If it's worth saying it's worth saying twice.

If saints thought he was the answer to the centre problem then whoever dies our recruitment is worse than I thought.

He was getting caught out as a 20yr old centre/winger with his lack of pace for a outside back and then add a couple of serious knee injuries.

Fully agreed. It was one of the reasons why we lost against Wigan in the Grand Final. Gleeson had a field day against Johnny Lomax at Old Trafford and at the time Potter was putting a different player in the left centre position week by week.

I agree with you in that the recruitment in this regard has been bad and Soliola should never have been signed as a centre but he was!!! I was very suprised when he was signed as a replacement centre and many people at the time were saying the same thing as he had played most of his his recent rugby at second row and were questioning why and where he would infact play.

It's he in thing at saints at the moment. Laffranchci played backrow all his life and now been signed as prop.

Lance signed as a fullback and then been asked to play stand off.

Crazy recruitment but a idiot of a coach.

We are certainly not having as much luck in the recruitment stakes. We keep missing out on players such as Chris Hill, Waterhouse and Griffin and end up playing players out of position because we have to.

Although I do really like Lance Hohiah as a player I'm begining to think he was also a panic buy.

Back to the topic of the discussion though. The reality is that the left channel of defence does need improving as we are leaking too many tries on that side of the field and we need to look to bring in a proper left centre next season or the problems will remain.

Was I seeing things last night or did Shenton keep being used in the scrums.

I know exactly what your saying but with the current recruitment the club made, how do you suggest we find a centre?

We've tied lance down for four years and ain't got clue what postion he's been signed for and he's a quota player.

We signed boof on 2yr deal and he's playing out of postion and also a quota player.

We've got perry here for this season and next and also a quota player.

The overseas quota is full for the next three years at least so unless we can find a British centre off contract or splash the cash the we will have no centre arriving at the club.

We will also in the market for a prop(maybe twos), a halfback and a fullback so it's a tough ask for the next coach.

The solutions is there is no easy solution I'm afraid.

The reality is and I have said it on this forum and others who would you honestly sign?

The Super League is devoid of top class English players and the new Newlove, Connolly etc isn't out there to buy even if you could with the necessary cash available and salary cap constraints didn't apply.

In addition to the need for a recognised centre there remains the possibility that we need to strengthen in other areas too, certainly at prop forward.

With the NRL cap increasing it will soon get very difficult to lure any player thats half decent over from Down Under.

It's pretty normal with a scrum, using a blind side centre and putting a forward in the line to use as a battering ram

There are some other channels for recruitment as yet untapped.

RU they have centre too. Whilst not the same game, if they can mold our centres to play union, surely we could do the reverse.

But the type of player we need will be either an international allready or knocking on the door of a call up and we just cant compete with the money on offer or the profile of union.

It looks to me like saints are planning on a lot of the young kids coming through 18/20's being top draw and tying them up on long term contracts. Might be a bit of a gamble but i guess signing anyone up for big money is always a gamble. I do agree with the poor coach comment, I don't quite understand Royce's obsession on props being lighter and more mobile, its almost like playing with 5 second rowers at times, as we still dont seem to have an out and out loose forward either!

Is he being played out of position though? I don't think so really and so far I think he's been our best player in the forwards.

Looking at the top meter makers so far this season and Eorl Crabtree was there, so thought that it would be a good comparison (both played 5 games).

Laffranchi makes more meters per carry at 7.3 compared with Crabtree who makes 6.9, but Crabtree has made six times as many tackle busts (Laffranchi's 2 to Crabtree's 12) - but surely that is down to the sheer size of Crabtree.