Barba been at saint's stadium today st Helens star saying it's as good as done

The st helens star? Balls. When the pullitzer prize winning journos there go to press you know it's a done deal.

Those who claim to be in the know at Saints claim that's not true and that Ben's back in France now. More chat on him from Mike Rush today, talking about the specifics of the ban and whether Saints could appeal it if the RFL somehow insisted on applying it.

Well there is another ingredient in the pot now....with the out going of LF their maybe a carrot for Barba at Catalans.

Nope you aren't getting out of it that easy........
signed ....done deal...you said

I can Just hear Barba in his press conference now ..." Ive always wanted to play under great coaches Like Michael Monaghan And Jerome Guisset"...!!

Cynically I would bet that the RFL would chose after the signing whether they would honour he ban for the NRL.

Personally if the NRL issue a ban then it stays in that competition. Any ban issued should only apply over here if the misdemeanour was relating to an International game or competition.

The insiders on the Saints side reckon he's chosen to sign for you guys. Sounds to me like he's just been bouncing between two or three clubs to extract that extra bit of dollar.

Which insiders? Do you mean people you know as I can't see anyone on the Saints forum posting this.

Who is the 3rd club? Salford.

Can't blame him for that. It's not like he has any affinity to any club.

Quote ="Lord Tony Smith"Which insiders? Do you mean people you know as I can't see anyone on the Saints forum posting this.'" www.redvee.net/forums/showthread ... rba/page14 They still think if we get "Bar Bar Blacksheep" they get Ratchford.

Quote ="Lord Tony Smith"Which insiders? Do you mean people you know as I can't see anyone on the Saints forum posting this.'" www.redvee.net/forums/showthread ... rba/page14 They still think if we get "Bar Bar Blacksheep" they get Ratchford.

People on redvee and PMs on here and Twitter. The usual suspects who seem to know signings before they are announced. Probably all getting their info from the same places and entirely unverifiable.

Current English International, still under contract.

I would estimate a transfer fee of £200k, would be required.

That`s if SJM was prepared to sell, which is very doubtful.

Or a player exchange with Walmsley & Percival coming to Wire?......Thats the prop & centre signings that have been debated on here.

I doubt very very much they would swap Walmsley and Percival for just Ratchford, if this did actually happen. But really can't see it happening at all.

Neither of them was good enough to be selected for the England V Samoa game.

I agree with you that its highly unlikely, but if the Stains fans can speculate about signing Wire players, then we can cherry pick players from their side that Wire could use.

Tony smith says saints are frontrunners we need move on

It does genuinely sound like we have never made a serious bid for him.

And given the similarities with Chris Sandow I can fully understand that stance.

It must be tough for the club we had the same tenuous links with Cooper Cronk when he was looking for a new contract. With Smith having to answer questions about him.

I, for one, would be gutted if we haven't made a serious bid for him. We need to be chasing talent like his regardless of the risk that may come with it.

I doubt that. Brett Kimmorley said he was in talks with Warrington and Saints weeks ago. There have been rumours for the last couple of weeks that he'd signed for you, bouncing between that and him signing for Saints and Catalans as well. It's well documented that he's been in discussions with a few SL clubs. Tony Smith has also been quoted today saying you were interested and basically are awaiting his decision. If it were purely financial I think you would be top of the list, but I think the link with Holbrook is probably the thing in our favour currently.

He's signed for Warrington. Well according to a senior club official anyway.

But to be honest, that same senior club official has not exactly been truthful or correct previously so...

Interesting. Just sorting the ban and visa potentially then.

I doubt that Brett Kimmorley knows much.... Steve Mascord one of the better Aussie Journalists that actually seems to know a bit about Superleague mentioned We "made a play for Barba" on Sunday Morning of Magic weekend. I find that astonishing if he was a genuine target.

and from what I read of the Tony smith quotes it sounds as if we are waiting to see if he wants to go to saints and if he doesn't we could offer him something. (That may be far away from the truth but thats what it sounds like to me). Again hardly a ringing endorsement of being a number one target for us.

the Holbrook thing that's not really a strong link, He was coach of the Canterbury Bulldogs New south Wales cup side (reserve grade), Barba was a star of the NYC side (under 20's team). So he most likely never played under Holbrook.

the best way to look at this is how many fans will laugh at us for signing Barba six months after our last bad boy Aussie mercenary laughed at his Wire contract and did a runner back to Australia.

what it does highlight is that if he goes to either Saints or Catalan it will make our attempts to get out of the bottom 4 much more difficult.

A very interesting quote from TS
"It SOUNDS like they're (Saints) are front runners"
Referring to press and social media.

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Posted on Redvee

Who are you calling a liar Saddened?