We need 2 halves. Desperately. And for whatever needs to be changed in our conditioning to stop so many of our players being ****ing well injured so often. There's not a long wrong with the squad by contemporary quality standards otherwise and a hell of a lot more right with it.

By far and away the biggest mistakes we've made in the last few years were committing our future to Eastmond and Wheeler and dumping Smith (although I still maintain that anybody would have made exactly the same decision at the time) and offing Pryce for Hohaia (was a strange move at the time and just keeps getting stranger every week). Some of the other big signings haven't worked out (Shenton, Perry) but they were signings anyone would have made at the time and you can't really level too much criticism at them either - **** just happens sometimes.

Our recent coaching appointments haven't been great either (jury's still out on Brown), but in modern SL you can't sign a top-quality proven Aussie coach and there are few suitable British candidates so taking a chance on a lesser-known quantity is just a fact of life. Sometimes it works (Maggie at Pies) and sometimes it doesn't (Potter and Royce) - again, hard to criticise the board too harshly.

Basically, our management dropped a huge, massive, unforgiveable clanger over Pryce/Hohaia that we'll be paying for for another 2.5 years. Otherwise it's been a bit unlucky with a few critical decisions. It needs to stop being unlucky and soon...

Isn't it more to do with us being head and shoulders above everyone else and it being impossible to maintain that? I know some will say "well, we recruited and coached suitably well enough to get us that fantastic side to start with....why couldn't we repeat it?"

An earlier poster said we had four players that were irreplaceable and although we could argue that we may have done it with the hooker, the others we haven't. Even if you think this estimate (four) is close....which I don't.....then that's a quarter of a team. Add to that other quality players we had (Long, Martyn, Gleeson, Iro, Newlove, Smith, Fairleigh, Anderson), its clear that we (or any club) couldn't sustain that run of recruitment.

I think its also a pointer to our sport in general. I'm not pointing fingers at clubs, governing bodies, television companies, fans or anyone but when our sport's bread and butter players are earning less than me and I'm just a stiff with a normal job, then this must impact on the quality available. If you were as athletic as they obviously are and had some talent (which even the squad players do), then surely there are much better paying opportunities out there. The first and obvious one being Union but even just getting regular jobs.

Northampton's comments about the signings we've made that have failed to fulfil their potential is valid. I think most of them looked good at the time but for reasons we don't know (but will continue to guess about), they didn't work out. And lets not get misty eyed over Pryce. Not only did he miss nearly a full season for us when we let him go, he's missed considerable matches for The Cats too....although he did have a good game against us.

Anyway, we're having it tough and in no small part some of it is down to a run of injuries in the last two years.

By not replacing the likes of Long, Lyon, Graham, Pryce, this list goes on... Especially Graham, as our forward pack (besides Walmsley and Sia) must be one of the weakest and least driving in Super League, and without field position made by our forwards, it is near enough impossible for our backs to produce any attacking threat

Nonsense, plain and simple.

Long: replaced by Eastmond, the best and most sought after young half talent in the country by a mile. We couldn't possibly have found a better replacement. RU luchre and a little naivety on our part has left us with a mess subsequently but you can't argue we didn't produce a good enough replacement for Long.
Lyon: replaced with Aussie legend Gidley (who was at least as good for us as Lyon for a time until age overtook him) and then current first-choice GB centre Shenton. I can't see how anyone could argue about the ambition or suitability involved in signing those 2 players as successive replacements for Lyon.
Graham: replaced with 2 Aussie international props. Again: how could we have signed any more suitably or ambitiously?
Pryce: He was replaced with a world cup winning pivot on big money. Ambition there by the bucket load. No sense, but plenty of ambition.

Every player we have lost in the last decade has been replaced by the best practically available replacement at the time. Too many of them haven't worked out it's true, but that's life. Replacing the likes of Lyon, Scully, Long, KC etc. 100% like-for-like quality-for-quality is completely impossible in the current climate and we've done as good a job at the time as was practical.

