Of course we would have done better if we had recruited better. We probably also would have won yesterdays match if Roby had of been playing. However are we really playing to our full potential?

We are not even close.

Our squad has its limits, but we are a world away from hitting them at the moment. We aren't 9th purely because of an inexperienced half back pairing, or having Lomax at 7. Likewise if we had another scrum half, we wouldn't suddenly be using more varied patterns of attack, and our runners wouldn't suddenly be hitting al sorts of different lines. They are doing what they are coached to do.

I do think are recruitment has also let us down, but I am currently more frustrated out how we are under-performing. You look at the squad, and it is very frustrating that we are not playing better. We are very capable of playing much better.

We have two problems. One is our recruitment has not been the best, and our squad is weaker. The other problem is we are under-performing. The first problem reduces are chances of winning trophies, but still allows us to be very competitive. The latter means we are 9th.

Excuse me. We have made it to SIX Grand Finals on the trot. We won the first one. A second win has now been beyond three different coaches.

he supports man utd get shut.

I don't think our recruitment has been bad. We have gone in for big name, big money aussies less than Wigan, Hull, Warrington with usually better results.

Talent - playing AND coaching - is hard to come by. We took Gleeson and Wilkin from lower clubs and it paid off. It might yet do with LMS, it might not.

We've turned local academy talent (Graham, Eastmond, Roby) into world class players and turned others into top-flight professionals.

We've got to face the fact that other clubs have caught us up in many areas.

Er, it may be that the other clubs offered more money AND have recent silverware on the table. Both those factors have enabled Saints in the past to attract big name players to our team. We don't have either to offer at present and so it is unlikely in a foot race against Leeds, Wigan and Wire (the big spenders) that we are going to win.

Remember, two of our players came to Saints because Royce Simmons was our coach. They stated that clearly in their acceptance speeches. I rather think they wouldn't do that if they believed him to be a crap coach. That so many people on here presently do is not because he is but because people are seeking a reason for our present predicament and it is easy to blame the coach. However, the players have to take responsibility for what we have been watching this season. They give away penalties; they don't find touch with kicks; they don't catch kick offs; they miss tackles; they get sin binned; they panic; not one of them is prepared to lead on the field. Royce doesn't coach any of that into their game.

Our senior players need to man up. Only Wello did so against Bradford and he made a real difference. Had our other senior players done so we might have won regardless of the errors of our inexperienced players. In fact, those errors might never have occurred as within the more positive atmosphere of the senior players doing their jobs properly and with enthusiasm, they may have been more confident and so not fallen victim to trying too hard and getting it wrong.

As for McManus ... I would love him to walk up to the senior players and kick their backsides. And I include LMS in that group because he's been playing utter rubbish this season so far but has enough experience to be considered among the senior group.

McManus is a great business man and what he has done for our club in terms of its financial survival, not to mention the wonderful new stadium, means I'm not going to criticise his recruitment policy. He had to make a decision: the stadium or the players. We are not a rich enough club to finance both. The players had to go on hold for the sake of the stadium but even so, this group of players is clearly better than the results show. I say clearly because (a) last year they got to a GF, and (b) we are losing by such small margins, usually as a result of stupid errors (like Puletua dropping the ball with the tryline begging).

This might be relevant if it weren't for two facts - 1) Warrington had no silverware to speak of (what's more, they had no [inearly success[/i to speak of) when they began their policy of recruiting better players. and 2) they can't spend over the cap, which McManus has repeatedly stated we are spending up to.

I could drive coach and horses through the salary cap if I was a wealthy club owner.

I suspect McManus might just be too smart to engage in that arms race. Who knows about some others though?

McManus has had to do battle on all fronts and has probably got his priorities right long term. Obviously the new stadium means he's had to take his eye off the ball, he believes in the youth development which created a "false dawn" bringing in the youth type of player in during the injury ravaged season.
It all means we have yet another transition season, now that priority 1 is out of the way he can re focus on the right players in the medium term. The only problem is that some of the contract lengths are too much for certain present individuals, which means there is no short term fix.

