Indeed. He scored game-breaking tries in three separate major finals between 2005 and 2008. And people accused him of not turning up in big games.

Leon was a greta player and i do think we had him when he fancied it the most and made it possible for us to win all those trophies.

I do think he has rapidly declined though and it would be tough for me to say id have him back now. As many have said, we got rid of what was becoming a problem and replaced it with another problem, our inability to replace him!

It's about pragmatism I'm afraid, Leon Pryce may not be as good as he used to be according to some/most but he is still miles better than anything we have at the moment.

Also worth noting for the eternal optimist and apologists on this forum that always hide behind the 'hindsight' argument that we replaced Leon (a proven Standoff) with a fullback who 'might' have been able to make the change to standoff. We also decided to do this after releasing our other scrum half option (the season before) before we bothered to tie up the best prospect in RL and our long term 7 Kyle Eastmond on a long term deal.

I'm just hoping the club has developed a short, medium and long term strategy now which will get us out of the mess we are in and that this is reflected in the nature and length of people contracts. If we haven't we'll be floundering around for many years.

When we signed Leon he wasnt a proven stand off though,he was a winger/utility back but we had the luxury of world class players to make the transition easier,had we re signed him we still would be struggling as he wasnt a playmaker and needed a good 7 to run the show.

Pryce isn't anywhere near the player he was.
You have a new 7, now you need a new 6.
Pryce isn't at the standard you now need!

We didn't though. We replaced Leon with Gaskell and Eastmond with Lomax, both of whom were recognised halves albeit young and inexperienced ones.

Hohaia may wear 6 on his back but it was quite clear from press statements at the time that his utility value was crucial to his appointment.

Easy to look back and see what a mistake it was letting Pryce go, and naturally I think we would have been better for his presence over the last 18 months rather than Hohaia's. I agree completely with the first post though, Pryce is completely shot now and carries very little threat any more.

The sad things is he'd still walk into our team at Stand Off right now.

I think Mark Bailey would.

He'd have the best hands and fastest in our backs

To be fair to Bailey he was a solid pro who played in almost every back position in his Saints career.

He had a few critics but was a victim of circumstance some of the time because he ended up playing 3,4,6 or 7 when we had injuries or when the promised big signings had never materialized.

Great side step but wouldn't pass.

Lomax was already at the club and was wedged into 7 because we failed to tie down Eastmond before we let our only other natural 7 go to Salford . I was at a forum at the time and KC was talking about Lomax as a potential fullback then (so it's not Browns idea) . Gaskell did not replace Pryce , again he was supposed to be the understudy , with Hohaia signed as a halfback, read old press stuff and things that were said, Hohaia wanted to play in the halves and came over here to do it. I remember you arguing strongly that he was a 6 !!!!!!

We let our recognised 6 go and replaced him with utility player.

As per previous comment I agree when we signed Pryce he hadn't nailed down that spot at Bradford but coming into a successful team as a young ish player like Pryce was and being paired with a top player like Longy helped him alot, Lance is not young and was brought in to be the 'experienced half' utter utter terrible recruitment

No doubt. At the time of Pryce's contract discussions there was an interesting debate on here (remember them?) about whether or not we should have given him three years that he wanted. I thought we should have done at the time but was wrong in hindsight, it's just a shame we botched up his replacement so badly.

He was once a really top player IMO, but now he seems a mere shadow of his former self. In the games I’ve seen he contributes very little now.