You must be going back a while. I can't remember any Saints side dominating the academy and reserve competitions. The only two that have, would be Leeds in the early part of the Millennium and the present Wigan side, who last year won the reserve comp for the fourth (maybe fifth?) time in a row.

As for producing props. You may not have created many but you did produce the best prop in the last 20 years IMO, and are now paying the price for his departure.

Bright enough to offer Francis Meli, a player who has cost Saints two Grand Finals (and had a hand in a third), repeated contract extensions?

Bright enough to let the Eastmond saga drag on six months too long, which threatened, at one point, to blow the team apart and has ultimately left us with NO scrum halves?

Bright enough to offer repeated contract extensions to Ade Gardner, a player who has had possibly eighteen months of good form in his career and undoubtedly one of the slowest wingers ever to wear a Saints shirt?

Bright enough to be spending up to the cap for the last five years (his words) whilst the team has been hemorrhaging talent like blood from a severed limb?

Bright enough to turn a team which has ALWAYS offered a potent attacking threat from the backs (Ledger, McCormack, Quirk, Hunte, Sullivan, Albert, Gibbs, Iro, Newlove, Lyon, Gidley, Martyn, Long etc.) into one of the slowest in the league?

Bright enough to keep Paul Wellens two years past the point when he was shot?

Bright enough to sign Royce Simmons?

The new stadium really does paper over a lot of cracks in many peoples eyes!

I think he looks like a very good player. He's got great feet, speed but maybe lacks a little size for front row at the moment.

I'd 100% sign him if possible, he's already better than LMS and clough.

He's a fine player, get him!

With regard to spending up to the cap, or not - let's say he was fibbing. Would ANY Saints fan [ireally [/imind if McManus came out and said something along the lines of, [i"Look, we're a bit strapped for cash funding the new stadium so squad expenses are going to take a short-term hit"?[/i I can't be certain but my best guess is almost all would accept the fact because Knowsley Road was shot, it was costing us a fortune to run and a choice between a new stadium and a successful, highly-paid team playing at a dilapidated ground is no choice at all. So he really had no need to hide the truth. But if he did he created a stick with which to beat him from the outset.

On the other hand, if we WERE up to the cap limit then serious questions need to be asked of McManus' business acumen - [ipurely insofar as contractual negotiations are concerned.[/i

Any fool can see an enormous difference between Millward's team of experienced, highly-skilled internationals and, say, Royce's first season team of - for the most part - greenhorn kids. The former commands high salaries across the board resulting in a maxed out cap. The latter teamsheet certainly doesn't leap off the table and say the same. Sure, Wellens, Roby, Graham, Wilkin etc. are likely to be on a comfortable salary. But Gaskell, Lomax, Foster, Makinson, Wheeler??? Surely not.

Ok I don't think we are spending up to the cap, but having said that there is a massive difference which I think is 2 fold.
In the Millward era, we where spending so close to the cap we busted it a few times, and we paid money offshore and in image rights. Those loopholes are now close which would equate to 1 or 2 players wages dropping off the books.

The 2nd part is where we splash the cash

Long/Sculthorpe/Cunningham/Martyn/ then say Joynt , basically the money was spent through the spine, you would then have a very good prop, maybe 2 and the rest where club men. 2nd rowers, ok there was Joynt, but his partners, bennett, yonkers would not be on the money that say wilkin, sia, even flanaghan will be on. I think we are spending our money in slightly the wrong areas and the spine has weakened. Who takes our big bucks? I'd guess

Perry/TP/LMS/La Franki/Wellens/Roby/Wilkin/Lance, maybe shenton.

So we have spent our big bucks on a pack and 2 fullbacks. The creative spine has not been invested in to the same extent. Now the young kids have done well but 2 half backs developing together, is not like Long who came into a team with Goulding, Martyn, Hammond to help him out. Long used to run around alot but his kicking took years to develop. If we spent a little less on the pack maybe 2 very good props and the rest would be jonkers, stankovickes, bennetts, edmondsons, etc, not on major money but good money, then we could spend more on other roles.

A 3rd thought that has also come to me is the competition far fewer teams spent the cap in the past, so you could throw large chunks of cash at your stars and what you offered the rest was still competitive with the likes of the underspenders. Now if you don't pay enough, then a player like Emmit will go to Cas for more money. In the past we would not have offered more to keep Emmit but our offer would have been enough and Cas would not have been able to blow it out the water.

The young players ain't on a bad screw with their new deals. I know how much Gaskell is on and I know for a fact that lomax is on more.

Jamie foster wanted the same as Gaskell and if he got it then the young lads will take up a decent amount of the salary cap.

I think the young lads now can demand more money than years gone by due to lack of talent and the qouta being more stict than its ever been.

Maybe it's just me, but wingers and 2nd rowers would always be last on my list of priorities. You would have to be a Jason Robison type winger who can create something from nothing to warrent high consideration and for me none of our wingers get close to that billing. Joynt was another exception, but he too could create something from the 2nd row, very few players in the 2nd row have ever been of his quality.

On the subject of wingers being last on your priorities and we have four wingers which is crazy these days with the salary cap being in force.
We have more wingers than most other positions and it all eats up the cap.

Maybe I'm wrong, but for me a winger is there to finish the move. If they can be competant and have the basic rugby skills then in the world of a cap, the people creating the holes should be the cash cows.

If you can group players into groups for wages
1st tier: 6/7/13(in a ball playing role not our current another forward) and 9.
2nd tier: FB, centres, 2 props
3rd tier: the rest of the pack and wingers
4th tier: subs
5th tier: rest of squad


This would be a general rule obviously if a Jamie Lyon crops up you may push more money into that area, than say loose.

For years the Austalian attitude appeared to be "wingers are there [ito not cost you tries[/i". And it was a very successful attitude for them.

But that's only an issue if Saints are the [ione and only[/i beneficiary of the scheme. It's perfectly possible some of our rivals benefited similarly from this loophole. In which case any setbacks we felt were shared equally among them - or perhaps [imore so[/i among them.