limited brain power! How dare you!

Shame sir mac didn't do anything about it then.

I keep banging on about how poor a decision it was to go all out with youth and so few senior players. This is the kind of time where you need two or three average, low paid journeymen pros.

If Eastmond doesn't play in the Semi Final or if Cunningham is banned, it's a write off. It would have been a very tough game anyway, but without all those players it's not possible.

With the Pies a week before the semi final likely to injure a few more, would anyone agree with me that resting the 3 or 4 remaining senior players might be a good idea?

that's a good point, we don't know how much we have or haven't got to spend.

And I also do understand that we are in a credit crunch so sir mac may be looking after the pounds and pence.

Maybe if the club told us, the paying fans the reasons behind lack of recruitment then we would understand.

Sir mac has never let us down yet and is best thing to happen to our club in recent years but a bit of information to why would help.

we got longy, gilmour, cayless all going next year with a centre coming in.

I just hope we are looking for players.

This is from a thread a few weeks back

They already have done.

They refuse to pay over the odds for players. With more teams spending up to the cap, more teams have more money to play with. Teams like Hull KR and Huddersfield will pay over the odds for players, or offer them longer contracts than we would do. This is because, whilst they may be a body in our squad or a bench player, 9 times out of 10 those players walk straight into their first teams.

Hence we wouldn't pay over the odds for Carvell, why Fozzard went to HKR, why Gilmour and Long are leaving next year. Unless we [ineed[/i to sign someone, I doubt that we will.

The club have said why we havent recruited heavily, and its been stated on here numerous times.
1. Salary cap.
2. Putting faith in youth
3. Other players needing salary uplifts as they become senior pros' eg Graham and Roby.

On the subject of signing average joes. Other clubs do this and they are languishing further down the table than us.

I agree with most of that.

I disagree. The last thing we need is 'journeymen pros'. We need to be focusing on the best over a longer period, not short term solutions that will leave us looking like Wigan. I think what has made things difficult this season is the number of injuries we seem to have found ourselves with. If we hadn't had those injuries to contend with but had been sailing through like Leeds then while we haven't exactly been playing the best rugby league in the history of Saints, we would be a few points ahead at the top and in the semis and functioning fine overall.

Just a pity a section of our fans cannot see the bigger picture and love making knee-jerk decisions.

As nice as it would be to have another fans forum or something similar (if anyone would turn up if another matter) we don't need to rely on an out and out statement as to why we've not bought multiple players per season. The following posts from the recruitment thread a few weeks back, and the recent announcement about the new shares etc should go some way to explaining it. We have a longer term plan.

Exactly, we could easily splash the cash on big named players, but in the long term the policy of recruiting from within will almost certainly pay off with the quality of players we are bringing in

What people are suggesting is that we should accept that this season has always been planned to be a write off aimed at bringing through the next generation successfully. Fine, I can accept that. But then how are going to cope with next season when we'll have four or five fewer senior players? Okay we write that season off as a transition phase too? How long does this barren spell last according to this planning? It should be noted that not all young players turn into good senior players. I'd be amazed if any more than one or two of the current crop amount to anything of international quality in the long term.

Is it not a more likely scenario that we are one of the clubs being chased for millions by HMRC and as a result we've had to cut the wage bill considerably?

Let's face it, the club has over-achieved this season. With the reliance on youth we've done exceedingly well to top the league for the percentage of the season so far and we've pretty much walked into the Semi's of the CC Cup, yet some 'fans' still aren't happy.

If the fans have this attitude, the club won't go anywhere. They'll be wanting Potter out come the end of the season if we don't win anything, and that narrow minded, idiotic, dumb view of things would be a total travesty.

Christ! I'm not saying we should sign 5 or 6 world class players!

I'm saying over last year and next we have lost fozzard, talau, scully, longy, cayless and gilmour.

We have signed tony p and got 1 coming in next year.

I understand the likes of graham, clough and other young lads will get better wages as they become regular 1st team players.

The players who have left or are leaving are very highly payed players. So either we got cash to spend or these kids are being well paid.

On the youth policy I agree that's the best way to go with all new overseas regulation in place.

These kids need to be playing with older guys for them to develop.