If it is of any consolation St Helens are one of the three/two biggest and best club teams in world rugby. Teams like Wire/Bradford will come and go but saints will always be there. And this is from someone who was routing for a wire win!

What are we lacking? A coach and a half. Preferably both, but either would do. Discussion over, thread closed. Thank you all for attending.

Hard to disagree with much of this. I think Foster still has a bit of a way to go to be a Saints player again and Meli needs to be a key player still though.

Our major issue is of course the halves, and we may look lacking if you just compare Lomax's and Hohaia's headless rabbit in headlights bouncing off the line to what Briers did tonight, or to what Sinfield and Maguire will probably do next week, but frankly compared to what most of the rest of the league has to call on we're looking pretty good at #6 and #7 frankly. Those players aren't going to be around forever, and in a league where Smith and Myler are probably the 2 best young halves around then give us a year or 2's decent coaching of Wheeler, Gaskell and Lomax and we'll be a side that's going to win lots of silverware. Our next coach is key.

Can you please stop bringing facts into this topic, it really upsets the locals.

I honestly think with Brown coaching, a halfback and a good prop we would be a real threat. It's not massive changes needed.

Obviously we could do with other players in certain postions but IMO a good creative halfback, a good hard tough prop along with good coaching is all that's needed.

We can't continue to try and grind out wins every week, we need some class and flair in the big games like last night.

Do it again next year and we can start talking!!!

Agree completely. Contrary to what many on here say, I think Lomax very much has the ability to be a modern scrum half. He's never going to be the next Andy Gregory, but he brings a hell of a lot of other attributes and can be hugely effective. The problem is, he's predominantly a running halfback, so we need to play a ball-playing, creative No6 next to him with experience to bring him through. Playing Hohaia - another running halfback - next to him is going to nullify the chance of any creativity from the halves.

When we signed Long, he was also predominantly a running half (albeit with different skills & a different style to Lomax). He had TommyGod outside him, who did have the creative, ball-playing ability and was very experienced. That took the ball-handling pressure off Long, who was able to play more his natural game. Obviously, as Long matured and gained more experience, his creative abilities grew. By the time Tommy hung up his heavenly boots, Long was able to assume the main creative mantle.

I personally don't think Gaskell is the right player to be outside of Lomax. Yes, he has the attributes to be a creative, ball-playing half. But he lacks the experience (and possibly personality/arrogance/ego) to take control of a game. I think for Gaskell to develop into the player he has the potential to be, he needs to play alongside an experienced scrum half who can nurture him for a couple of seasons.

The obvious conclusion is that we need an experienced, top quality halfback. The question is, would it be better to sign a creative stand off to help bring Lomax through? Or a scrum half to help bring Gaskell on?

The one thing we do know is that Lomax & Hohaia together doesn't work.

The ideal solution would be to rip up the Hohaia option and start again. But I don't see any NRL clubs clamouring to snap him up, even if he was wanting to return DU.

I've said previously that it's perhaps worth a try playing Hohaia at 7 and Gaskell at 6. That would certainly be more balanced. But is Hohaia the type of generous player who will help nurture a younger player? I've seen no evidence of it. In fact, Hohaia looks too absorbed trying to get his own game right to have time for anything else. That, presumably, is the problem of signing a player to play 6 who's played most of his career at 1.

It's a reet mess. And that's just the halves!

Thanks for the advice.

With no youth system we have won 3 Challenge Cups in the past four years and are in the Grand Final.

When we start producing our own youngsters how many trophies are we going to win then...?

Why produce your own breed of youngsters when you can steal all of Salfords?

Thats were it all goes wrong, we didn,t have much of a youth system at the time when we won 20 trophies in the super league era. Now that we have a decent youth system we don't win any trophies.

Wish you would hurry up with your youngsters, we are long overdue of signing another Paul Sculthorpe.

Thats because bigger clubs were coming in for your best young talent like Briers.

Ba-dum-tsch! Thangyew, thangyew... My name's Sally Cinnamon and I'm here every night folks...

It was interesting in the build up the NRL GF that they were talking about the way Hasler had the Dogs playing.
He was using the forwards as ball palyers to compensate for having less experienced/natural/accomplished halfbacks. It made me think of our deficiencies and perhaps we missed Jammers ball playing mare than we realised.
There are ways and means of getting any team playing, but that's the remit of the coach.
A bit more variety going forward and an improved defnce in our 20 will go a long way.
I also think/hope Brown will break the Lomax Hohaia combination, which will be a real step forward.

Both our halfs are fullbacks. Neither has a decent kicking game so we turn to wilkin. Close to the line if we cannot barge over we have no idea and no one organising. Robes should be given responsibility to captain the side next year.

Said it at the time and will say it again Matty smith was the best 7 we produced and we sold him. His kicking game far outclasses anything we have or are likely to get.

Not true.