Your getting confused , people only got on his back after he had made his decision , and even then people starting having ago because it was obvious his head was already gone.

When I say it should have been sorted I mean much earlier, you cant plan strategically with 1 year deals - if he refused to sign a proper contract we should have just sold him and if he refused to go just dumped in him the reserves and worked on plan B i.e Smith

Exactly. Both Eastmond and Graham should have been sorted the season before.

I knew for a fact that both players was going so I'm sure the club must have known. Its not hard to workout when both players wouldn't sign and both players was given permission to talk to other clubs.

Really not sure what to make of this improved contract for LMS. He is in a rough patch of form right now but that could be down to lack of confidence/direction due to the half back situation.

Extension for Flanagan too.

Really an improved contract for LMS, that's going to depress alot of people.

If you had to give players what they are worth from what I have seen of them. Then prop wise our top earners would be

Walmsley
Clough
Laffranchi
Walker
LMS
Perry

I think people are thinking of LMS predominantly in terms of the last month. He's in a shabby spell of form at the moment and generally speaking he can blow hot and cold, but for large parts of last season he was one of our best players.

He was very good last year but that was coming from the bench. Could he be one of those players that is just more effective from the bench ?

That's true. I think he turned out our top metre making forward (bar Roby, of course). He's just so inconsistant. Look at the try he scored agaist Cas - ran hard onto the ball, hit the gap and then demolished the fullback.
There was that game against Wigan last year when he was the only bright sopt with a great performance in a beaten team.
We need it every week, or at least more weeks than not.

The faliure of Josh Perry, combined with replacing Graham with Laffranchi has left us bereft of a pack leader. Did someone mention Micky Paea for next season? He'd be a good pick instead of Boof or Perry.
We need to unload the two above as we're carrying them (or trying to).

I think he is.


He reminds me of Fa'asavalu in that respect. People remember his good days, but he could be pretty anonymous too.

At the end of the day I think LMS is the kind of prop you bring on to do some damage to a pack that has already been softened up by your starting front row. If you play him from the start or if he comes off the bench into a game in which your starting props have been hammered than you're not too likely to see the best of him.

I guess we need to find some starting props, then.
Ben Harrison and Brent Kite, please.

Glad to see this, he's a good solid player and is pretty good in attack when he runs wide, as he did against Cas.

From an outsider looking in, i can't help but think that St Helens supporters are slightly falling victim to the fact that they have been extremely spoilt over the last 10-15 years. Probably the best team of the Super League era for consistency of performance and winning trophies/reaching finals. Having some of the best players to ever play the game in Long, Cunningham, Jamie Lyon etc. It's almost impossible to live up to those standards and it may just be the case that, put simply, it's time for other clubs to have some success. Maybe some criticism could be levelled at the people in charge of recruitment etc. but as with anything in life, nothing lasts forever.

Disagree if you think i'm wrong, it's just an opinion at the end of the day....

I genuinely don't think the majority of the squad is bad as such, but are being made to look worse due to the lack of half-backs and hookers. I'm not up to speed with the Gaskell situation but watching our best halfback play centre for Salford is probably the most frustrating thing to me at the moment. That's the only thing that we can lay at Brown's door so far, which is compounded when you consider we swapped him for Howarth who has brought nothing to the hooker position that almost any other squad player could do just as 'well'. How can we criticise the likes of Turner and Gardner for their performances when they are reliant on quick ball which doesn't exist when the ball has to go through a combination of Howarth, Wilkin, Wellens and Hohaia?

Defensively I think we are fine, think it is 3rd or 4th best in the league which is better than you would expect given the amount of different players we have used. We just desperately, desperately need a new set of halfbacks who can give the rest of the players the good ball they need to play to their strengths.

Bring in a decent coach to steady the ship and put the hard work in for several seasons in the end it will all come good a la Wigan

That was done at the start of the season.

It obviously wasn't

There is nothing 'OBVIOUS' about it. 'OBVIOUS' would be us getting smashed every week and being bottom. That isn't the case, so what you are saying has no merit.

We are two points off Warrington. Does that mean that Tony Smith is 'OBVIOUSLY' not a decent coach? I think not.

Either you're on a wind-up, or are incredibly stupid. I cannot fathom which one.

It's my belief that history is a wheel.

'Inconstancy is my very essence,' says the wheel.

Rise up on my spokes if you like but don't complain when you're cast back down into the depths. Good time pass away, but then so do the bad.

Mutability is our tragedy, but it's also our hope. The worst of time, like the best, are always passing away.

Stay off the smack, it's bad for you.

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Quote ="St pete"d040.gif'" It's just some pinched waffle from a medieval philosopher en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anicius_Ma ... s_Boethius