Indeed it is.


He was told very early in the season he was free to talk to other clubs and I believe he's agreed a very good 3yr deal with another super league club.

Gutted that he is leaving but fair do to the kid he appears to be backing himself he will be in the starting 13 at Salford, can't realise your potential being 18th man every week or playing in the reserves.
Thought that he really showed his potential at the beginning of the year and seemed to turn the corner with Royce as he had started to select him over Flannery but appears that his face does'nt fit with Mike Rush so probably better to move on as I beleive he was only offered a 12 month contract at Saints. I have a feeling Saints might regret this in the future.

Dixon only played early as flannery took ill at London on game day. Flannery was selected over Dixon.

Dixon only played early as flannery took ill at London on game day. Flannery was selected over Dixon.

I know that was the case with the game in London but there were a couple of games at the end of Royce's reign when Flannery was in the 19 (Hull was 1 if I recollect correctly) were Dixon was selected and he started and Flannery was on the bench or not in the team. I also recollect Royce being very complimentary about Dixon-all that I was implying was I think he had changed Royce's opinion of him.

He was. Royce said at the time that he had asked Dixon to work on a couple of things in the off season, like running lines, and he had addressed these, improving his game. I thought Dixon was great under Royce.

He was certainly a better attacking option than either flannery or flanaghan

Has he signed for Salford then?!

Could turn out to be a poor decision by saints. Would it not be better to send him on a year long loan to see how he gets on. I rated him very much. Good luck to the guy

No announcement has been made by Salford. (Saints won't make an announcement)

To be quite honest Im a little disappointed we are letting go of Dixon as he seemed to be showing signs of improvement at the start of this year....

As previously stated, if Dixon goes and Gaskell decides to join a club that values his abilities we might as well pop a couple of coins on the academy's eyes and send it on its merry way down the river Styx.

McManus can hype it into the stratosphere with grandiose claims of "Golden Generations" but if we keep getting shut there really is little point.

But surely it's not the rushing several through at once that matters it's the constant turning out and trying out of players.

Graham, Roby, Clough, Eastmond, Makinson, Lomax, Jones,

If we had not lost Graham and Eastmond to bigger paydays, then we would have a very impressive line up of players there.

Don't get me wrong I'd rather we kept our best players, but Saints could not compete with the NRL and RU, so we can't hold Saints responsible for the loss of Graham and Eastmond (although I felt the Eastmond senario could have been handled better earlier on).

I don't beleive we can fill Saints with Saints only players at the moment we have 4 Saints players starting regularly for the team, next year it maybe 5 or 6. It's going to go up and down but in the end the cap means we can't hold all our best, and we can't expect to hold onto players if there are better in their positions.

Manu/Sia/TP/Wilkin/Flanaghan - I think we are just a bit overloaded to keep another backrower. It's not Dixon's fault, but which one of these would we choose not to play next year?

Well, we had a mighty fine go of doing so last year and we made it to the CC semi and to another GF and were actually in a winning position (which made a change), with third spot in the league. Most of the season in 2011 was spent with a mostly Saints team and of course we beat the (now) Broncos with only one non-English player playing.

So I really do think it's not the inconceivable notion that some fans seem to think it is. But even so, allowing good young players to go when they have played such a significant part in our achievements of the previous year is, frankly, very poor.

A bit of a shame, but he's at the age where he needs to play regularly and move beyond being a fill in player and he's never really moved beyond what he was 2 years ago (whether that is down to him or how the club have used him may be up for debate of course). Either the club don't think he's worth his wages, or that we have a crop of forwards able to play in the back row that have more potential and need blooding.

Rushing players through is all well and good if you're getting a pretty even spread across the positions - not six stand-offs at once whilst Graham and Clough (a converted back row) are the only two props since Paul Forber.



What does Flanagan offer that Dixon can't duplicate (tackling perhaps, but Dixon is a far better attacking forward). Wilkin has done bugger all for a long time and is no doubt on a hefty wedge. To me the Dixon situation has been handled appallingly. A good coach would have had him starting by now.