This revisionist nonsense about us constantly losing players and never replacing them with suitable quality needs to be smacked squarely in the mush once and for all.

The problems started around 2007. The big stars was getting older and the club stopped recruiting. I was shot down many times over the years when I was suggesting bad times are on the way.

The club called it "going with youth" but I called it "doing it on the cheap". The worst things that was happening was our run of grand final appearances as it was hiding the problems.

Even when your winning trophies and was as successful as we was, you still need to build and recruit and we didnt.

The club for whatever reason lost ambition.

...and as always we hit the uncomfortable question of who, without the benefit of hindsight and a time machine, you think would have been better signings for us to replace them all at the time... It would have been hilarious reading on here if Eastmond had gone to Warrington on a long deal and we'd been stuck with Smith instead for instance wouldn't it?

I'm with Northampton Saint in most of what he says. Perry and Shenton were good signings on paper and Eastmond was a more than capable replacement for Long (although we didn't really prepare for his departure despite all the signs that it was coming). I think everyone was happy with those signings at the time. Add to that the signings of Soliola and Manu and we've done some ostensibly good business over recent years - we've just been a bit unlucky in a couple of cases.

However, I think it's clear that Hohaia and Laffranchi are where we went wrong. I had my doubts about signing Hohaia as a half-back, on a four year deal, when he'd never played there professionally before, and some others on here did too. Similarly, I thought we were getting a good player in Laffranchi, but there was always the concern that we were replacing a world class prop in Graham with a toiling second rower. Again, plenty of people commented about this at the time. What's most significant is that they are both non-fed players, and since signing them we've been severely restricted in what we are able to do. Had we hung on a bit and waited for the right people to turn up (i.e. a real scrum half and a real prop) we'd have been far better off. We might even have been able to pick up domestic signings, which would have left us room to strengthen other areas with overseas players. As it is we completely tied our hands.

No arguments from me - Hohaia always looked iffy to me and LeFrank ain't really been the replacement for Graham we needed either. But again: who else (assuming we needed to offload Pryce) could we have had any better at the time? Could you imagine being a member of the Saints board 2 years ago knowing you were about to lose both of your starting halves at the end of the season with only unknown kids available to replace them for an entire year? They had to sign someone and so panicked and signed the only vaguely quality player on the market right then that could play #6. They made a **** decision, but under the circumstances and without the benefit of hindsight I doubt many of us would have made a different one. C'est la vie.

The problem with the recruitment and my biggest gripe, is not replacing players with quality when players left. We've gone about 6/7 years without a out and out centre pairing which IMO is shocking!

We failed to try and replace the the likes of gidley, scully, graham, long etc who was massively important to us. I know we could never replace scully, longy and KC with equal or better players but we should have gone for the best we could.

McManus said "we are going with youth" but what he really means is we are doing it cheap and hope we drop lucky. I wouldn't mind if he'd been honest and cane out and told us that we are doing it on the cheap because of the stadium but he didnt, in fact he told us "we will have a team to grace the stadium"

I pretty much agree with Northampton Saints comments re signings etc

I would also add that i think that although Daniel Anderson and Mick Potter were fine coaches, they were from the Brian Smith school of coaching.

This is a school that trumps size and power above speed, agility and footballing brain.

The ultimate result of this has been seen in Saints fans complaints about dour one up rugby, all bash and barge and no pace in the backs. Daniel Anderson escaped much criticism, as the team under him were near invincible. However a look back on websites and you will see pockets of fans bemoaning the spectacle.

Royce was then brought in to change things. I think he was trying to do that, bt for whatever reason the players didnt seem to understand or agree with what he was trying to do. The end result was player power allegedly saw him off.

We now have Brown, and we have seen at Huddersfield that he likes three quarters with pace, he likes to have a half back with a strong kicking game. He likes a creative loose forward. He likes mobile hookers and he also likes a big aggressive pack.
Given time i think Brown will build us a team in the mould that Saints fans desire. Whether he is a coach good enough to bring us trophys however is another matter. His record in Australia was solid rather than inspirational.