I prefer some forwards to be in the older age bracket - we do have younger ones coming through, and LMS and Clough aren't old. We have lost a lot of age and therefore experience in the last couple of years and a lot of the rest of our team is young - therefore we need some old heads about. Age tends to lead more to a loss of speed than anything, which is not a massive issue in the forwards. Young forwards often struggle in SL for a couple of years - week in week out appearances would be no good at all for them. I don't think it is a problem at all, in fact I think there are more positives than negatives to it.

Not quite vitriol



To be fair, that was my first thought when we signed Laffranchi, maybe Waterhouse, Perry is hitting 30 soon if not already there (cant be @rsed looking) and now Puletua.

It can work 2 ways, we have an ageing pack that is always injured as it cant stand modern day SL

Or we have an experienced pack, in their prime who can bring on the likes of LMS, Magennis and maybe Chris Hill if his rumoured arrival from Leigh turns out to be true.

Yes, if those players are Tony Puletua, Trent Waterhouse, Anthony Laffranchi and Josh Perry.

If there's any position on the field where being 30/31 doesn't concern me it's prop. Look at your own Andy Coley in the last couple of years.

y is no1 telling them off for signing aussies? and letting young british lads go?
they seem to be getting praised for it,

I think it's a risk, but "probably" worth taking, but only time will tell.

agreed

lol nice try...

try what?
you lot would be slating wigan if we did that,
typical saints cant do no wrong,

Starting their contracts at 30/31 is ok, it is the last of the three years that may trouble them.
Still, Puletua re-signing is a very good for them and SL.

Lol apart from all the other British talent we have come through the ranks this year, plus the British Talent we bought last year, plus the British Talent we are looking to buy this year.

like I said. Nice try

Who are we "letting go"?

well you certainly didnt try hard enough to keep eastmond and graham,
just using ur arguments that you used against us,
=#FF0000Less of that word please. Mods

Absolute Rubbish. From what I hear we offered Graham one of the most lucrative deals in the clubs history and were gutted when he decided he wanted to go to Australia.

Eastmond we basically offered him what we thought he was worth. He wanted to go to union full stop. I dont think any rugby league club would have been able to change his mind unfortunately

exactly the same as some of our youngsters that you seem to like to say we just dumped, got rid of for aussies.

I am not talking about your club. All I am saying is that Saints tried very hard to keep Graham especially. Given the Salary cap we made him an outstanding offer, and at the end of the day his decision was more to do with a lifestyle change, broadening his horizons and trying to improve as a player in a better league

He as a point though doesn't he.

some of you men (not saying you) slated us pre-season for letting 4 over seas players leave and bringing 3 in..The turnip Saddened being the main one.
the fact we bring more academy players through than anyone didn't matter.

Probably because you had 8 of them at the time (Roberts, Richards, Feka, Bailey, Carmont, Tommy, Phelps, Riddell off the top of my head) whereas we have 5.

Not to mention we tried desperately hard to keep the two english players leaving us this season by offering them massively lucrative long term deals.

i am not going to criticise you for your recruitment policy because every club does what it thinks is best for it at that time. To be honest with you despite what you guys think of him, we are losing unquestionably the best prop in superleague aged 25 and replacing him with lesser players over 30.

This will unquestionably make us weaker and hence for anyone to say that this is something that we engineered or hoped would happen is quite frankly laughable.

As a Wigan fan I can't blame saints for not keeping Graham or Eastmond. It seems Graham wants to test himself in the NRL and I don't think there is anything Saints could have done to stop him. Eastmond reminds me of Ashton, great prospect but too interested in chasing the cash before he's proven himself. Maybe it'll work out for him like it did for Ashton, but I wouldn't be surprised if biscuit ankles comes crawling back in a year or two like Lee Smith. I certainly don't blame Saints for not throwing half their cap at him!

As for them signing overseas players, you've got to get the best team you can out weekly. I've been impressed with the likes of Wheeler, Lomax et al but you need experienced heads to mix in with them in my opinion, if the English players aren't available then you have to sign from overseas.

As for scum, don't be so bloody stupid.

Edit: On topic, I think this is good news for Saints, Puletua always looks dangerous against us and is a quality player, would have been a big loss.

I don't think it's to do with the fact that you're losing British players like Eastmond and Graham that bothers anyone, it's just the fact that Saints are having to replace them with Aussies that are towards the end of their careers.

It's not surprisng that you have to do it to try and maintain a quality squad, it's just that some of yours fans are proving themselves to be hypocrites after criticising Wigan so much for it.

Thank you, finally someone who see what i do

If we were starting from a position of 8 overseas players (excluding Harrison Hansen) like Wigan last year, you might have a point.

In case you hadn't noticed, we aren't.

how did i know this thread would have turned into idiots comparing how many overseas players each teams have?

grow up you bunch of boring d!cks

Plenty of criticism from the saints fans when Ashton left us, that 'we should have paid anything to make him stay', lo and behold, the same thing happened with Eastmond, of course the saints fans reaction is totally different; that's actually what people are talking about not so much the amount of overseas players in any squad (obviously some are pointing out that you've taken on 2 more 30+ aussies in it for the pay day.