It's inconceivable that McManus had no input. From what I've seen and heard of other football and rugby clubs the decision is at least a 50/50 split between chairman and the coaching team. Which is as it should be given it's as much a business decision as anything else. And McManus was CERTAINLY behind the club's decision to cut away the more established pros and run with the academy. An academy that only developed into physically mature adults (barring Gaskell and a couple of others who are from a later generation) LAST SEASON (three years after the the choice was made).

McManus signed Potter. McManus signed Royce. I didn't have a problem with the former because he did have a good record with Catalans but the decision to go with Royce was highly suspect. Aside from his reputation for working with kids his coaching experience at the top level was questionable to say the least.

I've always wondered why so many players have recently chosen to back out of deals at Saints [iat the last minute[/i. Sure, it's happened before. But I don't recall it ever happening so often. Of course, McManus may not be responsible. But given that we certainly needed at least some of those players I wonder whether we could have done more.

We have two very separate issues here, and our transfer policy has very little to do with our lack of form and bewildering tactics.

If you ignore the recent form and league table, and then compare the bradford team with the saints team you would expect Saints to win 9 times out of 10. We have a good squad but we are not playing anywhere near our potential.

We have a squad that is good enough to compete for both the trophies, but we are punching well below our weight.

This is nonsense. If you don't have a scrum half and you don't have a leader on the pitch it's very difficult to organise a cohesive attacking strategy on the pitch. And the lack of both is directly attributable to our transfer policy.



I too think we have a good squad. But we have no one on the pitch capable of analysing the defence and calling attacking plays to exploit clear weaknesses. Gaskell may fulfil that role in the future but right now he's too inexperienced to do it effectively for any sustained period. All coaches allow for creative freedom on the pitch. It would be madness not to because opponents may change their gameplan to suit and once the team has crossed the whitewash it is effectively beyond influence of the coach. We don't used highly-scripted playbooks like those found in the NFL (although even NFL quaterbacks have creative latitude). Unfortunately, because we have no scrum half, no tactical brain, we are forced to keep repeating plan A. And it's killing us.

This is ridiculous.

Saints have made 5 grand finals on the trot.

The much maligned youngsters and coach you have now got you to the grand final last year.

Yet one losing run and suddenly theres been terrible problems for years at the club. Massive knee jark reaction.

If you beat leeds next week suddenly everythying will be the dogs bollox again.

It's not just that we've not won for 5 games - it's the way the team is playing. That people are analysing how exactly we came to this point isn't knee-jerk... in fact it's the opposite.

If we squeak a win against Leeds next week, it how I'll react is seeing whether it'd been by suffocating them in a low-scoring arm-wrestle or by out-attacking them. If the former, then the inherent problems remain.

Of course we would have done better if we had recruited better. We probably also would have won yesterdays match if Roby had of been playing. However are we really playing to our full potential?

We are not even close.

Our squad has its limits, but we are a world away from hitting them at the moment. We aren't 9th purely because of an inexperienced half back pairing, or having Lomax at 7. Likewise if we had another scrum half, we wouldn't suddenly be using more varied patterns of attack, and our runners wouldn't suddenly be hitting al sorts of different lines. They are doing what they are coached to do.

I do think are recruitment has also let us down, but I am currently more frustrated out how we are under-performing. You look at the squad, and it is very frustrating that we are not playing better. We are very capable of playing much better.

We have two problems. One is our recruitment has not been the best, and our squad is weaker. The other problem is we are under-performing. The first problem reduces are chances of winning trophies, but still allows us to be very competitive. The latter means we are 9th.

Excuse me. We have made it to SIX Grand Finals on the trot. We won the first one. A second win has now been beyond three different coaches.

he supports man utd get shut.

I don't think our recruitment has been bad. We have gone in for big name, big money aussies less than Wigan, Hull, Warrington with usually better results.

Talent - playing AND coaching - is hard to come by. We took Gleeson and Wilkin from lower clubs and it paid off. It might yet do with LMS, it might not.

We've turned local academy talent (Graham, Eastmond, Roby) into world class players and turned others into top-flight professionals.

We've got to face the fact that other clubs have caught us up in many areas.

Er, it may be that the other clubs offered more money AND have recent silverware on the table. Both those factors have enabled Saints in the past to attract big name players to our team. We don't have either to offer at present and so it is unlikely in a foot race against Leeds, Wigan and Wire (the big spenders) that we are going to win.

Remember, two of our players came to Saints because Royce Simmons was our coach. They stated that clearly in their acceptance speeches. I rather think they wouldn't do that if they believed him to be a crap coach. That so many people on here presently do is not because he is but because people are seeking a reason for our present predicament and it is easy to blame the coach. However, the players have to take responsibility for what we have been watching this season. They give away penalties; they don't find touch with kicks; they don't catch kick offs; they miss tackles; they get sin binned; they panic; not one of them is prepared to lead on the field. Royce doesn't coach any of that into their game.

Our senior players need to man up. Only Wello did so against Bradford and he made a real difference. Had our other senior players done so we might have won regardless of the errors of our inexperienced players. In fact, those errors might never have occurred as within the more positive atmosphere of the senior players doing their jobs properly and with enthusiasm, they may have been more confident and so not fallen victim to trying too hard and getting it wrong.

As for McManus ... I would love him to walk up to the senior players and kick their backsides. And I include LMS in that group because he's been playing utter rubbish this season so far but has enough experience to be considered among the senior group.

McManus is a great business man and what he has done for our club in terms of its financial survival, not to mention the wonderful new stadium, means I'm not going to criticise his recruitment policy. He had to make a decision: the stadium or the players. We are not a rich enough club to finance both. The players had to go on hold for the sake of the stadium but even so, this group of players is clearly better than the results show. I say clearly because (a) last year they got to a GF, and (b) we are losing by such small margins, usually as a result of stupid errors (like Puletua dropping the ball with the tryline begging).

This might be relevant if it weren't for two facts - 1) Warrington had no silverware to speak of (what's more, they had no [inearly success[/i to speak of) when they began their policy of recruiting better players. and 2) they can't spend over the cap, which McManus has repeatedly stated we are spending up to.

I could drive coach and horses through the salary cap if I was a wealthy club owner.

I suspect McManus might just be too smart to engage in that arms race. Who knows about some others though?

McManus has had to do battle on all fronts and has probably got his priorities right long term. Obviously the new stadium means he's had to take his eye off the ball, he believes in the youth development which created a "false dawn" bringing in the youth type of player in during the injury ravaged season.
It all means we have yet another transition season, now that priority 1 is out of the way he can re focus on the right players in the medium term. The only problem is that some of the contract lengths are too much for certain present individuals, which means there is no short term fix.

Whilst the genesis of our troubles can be traced back to the decision to rely on kids two/three years before they were physically mature the nail in the coffin was allowing the Eastmond saga to drag on six-to-eight months longer than it should.

We should NEVER have been in a position where we were starting last season without knowing whether Eastmond would stay. McManus should have set an absolute deadline at the mid-point of the season before (sign or leave). That way we had time to look for a replacement scrum half. Even if it were only a short-term solution.

Unfortunately, the mistake was complicated by Lomax who admittedly did ok and convinced us we needed no such replacement. What we [ididn't realise[/i is part of his success against other teams can be attributable to unfamiliarity rather than his inherent ability as a scrum half. Teams failed to pick him up precisely because they had no history on which to base a defensive strategy. After a season they had all the data they needed and now he's finding himself shut down and lacking the creative ability to think out of the box.