I stand by my opinion

Henare was awful. Terrible terrible signing and I think he was worse than howarth tbh. Adamson was another on par with those two.

Bibey and smith was crap but not like howarth.

If I'm not mistaken Adamson, Henare & Darrell Trindall who are clearly some of our worst signings in recent years, were all brought in by Ellery Hanley. Worse still were all brought in as players to stay long term

At least Howarth, as bad as he was, was always a short term fix due to lack of players.

I liked Howarth. Clearly not worth signing full time, but he did well for us during a very difficult period. He had a couple of cracking games and his defense was superb.

Exactly, the 3 mentioned were key signings and were very poor, with Howarth he was a stop gap signing and should really be judged as such. Can,t fault him for effort, just needed long term coaching to improve his skillset.

You are mistaken. Adamson was signed by the board.
Adamson was not a bad player at all, but Hanley chose point blank not to play him after the first couple of games. I hypothesise that it was to show who was in charge of his squad.

People always call Adamson as a poor player, but he wasn't. He did okay if his 3 games before he was dropped. I went to a lot of reserve games that year and he was always head and shoulders above the rest, but NEVER ever got picked for first team duty, despite us having Paul Davison stinking up the pack (remember him, even the Saints fans booed him he was that crap).

Hanley had his plus points, but he was a bloody weirdo at times.

Indeed. Phil Adamson was never as good as his brother, but he had a perfectly good reputation in the NRL (or ARL as it was then). He made a few handling errors in his first couple of games then never got a look in after that.

People often talk about Trindall as if he was rubbish, too. He wasn't - in fact he was a very talented half-back. His problem was that he was a total cretin and had fallen out with the squad by the time we played our first competitive game of the season. All a result of Hanley's inexplicable dislike of Tommy Martyn. Trindall was a terrible signing, but not a terrible player by any means.

Fair point, I seem to recall Josh Perry having a really good reputation in the NRL to but he as I'm sure you would agree was a complete flop & on seasons played for Saints alone , which is the point here 'worst player to play for saints' he's certainly amongst it.

I recall seeing Phil Adamson in his couple of first team games for us & he was awful. Couldn't catch a ball, couldn't tackle, wasn't looking for work & yes your're right, then never got back in.

I still don't think Howarth is the worst player to play for Saints. Not flourishing with natural ability admittedly but 100% committed & wanting to play, unlike the above antipodean jokers.

Josh Perry to my mind was the worst signing ever

Worst player and worst signing are two different things.

Even if we're sticking to simple ability alone regardless of previous performances/achievements with other clubs I'd still say Howarth wasn't the worst

Tricky Trindall looking back reminds me of the similar scenario with Eastmond. Remember watching him, Saints playing away to Oldham in a cup game, Tricky played so bad I thought he was doing it on purpose so he didn,t get selected for the next game.

Indeed. Ricky Bibey was a far worse player than Howarth, as were Paul Davidson and Bryan Henare.

Josh Perry is definately the worst ever signing.

Don't rememebr Paul Davidson being that bad?
Do rememebr him getting knocked out by Morley.
I was trying to find footage on him but can't find him. Shame there's so little footage of rl online.
I like to watch some classic biff every now and again and I've seen all the obvious ones.
To be honest I would love to watch matches from the beginning of super league, like I do with boxing. Watched the two Lewis/Holyfield fights the other day.

I guess the thread has drifted somewhat but I suspect you see a trend. He isn't very good.