It doesn't matter how rich they are - they are clearly not as inclined as Wire's lot to put their hands in their pockets for transfer fees for whatever reason. I hardly think we can criticise them for that fact. That isn't about Saints' ambition as a club - it is about how a few rich individuals on the board decide they want to spend their spare cash.



As above.

I'm not going to look thru every transfer and signing in the last 5 years, I'm not as boring as you



But don't try and tell me the hasn't been a centre available since willie talau left, dont tell me the has been no halves available in the last 3 years Since longy left etc

Why did McManus come out and tell us saints fans that we will have a team to grace the stadium?

Isn't that pretty much what I said?

I've just said that the Warrington boards are prepared to pay transfer fees and we are not, I'm pretty sure that indicates that have more ambition as a club.

That has been on the market without a transfer fee involved, that are better than what we had in situ at the time, and that have arrived at the right time contracts-wise? None that I can think of but I stand to be corrected. As ever, the challenge for anyone else to name those players that I can't think of stands - it has stood for years on various threads and has still never been answered. So I'm prepared to say that "none" is almost certainly the correct answer.

And again - even if those players [idid[/i exist: every team in the league is constantly as desperate for centres and halves as we are - why do we have a God-given right to be able to sign them over everyone else every time?



He wanted to sell season tickets?

No - I'm pretty sure it just indicates that they have more individuals involved with the club willing to spend their own money on signing players than we do. That does not equate to more ambition "as a club". I am not fully au fait with the relative board makeups of Saints and Wire and all of their personal circumstances, but I'm willing to bet that the rich geezers funding Wire's transfer fees are a lot more closely involved in the ownership and day-to-day running of the club than our bulgey-pocketted types are.

You don't think the wolves have more ambition than us?

They signed king, Atkins when we was looking for a centre.

They signed Joel Monaghan when we've needs wingers.

They signed myler when we needed a scrumhalf.

They beat us to the signing of carvell.

They beat us to the signing of Trent Waterhouse.

They beat us to the signing of Hill.

They beat us to the signing of Ratchford.

Just a few names of players that WAS available when we required them and we was in the mix for most.

Over the last couple of years our board has stumped up significant amounts of cash to fund the building of the stadium and the absorption of the club's debts. Before next season they'll be stumping up more to put up the cladding that everyone's been clamouring for. I suspect you'll see that once these extraordinary expenses are out of the way and the stadium is bringing in steady money that we'll start competing in the transfer market where fees are involved.

I'll also say that we shouldn't underestimate just how difficult the recruitment situation must have been after losing Eastmond and Graham at the same time, which left us needing to replace two of our best players. The problem was particularly tricky, as both players were British, but neither could realistically be replaced from within the British game. Given that we've been forced to fill up our non-fed quota by replacing those players from overseas, we've been sorely restricted in our options for strengthening the rest of the squad.

Having said all that, we clearly didn't manage this difficult situation terribly well. The Hohaia signing has been a real balls up, and I suspect that if Simmons had known how far Gaskell was going to come on in the months following the signing he may not have bothered with it. Laffranci is a good player, but one who probably isn't being used in the best possible way.

It's not ideal, but I think we need to acknowledge the rough luck the club has had. Everyone is crying out for a big rough prop and a halfback with a kicking game. If Kyle and Jammer hadn't have left (and by all accounts we did everything we could to keep them) we'd have both of those things and two free quota spaces to play with.

We had Soliola and Gidley already signed up to play centre when Atkins was signed. When King was signed we already had a full overseas quota and he was, by all accounts, on loony money that we would have struggled to compete with without Wire's accountants.



Freak signing, freak timing, doesn't count. Wire had to pay off whatsisname's entire remaining contract to get him on the quota. Again - money we can't afford.



We had Eastmond, Pryce and Wheeler. No brainer.



etc. etc. etc.

...and we're back to the fact that Warrington have more money and seemingly more flexible cap space than we do. That doesn't mean "more ambition". It just means "more money".... If you want to argue "we have more money than Warrington do really so should be competing more for signings with them" then start another thread and go argue yourself to a standstill there.

That post is full of excuses mate. Freak signing, no quota etc




You still aint answered my question.

Do you think we have more ambition than Warrington?

