Could you kindly define... "as much as we can afford to"?

Pre or post shareholder profit? Pre or post ground development? Pre or post saving for a tax bill?

If we're borrowing money to pay for the South Stand, then the business is in debt, and thus paying interest on said debt, and thus could EASILY justify, to anybody with any remote sense of any business understanding, that the amount they can "afford" to spend on players is zero.

I think people so easily forget sport is a business. We're not talking about Abramovich or Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan playing with lose change to win trophies for kicks.

GH doesn't wake up every morning and think... "How can I win my next trophy? I shall stop at nothing, and spare no expense to win that shiny trophy! Think of the glory!", he thinks... "How can I make my next pound!", and rightly so. The fact that all his "customers" are thinking about the glory I'm sure is more of a hindrance than a help.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure GH wants us to be a successful team, not for the glory, pride or shiny trophy, but because that happens to be where the money is. He certainly will not be going for the win, 'no matter what the cost' as many seem to expect.

You could still do one at a time though rather than both at same time.

But I agree with you that half back area is a key area we need to plan to change.

Well we are going to have to make an allowance in the budget somewhere to spend on the team. It's all very well investing coroprate boxes, new stands and the like, but if we don't have a team capable of producing the rugby that the fans desire, the fans won't spend money within the club anymore. St Helens are hardly in the best financial postition, they're even in the process of building a whole new stadium, yet have announced the signing of a world cup winner and last season signed a two current england internationals. They have made allowances to balance out the business and playing side, and at the moment we don't seem to be investing in the playing side adequately

Criticising our recruitment is one thing, using St Helens as a yardstick is another. They've spent big, won sod all and their crowds were on the wane long before taking tenancy at Widnes.

Okay, put it this way, would you rather have signed:

Cross, Huaraki and Delaney over Shenton, LMS and Soliola? I know which three I would have rather seen us sign.

Absolute rubbish.

Well you do know a lot about that. So probably bet you explain then.

You seriously think a professional and ambitious player Hohaia would rather play for Crusaders than Saints for the sake of a few quid? You're in a dream world mate.

I think he has a point. These lads are professional. They're not coming half way around the world, uprooting their family and playing in an inferior competition for any reason other than financial.

Its absolutely true, and ridiculous to call it rubbish. Every overseas player who comes over in their later career is looking for the biggest offer they can get. Not to say they will not be value for that money, but that is their primary motive.

Our recruitment in the past has been good, but we are starting to see now the effects of bad recruitment. What did we win last year? This year hasn't exactly started promising has it? We are starting to see a decline as our experienced players who have been great servants are entering decline, and because we have not recruited well enough this has meant we are being left with a stale squad who looks tired and mostly over the hill. We do have some promising youngsters coming through which are a breath of fresh air, however there are still too many cheap options in the squad now which is holding us back, if they were adequately replaced we would not be having the problems we are currently experiencing.