Whilst the genesis of our troubles can be traced back to the decision to rely on kids two/three years before they were physically mature the nail in the coffin was allowing the Eastmond saga to drag on six-to-eight months longer than it should.

We should NEVER have been in a position where we were starting last season without knowing whether Eastmond would stay. McManus should have set an absolute deadline at the mid-point of the season before (sign or leave). That way we had time to look for a replacement scrum half. Even if it were only a short-term solution.

Unfortunately, the mistake was complicated by Lomax who admittedly did ok and convinced us we needed no such replacement. What we [ididn't realise[/i is part of his success against other teams can be attributable to unfamiliarity rather than his inherent ability as a scrum half. Teams failed to pick him up precisely because they had no history on which to base a defensive strategy. After a season they had all the data they needed and now he's finding himself shut down and lacking the creative ability to think out of the box.

McManus - very shrewd, lots of trophies, built us a new stadium.

Simmons - a career assistant coach with a history of failure as a head coach who has taken us on our worst streak since the 80s and playing some of the most dour rugby I've ever seen from a Saints side. I'm out of my seat when I see us offload these days, as I know I might not see another for a month.

Hmmmm, tough choice.

McManus has probably made mistakes in recruitment, like all chairmen do from time to time over the course of a decade plus. But let's not pretend the squad is being coached and used to its optimum and our problems are down to playing personnel alone, it clearly isn't the case.

I loved Royce's latest genius approach - wait until we look like we might be building some momentum, then replace one of the halves with Royce's incredible "back on the bench" (a ploy so ingenious its sheer brilliance is yet to be appreciated by the likes of Smith, Maguire, Brown etc), this time an under 20's full back. That went really well and will have done Ashe the world of good.

Saints have some very rich men on the board though.

I had really high hopes for this season. Even though we'd lost Jammer I was impressed by the signing of Laffranchi and Hohaia, which coupled with the promising kids we blooded last season, promised much.

To say it has been a nightmare season so far wouldn't be an understatement for me. As mentioned in numerous other posts and topics, the club looks to be in totaly and utter disarray on a coaching and playing level. For me, the buck stops with the coach.

Where we once was solid and well drilled we are now all over the place and confusion reigns. There is a massive lack of confidence running through the squad, as wide as Perry's gut, and yet we are still constantly chopping and changing the team week in week out.

I was willing to give Simmons the time to sort it out but it doesn't look - on the surface at least - that anything is changing. Players look confused and devoid of any kind of form or confidence.

As for McManus, everything he has done for this club far outweighs the Simmons situation. We don't have a god given right to win everything every season, and Chairmen will make mistakes with recruitment just like anyone else.

At the end of the day, if it wasn't for Big Mac, we wouldn't be having this debate now.

We wouldn't be here.

This ^^^

But I really don't think Royce can take us any further and would like to see it sorted sooner rather than later, in saying that, we are only 5 points off second spot.

That's a mistake in reasoning. The skills required to build a stadium and build a successful team are not a carbon copy of each other. And trophies have been somewhat thin on the ground recently.



Actually, it IS a tough choice. No matter how much you try to minimise Royce's abilities they are the very same that got us to a Grand Final.

What you fail to explain is if McManus is so shrewd and Royce was so obviously flawed - WHY did McManus hire him?

If we are going to level the finger of blame I'd say it falls equally upon the heads of McManus, Potter, Simmons and probably Anderson.

I'm not saying Royce WAS obviously flawed, I'm saying that it is becoming increasingly clear that he is NOW. McManus hired the Oz assistant coach, unfortunately for McManus the Oz assistant coach now appears to be a bit of a mug.

Reardless of issues with roster (and I'm certainly not saying the roster is perfect), we look very badly coached and Royce has no idea what his best team is.

There are a multitude of signs that Royce is not the man for the job, whereas I would say EM has proved to be a pretty good leader over his tenure and has a lot of results on and off the pitch over a period of time to back that up.

