Quote: christopher "I get the point about Saints stadium but it wasn't as big of an outlay and they didn't go into a lock soon because of a pandemic as soon as it opened. Their succession planning has been better than ours although it will be interesting in the next few years because they have a few very influential players retiring in the next couple of years.
Just on the conditioning part we have changed that last year I believe and to be fair, lack of fitness doesn't seem to be an issue with the squad.'"
The stadium thing is a distraction - we have marquee players and we are spending to the cap - not sure how the issues around the stadium impacted that unless its in the cost of the coach? Given what happened to Furner perhaps our choices are limited. We pay top dollar sadly we seem to overpay e.g. Tetevano, Merrin for these players.
We would be both very surprised if it takes Saints 7/8 years to make the transition from their current side to a new competitive one. They seem to have much more success with their signings from the NRL - perhaps Saints is more attractive proposition than Leeds these days.
We just don't seem sharp enough - how did Olpharts end up on a 3 year contract at Leeds. He is so good we play a second row forward in the centres than play him!! It is not as if he was an overseas player who couldn't settle - I know Cas is another world but!!