From a Wire fan's perspective I dont agree one bit with your post above Kyle is getting great experience at Saints one of the best teams in super league he will only get better and is already a quality player, Longy although a superb player in his time has had an injury hit season and when he has played one of the very few times this season being against Warrington at the K.C earlier in the season I thought he was past his best Kyle is Saints future and a future superleague star you have done the right thing in giving him a starting jersey this year. See you on friday and heres for a sell out and an all time classic with a Wire win this time sick of the heartbreak at your place .

When he manages to play.

Id rather have Chris Sandow

When a young half back comes into a team his game is often based on his speed off the mark, his eye for a gap and the acceleration to back up a team mate when a break is on.

Thats how Long started at Saints. As he matures, the speed goes a bit he needs to develop new facets to his game, how to lay off a good pass, a good kicking game and how not to get caught in possession, repeated hits from big forward hurt and a star player whose on the side lines isn't a star.

Eastmond has the ability to do bo the these roles in one, he certainly has the acceleration, his passing and kicking game is already good for a young player but I feel he needs some sort of guidance, either a specialist coach or an on field mentor, that may have happened if Long had stayed.

He needs to learn better when to take on the line, its better late in the game when forwards are tiring.
His show & go & duck under move is getting himself hurt, if you dont get through then you get two hefty forwards landing on your back.

If you watched a good half back years ago when we played in muddy conditions he would often be the guy with the clean shirt, not because he was avoiding work but because he had the skill of avoiding being tackled, after all your needed as a playmaker for the next play.

I think we're desperately in need of an old headed playmaker scrum half, one who Eastmond and some of the other young half backs could learn from.

Another thing they have in common is the injuries.

Kyle went down (AGAIN) yesterday and wanted to carry on when he should have just gone off. We need to think long and hard about Eastmond in the future and if these injuries are going to keep him in for a week and out for a month then we have a problem.

I love Kyle and think he is a great player but we have to look at this without the blinkers on.

And tonight's game proved how right we were to let Longy go and seek nice retirement package elsewhere I think ...

It always makes me chuckle when Eddie and Stevo sound suprised that Longy's had a terrible night with the boot , anyone who watched him week in week out over the last fw year especially would know that his kicking game would quite ften be cr@p

IMO, he's better than Long was at the same age.

People forget that the young Sean Long built his game on pace. He had little of the organisational skills that he later developed / was forced to develop as his pace ebbed away.

His kicking game is way ahead of Longy's at the same point in his career.

Long is a Saints hero, but we let him go at the right time and had we not done so I doubt Eastmond would be in RL now.