McManus is in overall charge no doubt, but there is a huge difference between being shareholder and the store manager.

I was a shareholder of Barclays for a time, but would not have a clue how to run a world wide banking organisation.

Mamanus will have more of a clue, but in the end it's the coaches job to say he wants player abc and McManus' job to say well we can afford A and B or A and C but not all three. If the money man was picking the players that would be a worry as thats down to people who are coaches and can see where the team needs to be progressed. Same for hiring youth, the club may want youth but if the coach does not feel they make the grade then he should not hire them, but of course and this is the crux. The RFL demands 8 of the squad to be club youth.

Wellens / Foster / Makinson / Gaskell / Lomax / Roby / Clough / Dixon.


Which of these due you feel should be dropped for other club developed players, because the concentration on youth is not an option, we can't hire 20 NRL players and neither should we.

You said [i"...a career assistant coach with a history of failure as a head coach"[/i. Now unless you count the last five or six games as proof positive of failure (which is nonsensical as even good coaches can have bad runs and we could very easily have won at least three of those games) you are claiming he was a failure BEFORE he arrived and therefore unqualified for a job at Saints.

So, I'll ask again: If McManus is so shrewd - WHY did he hire him?

I really don't understand why McManus is so often give a free pass when it comes to results on the field. I have always given enormous credit to him for securing the stadium. But that's an entirely separate issue. The stadium does not carry a ball. The stadium does not kick goals. The stadium does not score tries.

Going back to the completely baseless decision to give Meli his first extension (at the very least) I think there is ample evidence that suggests he is not a very good judge of players. Couple this with his repeated claim that we are spending up to the cap. If we were - and I have no reason to doubt him without other evidence - we have been getting royally ripped off (especially as half our squad was made up of kids!). Who is to blame for that?

What do you want me to say? That EM made a mistake hiring him? I would think that a cursory look at any of my posts about Simmons would confirm that I think that to be the case.



Perhaps a dozen or so trophies since he took over might have something to do with it?

The players he signed running up to our most successful ever season in 2006 did carry a ball, did kick goals, did score tries. Vinnie Anderson, Jamie Lyon, Jason Cayless, Leon Pryce, Jon Wilkin, Willie Talau, Lee Gilmour, Jason Hooper, Maurie etc. You talk as if he just had to ride into town and watch the trophies pile up, the actual truth is we remained at the top despite losing players like Iro, Hoppe, Joynt, Martyn, Newlove, Sullivan etc. Yes he had a core of very, very good players, but 3 or 4 top players alone don't win trophies - look at some of the big spending Wigan sides of SL era to see that.

He took over in 2001 and 11 years later we've made the last 6 GFs. Mistakes may have been made in the last couple of years, but whatever mistakes have been made are being massively blown out of proportion by the comical coaching of the current squad.

Success last week doesn't not mean success next. Yes, we won plenty of trophies. But ALMOST ALL were directly attributable to Martyn, Sculthorpe, Cunningham, Long, Newlove, Iro and a couple of others. Now, how many of those players did McManus sign?

A dozen trophies is meaningless if you don't show the trend. And the trend has been downwards for a number of years.



- A flop.

- Good signing.

- A waste of money.

- Never truly lived up to his potential, but did play well earlier in his career.

- Did McManus sign Wilkin? In any case he certainly doesn't warrant the contract he was given recently.

- Good players. Both were let go before we had replacements, BTW.

- Hooper was ok. Played well for a season but was injured too often to be effective. Maurie was a good value buy - but he was never anything more than a 3rd/4th prop at Saints.



3 or 4 top players don't win trophies on their own. But put Newlove, Martyn, Long, Cunningham and Scully in any mid-table side and I guarantee you success. Let us not be so pompous as to think we didn't buy success. We did. Yes, there was a lot of good coaching at work, also. But without transfer-busting deals to the likes of Newlove, Sculthorpe et al. we would have struggled like anyone else.