It's a never ending argument this one. The fanboy do-gooders who can see now wrong in anything the club does who believe we're fantastic and about to win trophies again. Then we've got the realists who can see we're making a complete mess of our attempts to get back into the hunt for trophies.

It's pointless justifying our lack of trophies by saying we're third. The competition is so weak we would have to do something truly remarkable to finish below 6th. We've got that third position (So far) by falling back on the oldest players in the side and removing a lot of the youth we hung our cap on as the new breed. It's not a great way to plan your future.

Next season? Slightly worse than this if we don't sign anyone else? Wello will be even more of a farce, Meli will have no need to play for a contract, we still won't have a kicking game or enough props. In reality it's likely to take another 10+ years or a change of ownership for us to get back amongst the trophies.

I saw this coming 5/6 years ago when we stopped signing quality on and was brain washed in to how good our youth is and it will win trophies for the next ten years.

The problem being, I don't see much youth about at the moment.

Don't get me wrong, with a lot of luck we could win the grand final but we'd have to be on the top of our game while the other team would need a off day as it will be Wigan or Warrington if we was to get to old Trafford.

My point in all this, you need to build on success and not get complacent when winning cups, teams should strive to be better and that comes with good signings.

Manchini is saying the same thing at the moment with city, they need to build on winning the league last year as the likes of utd, Chelsea and nal will come back stronger.

I think we lost sight of that when we was winning trophies.

Not excuses - they are what we in the trade call "facts"





It depends on your definition of "ambition"...

In the same way as in the forthcoming season Chelsea have more "ambition" than Liverpool do in that they realistically expect to win trophies whereas Liverpool will be happy with just competing a bit better than last season, then yes. Does that mean that Liverpool's ownership and fanbase have less drive and desire and "ambition" to win trophies than Chelsea's? Of course not - they physically just don't have the resources to remotely compete right now to be able to do so.

Same with us and Wire. Comparing ours and Wire's relative "ambition" is a futile exercise - all that matters is whether Saints' management is as determined to do as much as is within their power to succeed as is reasonable and possible. I think the answer to that question is "yes".

But haven't we got the richest board in super league?

One guy is with £1.6b which is a lot of money in rugby league.

Doesn't that suggest that their money men have more ambition than ours?

Bored of this now. Bye

hope this works 1st post,i think the boards concentration has been for the past few years has been on the stadium,player recruitment has come second,which has been poor,perry when signed was an aussie international /state of origin prop obviously he's on good money,sadly he's turned out to be championship material at best and we've got another year to put up with his lacklustre performances because no NRL club in their right mind would take him off our hands.Lance who the hell in the right mind gave him a 4 year deal,a player that does'nt excel in any position he's played either for NZW or NZ.He must have thought he'd won the lottery when we offered him a 4 year deal for a jack of all trades master of none at 29 years old.
Obviously laffranchi was signed to play in his natural position as a 2nd rower,but with jammer leaving and griffin backtracking on us,he,s had to try and bulk up and play prop which to a certain extent against the lesser teams he's done,but sadly he's found it hard against the top sides.Chris Hill was a risk no doubt but he was'nt going to be expensive,stefan ratchford was out of contract and was already showing great talent in an average team,so for next years recriutment we've got Manu replacing Flannery yep manu is a big plus ,but thank god the rumours we were offering him a 3 year deal to him proved false,Jordan Turner does not inspire me at all,if its true he was desperate to get to the sweet smelling side of the pennines then i hope he's come cheap

So... We've been saving money and doing player recruitment on the cheap to pay for the stadium, [iand[/i we've been spending big money on Aussie internationals... Care to consider that logic there matey?

Tell you what: withdraw every single penny from your bank accounts and savings and give it to Saints to spend on transfer fees, even though they're a business you ultimately do not control and you won't get to own any significant amount of the club more than you already do in return for your investment. Then you will be in a position to criticise our board members for not doing the same, and not before.

You are a complete idiot, I'm not on the board at saints so why shouid I put my money into the club, the board members signed up to be on the board just th Warrington board members have but they are prepared to put their hands in the pockets to buy plsyers.

I'm not saying its right or it's wrong that our board members don't pay transfer fees but the point I'm making to you is, the Warrington board will put their hands in their pockets which surley means they have more ambition as a board.

