School teacher to pupil who has just had a fight.

"you slapped that child didn't you!?"

"I did, and I am sorry, but,,,, he hit me first!"

That's why you are being castigated, you are demeaning the act by offering an excuse. your paragraph saying flower was a tool is negated by your saying he was hit by LH. you are actually making an excuse for Flower's behaviour.

Have another read of what you have written and replace the LH with Matty Smith and replace Flower with, say, Ryan Bailey or Gareth Hock* and tell me you wouldn't see outrage if someone defended such an act by say, "he hit him first"?


*apologies to both Leeds and my lot but we all know those two are not well liked by opposition fan

If Lance Hohaia had post concussion syndrome there is no way he would even be training, let alone playing up until very recently. This is just spin to get him off Saints books so they can bring in McDonnell. It really wouldn't surprise me if Lance signs with an NRL club within the next month.

McDonnell is more of a replacement for Lomax, whose also out for the season as opposed Lance.

What type of problems Lance has been suffering is undisclosed (and rightfully so), and has been in and out of the team (inexplicably it seemed until now). The prospect of long term damage is much scarier (especially when your considering retirement already) then any nefarious tactics to move around the cap...

Also, Saints didn't say anything btw, this has all come from lance - so no it's not saints spin

Bizarre. You don't know what medical ailments he has anymore than I do. If he's got symptoms he'll be assessed by professionals and those are the people who will diagnose him. Hopefully he'll have a break and be assessed and be found to have no long term issues. If he doesn't those professional medics will be able to say whether it's possible to define the time the injuries occurred, not people on here.

McDonnell is a stop gap we'd probably already been looking at following Lomax's injuries. KC has said several times he'd bring in a fullback if he could and possibly this does allow that to happen without cap concerns. But if that were the case, they would just put out a statement saying he'd 'left by mutual consent' or 'returned to Australia for personal reasons with the clubs best wishes' like happens all the time with overseas players. Neither Saints nor Hohaia would make up a story for the sake of it, let alone one that could materially damage the sport. Hohaia has been on the periphery of things at Saints, only ever playing because other players were injured. If the chance to release him came up, Saints would have taken it a long time ago. There is no need for a cover story here?

...what's your excuse?

He'll have egg on his face if he does, surely?

Is it the sort of thing that in, say, 2 years he could be fit to play again? Or has he got it for life?