This is just ridiculous. Simmons got us to a Grand Final last season with a depleted, inexperienced side. So the only thing you can base your argument on is a run of six games. Yet, by some feat of magic, you manage to claim the mistakes made in those handful of games OUTWEIGH the mistakes made by McManus over the last FIVE OR SIX YEARS!? I really can't take you seriously.

Fair enough, we all have opinions. FWIW, given some of your player appraisals above, the feelings mutual.

I think McManus has done a terrific job at saints with building the stadium and cutting the bank debt but his last two choices of coach have been terrible. I thought potter was bad until we got this current idiot.

On the recruitment side, we went to long not bringing players in (think we went two years without a single signing) when we was losing the likes of newlove, talau, gidley, long, Cunningham, scully etc.

I think we was unlucky last year with the three signings of shenton, LMS and perry as they seemed very good signings at the time but perry got injured, shenton has been average and LMS has been crap.

Its this years recruitment that will be tough to recover from. We've took to overseas spots up with players that have been asked to play out of postion and it's not worked. I know Royce wanted these three players and is good mates with two of them.

This years recruitment is crazy and entirly down to Royce Simmons and I'm shocked Macmanus allowed him to sign laffranchci and lance to play out of postion.

We are desperate to halfback and props but no quota spots available so god knows how we will get out this mess!

You referred to recently though, and recently Wire have won two Challenge Cups and a League Leaders Shield whereas we have won zip.

Also, our Chief Exec before he moved on stated quite clearly in the press that we had not spent up to the salary cap this season.

And in addition, there is leeway now for clubs with international players who were brought in from their academy system to spend more than the regulation salary cap so there is some flexibility for Wigan, Wire and Leeds. It applies to us too but only for James Roby this season.

But Warrington didn't win trophies with a dud side AND THEN sign better players. They had already begun and effect followed cause. And they have CONTINUED to recruit well ever since.



Well, that's meaningless without knowing how far below the salary cap we were. In any case, we couldn't use money to recruit overseas stars because we had hit out quota. And McManus has repeatedly - season after season - claimed we are up to or around the cap. If that was true - and I have no evidence to doubt him - we were getting poor value for money. Clearly some players were being lollied way above their pay grade.



I don't see that as being an important issue at this moment. It may be in the future. But it's not giving Wigan and Warrington a colossal advantage over us.

Its not a nice situation to disect, as Saints are in a rut (nothing more, mind).

People can point fingers at the players, but, whilst they may not be a team of world beaters, they are capable of a lot more than thy're currently showing.

Foster's a good example. I was never his biggest fan, but I was very positive about what he could bring to us. He wasn't the fastest or biggest, but he complimented his place kicking by being quite error free. Remember when Stevo gave him MoM after he caught that high ball in the last minute of the derby? For an extended period he looked like a very safe pair of hands, now he looks like he couldn't catch the clap in a toxteth brothel.

Johnny Lomax - young player of the year 2011, looks utterly lost.
Michael Shenton - deserved England centre at cas, hardly gets the ball.
LMS - promising talent gone AWOL.
Josh Perry - Former Aussie prop, struggles with form and fitness.
Laffranchi - Former international with a reknowned proffesional attitude
Tony P - Named in Penrith ALL TIME 17, has been massive for us in the past, only turns in 10 mins a game.
Francis Meli - Like him or loathe him, he's a massive attacking asset, hardly getting a sniff at the moment.

I could go on, but for all these players to be performing below par then there's something fundamentally wrong with the workings of the squad, which is the coach's responsibility, whether its tactics, man management or something else.

There didn't look like a lack of desire or will from the players when they were defending the line late in the game on Saturday, but they're spending half the game wandering around not knowing where they should be or what's coming next.

Mr Big is accountable completely for the appointment of Simmons (which was a gamble many of us highlighted).

Blaming him for recruitment is useless unless you're going to consider fully the availability of players matched with our own financial circumstances and apportion some of the blame with the coaches during those times you're assessing. You can't say "He should have recruited this or this" if those players weren't available, had no interest in coming to Saints or would not have been worth the investment. That's a complex argument right there and requires far more than soundbite analysis.