Rush is main man at saints he is the CEO

I agree up to a point. However, while I think there's always the potential of picking up a good threequarter or forward from the islander teams, quality half-backs are much rarer amongst the islanders. And I think it's now pretty much universally accepted that our problem is our lack of halves.

No, he's the High Performance Manager.

Moa's not the only one. There's plenty of players who've come to 'lesser teams' in SL that we would have benefited from, in recent years. L. Paea, Mika, Taia, Heremaia, Manuokafoa, Sammutt, Hanbury, Poore, Kaufusi, McDonnell, Kearney, Lulia, Burns, the list goes on...

No dont agree with most of them.
Obviously Hanbury and Sammut stand out like sore thumbs,especially comparing them to Lance.
Maybe Manuokafoa and Poore at a push but the rest meh.

Dudson, Taylor and Flower have been decent signings at Wigan.

If you look at it on paper, some of it hasn't been too bad.

It's turned out that way on the field mind but for example im 90% certain Perry played SOO the season before we signed him. I'm not having it there were many complaints when we brought in a SOO prop forward.

Same with world cup winning fullback Lance Hohaia, it was only Saddened really who, rightly, called it.

On paper the two that get the most scrutiny(deservedly so) at the time didn't IMO look like bad options. It just didn't materialise. I have it on good account that Perry is the highest earner at the club, and i'm guessing Hohaia and Laffranchi are up there. With hopefully 2 of these 3 gone in the offseason I hope we can put it right.

Letting Pryce go and bringing in Hohaia a massive mistake that shouldn't have been made. Yes, Pryce had been through a nightmare period of injuries in the 18 months leading up to his departure, but he's done very well for Catalans, and has stayed relatively injury free (I think).

Letting Pryce go was exactly the right decision IMO. At the time he had hardly played in two seasons and then wanted a longer contract than we were prepared to give him. He has stayed relatively injury free in France but that could have gone either way and they took a chance on him. I'm glad we didn't.

It was right that we gave Lomax and Gaskell an opportunity in the halves as they were both home grown halfbacks who had been on the fringes for a while, particularly Lomax. That neither has worked out as a halfback is unfortunate but clearly how it is. In the meantime we have let two other halfbacks go. We may well have an up and coming halfback awaiting a debut but whether they will get any game time this season I don't know. We will probably just go out and buy some unknown antipodean.

It must be the Easter weekend , but one again I find myself in agreement with SaintsFan . We let Pryce go for good reason he was dogged by serious injury and resigning him would of been a gamble.

It was a decision I think most of us could understand at the time. Personally I was gutted as I think he's still one of the best attacking players in Super League at the moment, but his injury record was a big concern.

What you don't do though is let a player go when you've not got a player coming in to replace them. At that stage we didn't know how Gaskell and Lomax would go. It all then goes completely pear shaped with the signing of Lance Hohaia.

It just seems to me that we sign overseas players in the same way you would employ someone in a business environment. You look at their CV as proof of their ability. It explains the signings of Perry, Laffranchi and Hohaia perfectly. All of them have outstanding CVs. Perry had won 2 NRL Grand Finals, played 211 times in the NRL, most as starting prop, played 5 times for County then progressed to play 3 times for New South Wales in Origin and played 4 times for Australia.

Anthony Laffranchi had played 204 times in the NRL scoring 50 tries. He'd won a Grand Final and scored the winning try in an Origin game. He played 4 times for County and 4 times for New South Wales. He also played 5 times for Australia and regularly topped 40 tackles, including in an Origin game.

Lance Hohaia played 185 times for New Zealand Warriors, played in an NRL Grand Final and is a World Cup winner.

You cannot argue with those CVs, they are top class. Had someone with a little rugby knowledge looked at the players in depth however, they would have seen how poor and unsuitable the players were for the recruitment needs we had at the time. Josh Perry had suffered a couple of serious injuries and was on his way down, struggling a lot in his final season in the NRL. Laffranchi was a player who had played his entire career in the backrow. He was signed and asked to play as a prop forward despite not being big enough, hard working enough or strong enough mentally to do the job to a decent standard. Lance Hohaia is perhaps the most costly mistake we've made with our recruitment. He primarily played fullback for New Zealand Warriors, played a year at centre, filled in at hooker for a season or two. He played fullback for New Zealand and occasionally hooker from the bench. One position he almost never played despite his utility value was half back. Yet we sign him to play there. It's three bizarre recruitment decisions that mystify and frustrate the fans and I don't believe anyone with any rugby knowledge was involved in any of the decisions.

I get a lot of stick on here for criticising players, but those three are probably in the top 4 earners at the club and contribute very little value.