set of players, because the reality is, we aren't good enough in the key areas. You can't fault anyone for effort, but the fact of the matter is that you can't compete against the best sides without a decent set of Props, and a 6 and 7. Until we sort that out we won't go anywhere, no matter who is in charge.

I see your point re rushing anything but the situation with Long wasnt quite as you put it. Briers was already gone , Goulding was volatile, Martyn was injury prone Hammond was a loose forward by then and we were thin on the ground for cover. Longy was ripping it up at Widnes and was a known talent at the time - the pies only got rid for off field issues not a lack of talent.

I think a panic move would be silly but Stevie Wonder can see we need a scrum half so if we could get a decent one in I honestly dont see how we could go wrong (assuming we actually buy a scrum half and not another bloody fullback). If there was a Sean Long somewhere in the Championship I'd love us to sign him up !!

I'd get Sean long until the end of the season if he's up for it. It would be 100% better than we got now.

I'm sure he'd love a last hurrah in the redvee and he couldnt possibly be worse than Wello or Howarth

I don't agree - and I am not trying to start an argument here - but Brown has to work with what he has in the squad for this season. He took a chance on Howarth there to see if he could offer anything we have been missing over the past few weeks. He couldn't. Move on.

Until Brown is given time to ship out the players he doesn't want, and bring in players he does, then we can't really blame him for not having any halves. That blame has to rest on McManus, Simmons and Rush for the players they have brought in and signed up for too long.

I'd Potter to the blame list too ..

I believe the offer was made.

Some of your faults are the props. LMS, L'Franc, Perry and Clough are not players to win trophies which Saints fans think is where the clubs should be.
For the future you have to stick with your younger players.
Makinson was your best player at HKR. Percival is excellent for 18 yrs but will need help . Jones needs to be given a permanent place whether 2nd row or centre. Walmsley is your best prop already and I'm sure Greenwood will be very good. Walker is one for the future when fit.
You do have to get some system going where the younger players can take over from the seniors who are not doing it.
Priority surely has to sort out for good the five spine of the team positions.
1, 6,7,9,& 13. Roby is your only certainty out of those five and he's not playing at present.
Brown has to sort these out with McManus.
This season has almost gone for you so for the future things have to start moving now!

Really? hmm I honestly think he could drag us round the park, one last time.

Which way? Long to Saints? Or Saints to Long?

Long to saints.

Of course they did. Why would we need a HB?

Long has offered himself to Saints? And we said no? Please tell me I've read this wrong.

Why would we need a halfback when we have Mr St Helens Wellens, a second row who can kick a ball (sometimes) and a 3rd rate salford castoff to play in he halves.

Madness.

To be fair there is no way we can know what Long is capable of. But the romance is tempting.

Long making a comeback is a nice idea, but it's worth remembering that he wasn't so good in his last couple of seasons for us, and that was a few years ago now.

Regarding Brown, I don't think what we're seeing is his fault. As I've said elsewhere, two panic buys made to replace Eastmond and Graham, combined with whatever has gone on with Gaskell, have left us in a really tricky situation where we can all see the problem (and I'm sure McManus can too) but we can't really do anything about it until our overseas players come out of contract. It's a situation that has come about because of poor decisions made 2-3 years ago, and the depressing likelihood is that it won't/can't be addressed until next season.

Having said that, I do think that Brown should pick a half-back pairing and stick with it; whatever combination he picks in the meantime is going to be unsatisfactory, so he may as well go for continuity. At the moment it feels a bit like he's rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. I also think it's a little odd that he's using LMS as a starting prop. Clough is much better suited to that role, with Louie coming of the bench. These are side-effects of a quality that I quite like about Brown, though - he's not afraid to try something different, which is refreshing after the last couple of years.

Signing Sean Long isn't the way. As Dux says, he was a shadow of his former self in his last days at saints and had a reasonably unimpressive stint at Hull after that.

Brown has a lot of problems that aren't his fault, such as the lack of halfbacks and proper forwards and injuries, but he does some strange things to try and make up for it. I can only assume that he sees the first half of the season as irrelevant and a time to experiment.

I think we need to get a scrum half, ASAP. Someone said don't panic, that's how we ended up with Hohaia and I agree. So we should look to a loan move for the rest of the season.
Dux mentioned a top experienced Championship 7 like Finn, which is one idea, or we can try and get a NRL youngster (like when dobson originally came over), deregistering Perry if needed.

We have a decent number of players who could be part of a successfull team. Some of whom would be starts at the highest level and some of whom who are good enough to play their part. The problem with the squad is the areas we are lacking are not only some of the most important aspects, but we're not just a little short of quality in them, we've got a gaping casm.

We have Lomax, Roby and Soliola who are stars imo. We also have TP who, whilst a little lethargic, can do some sensational things against big teams.

We have potential Stars in Manu, Walmsley and Percival.

We have some good solid players in Clough, Flanaghan, Turner, Makinson

We have some very interesting youngsters in Greenwood, Jones and Walker.

We have Pope Francis, who can give much, but can also take it way.

The above should mean we can, with some work in vital areas, get back to being a top 4 club and a genuine contender. We do need to work on the rest.

The rest are shirts fillers, and some not very good ones. Given the way he was defending on Saturday, I think Lance must be trying to win and award for most dissapointing signing EVER.

That defensive performance was unreal. Leon Felton-esque.

As a fan you are normally positive when a new coach takes the reigns...but I just couldn't get excited when we announced that Brown was taking over the reigns. He did take Huddersfield to the next level although I feel he did that not with instilling an expansive style of rugby, but by making them a nightmare to play against. I felt under him they slowed the ptb down, were over the top aggressive and too restrictive despite some of the talent they had/have. I'm already noticing these traits at Saints.

When Rush & Cunningham took over, it sounds silly but I was filled with optimism. There was a sense that we were going to shake of the shackles and play a style of rugby that you associate with St.Helens. Rush even referenced the clubs philosophy to being similar to football teams like Barcelona. I believe that if we'd had a natural scrum half last season we'd have gone all the way.

Now Brown comes in and tells us to forget about the past. Forget about that brand of rugby we used to play because we no longer have the players to pull that off. Really? I've been following Saints since the 80's and we've had some ropey lineups but we always stuck to that philosophy of playing expansive,exciting rugby. Even when we couldn't compete with the great Wigan sides we were always an handful for them and we earned the tag of being entertainers.

Undoubtably, Brown's been dealt a crap hand (Like Beadle) but I'm not having it that them lads can't play rugby league without the shackles off. Him and McManus will keep telling us that and soon the players will start believing they can't either.

I'll keep supporting them no matter what, and I hope Brown proves me wrong....but him managing a team like Saints is like Pulis managing a team like Man Utd, because he too is another manager that has convinced the players and fans of a club that they can only have success if they play this restrictive, unimaginative, bland way.

Like I said though, I hope he proves me wrong.