If saints wish to go down the youth policy way, then great let's take that risk but it wound be common sense from McManus not to bang on about having a "team to grace the new stadium"

The team to grace the stadium involved eastmond, pryce, graham and koror leaving and replaced them with hohaia, Laffranchi and flanaghan, not exactly inspiring.

Oh, by the way, Laffranchi was signed as a prop from day one, the fact we messed up with griffin had no bearing on Laffranchi playing prop.

We have been through all of this before, with neighbours spending far more on players, and our shorter sighted speccies bemoaning the fact that we aren't going toe to toe with them. I remeber people complaining how we weren't competing in the transfer market with the Goons and Widnes in the 80s and early 90s. Thank god we didn't. Anyone who is looking at Warrington's finances now has to wonder how they are making ends meet, and staying under the salary cap, it would be fooolish to try to emulate what they are doing with wages and fees. What McManus is doing, is building a club that is sustainable, and will be here for our kids to enjoy. Warrington are buying short term success, much as Widnes and the Goons did. I know which club I would sooner support. As Winston Churchill said, "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"

So we admit we're a smaller club and don't even try to win competitions? Are they going to put that blurb on the season ticket promotions?

All this talk of Warrington and Wigan spending more than us is exaggerated. Neither have spent significant amounts on transfer fees, certainly no more than we could have done. Signing the likes of Atkins, Ratchford and Hill cost an amount I could personally have met if I really needed to, it's not a serious amount of money. We either don't have the ambition to win trophies ever again or we don't have a board/management capable of building a squad. The short to medium term future isn't looking great for us, the milestone of 10 years of winning nothing will soon be passed and we'll soon forget what finals were like.

Alternatively the club could start to maximise the revenue potential of the stadium, start making money and start signing the right players. When the next Chris Hill emerges, make sure it's us who he chooses. When the gems from the NRL crop up, and they still will, make sure it's us. Make sure whoever thought signing Lance Hohaia and Laffranchi are no longer at the club and find the drive and ambition to succeed we used to have during the Millward years.

A lot of you are looking at Saints in too cold a light, in purely sustainable business terms. Sport isn't like that, the company only exists to enable the team to be successful. If you have to compromise the team for the company, there really is no point competing at all.

Would you pump large sums of cash into a business that you only owned a very small percentage of while people who owned a much larger share of it didn't/couldn't? If I owned 70% of Saints outright then I'd happily pump in millions of my own cash no questions asked. If I owned 20% then I wouldn't unless the other owners were contributing similarly. And I wouldn't expect to be criticised for it.

The way I look at it, it's a sporting cycle. How you manage the down side of that cycle is key. If you don't manage the down side then that is when those sporting sides throw good money after bad and end up going bust. We are competing just not at the top flight. If you don't compromise the team for the company, then the team will not exist. It's a partnership between club and team neither can exist in isolation. Otherwise teams would just chew up and spit out money men and in RL that is a rather short list.

I understand that but we're in a salary capped sport, where the clubs can spend no more on salaries than we are now. So it's not like an enormous amount of investment is required. We're not talking £400,000 for Newlove here, £10,000 for Chris Hill would have enabled him to play prop, Laffrachi to play second row etc. What is disappointing me is that when these talented young players crop up as being available, they are never heading here. It's Warrington, Wigan, Leeds, Hull before us. It'll be interesting to see where Bateman goes, another of the potentially great young players and exactly the kind of player we would have been after 10-15 years ago.

And, lest anyone forget, we did go out and compete wholeheartedly with the loony spending in the transfer market in the '90s for a while and very, very nearly completely ceased to exist as a club as a result - there would be no Saints and no LP at all if not for Big Mac and Co. saving us from the consequences of that folly. Wigan and Widnes both paid for their years of mortgaged glory with near extinction, and the loss of their stadium and 20 years of lower league hand-to-mouth struggle respectively. Bradford spent money they didn't have buying trophies too until very recently - their birds are coming home to roost for that now. We don't know their exact financial situation, but who's to say Warrington aren't living beyond their means at the moment and may pay for it similarly in years to come?

We've lost 4 million quid in 2 years out of a business with an annual turnover of probably 5 million maximum... That, in any other sphere of existence, would be a business the banks would have closed down years ago. We are only still trading because of the "ambition" and willingness of our board members to dip into their pockets to make ends meet. I thank them for it and wouldn't care if we never paid another transfer fee so long as it meant our continued existence at their hands.