Does Eamonn scout and recruit saints players? Do we know this?

Or is it the responsibility of someone else at the club, playing staff maybe?

I don't know the answer, be nice to know.

I'd imagine he has final say as he has to balance the books and sign the cheques but you'd like to think he's listening to his staff. At the end of the day it doesnt really matter though as he is ultimately accountable as the owner/chairman.

I'd love to know whats gone on with Gaskell though. To go from being bigged up and first choice stand off to packed off to Salford in a matter of weeks is strange to say the least.

A question I've been asking for years. I wonder how much involvement the likes of Kel Coslett, Keiron Cunningham, Mike Rush and Neil Kilshaw have with recruitment. Reading some of the stuff about the Lance Hohaia deal, including bits in the programme by Lance and Eamonn themselves, it would seem he was solely responsible for that one.

Lance was out and out a signing made in attempt to appease the fans following the loss of Eastmond. Trouble is, whoever said yes was hoodwinked by Lance and his agent who promoted him as a half back.

What's sad is that Eastmond didn't get a 4 year deal but Lance did. Crazy bit of business.

The one light at the end of the tunnel for me is that the World Cup at the end of the year may unearth some south sea island talent that nobody knows of. If we don't make a speculative signing or two on this basis, I'd be even more sceptical about our recruitment policy. There has to be another Faasavalu out there somewhere.

Sam Moa was one prop who was worth a punt after the 2008 WC, the people in the know at Saints didn't think he was good enough. After a stint at Hull he is now plying his trade as a starting prop for Sydney Roosters. We need that kind of foresight and take a few risks as top line Aussies arent coming back to SL. We need to be inventive.

Well McManus is CEO as well as owner, I think Rush may have more say than many think, I'm sure he decides if anyone wants to invest new money into the club.

I'm convinced Rush has a lot of say. Given that it was to Rush McManus turned after he sacked Simmons, I would posit that Rush is very much the Chairman's man.

Rush is main man at saints he is the CEO

I agree up to a point. However, while I think there's always the potential of picking up a good threequarter or forward from the islander teams, quality half-backs are much rarer amongst the islanders. And I think it's now pretty much universally accepted that our problem is our lack of halves.

No, he's the High Performance Manager.

Moa's not the only one. There's plenty of players who've come to 'lesser teams' in SL that we would have benefited from, in recent years. L. Paea, Mika, Taia, Heremaia, Manuokafoa, Sammutt, Hanbury, Poore, Kaufusi, McDonnell, Kearney, Lulia, Burns, the list goes on...

No dont agree with most of them.
Obviously Hanbury and Sammut stand out like sore thumbs,especially comparing them to Lance.
Maybe Manuokafoa and Poore at a push but the rest meh.

Dudson, Taylor and Flower have been decent signings at Wigan.

If you look at it on paper, some of it hasn't been too bad.

It's turned out that way on the field mind but for example im 90% certain Perry played SOO the season before we signed him. I'm not having it there were many complaints when we brought in a SOO prop forward.

Same with world cup winning fullback Lance Hohaia, it was only Saddened really who, rightly, called it.

On paper the two that get the most scrutiny(deservedly so) at the time didn't IMO look like bad options. It just didn't materialise. I have it on good account that Perry is the highest earner at the club, and i'm guessing Hohaia and Laffranchi are up there. With hopefully 2 of these 3 gone in the offseason I hope we can put it right.

Letting Pryce go and bringing in Hohaia a massive mistake that shouldn't have been made. Yes, Pryce had been through a nightmare period of injuries in the 18 months leading up to his departure, but he's done very well for Catalans, and has stayed relatively injury free (I think).

Letting Pryce go was exactly the right decision IMO. At the time he had hardly played in two seasons and then wanted a longer contract than we were prepared to give him. He has stayed relatively injury free in France but that could have gone either way and they took a chance on him. I'm glad we didn't.

It was right that we gave Lomax and Gaskell an opportunity in the halves as they were both home grown halfbacks who had been on the fringes for a while, particularly Lomax. That neither has worked out as a halfback is unfortunate but clearly how it is. In the meantime we have let two other halfbacks go. We may well have an up and coming halfback awaiting a debut but whether they will get any game time this season I don't know. We will probably just go out and buy some unknown antipodean.