Spot on. Call it cost cutting or call it poor squad management the fact was we let our only left centre go and then wedged a second row in there. (read John Monie's book)

Also you can hardly say Wilkin was a replacement for Scully as he was already at the club and had been for some time. Saints have had a downward spiral squad wise for a number of years , its worse for us because we were so damned good. We have excuses now , Union is richer, NRL is richer, the pound is weaker but we didnt a few years back

The same scenario is playing out at Wigan now but there thick fans are too stupid to see it. Although much better than our 6 & 7 they have replaced Finch and Lulu with inferior players (who they paid fee's for !), Mossop and Hock are off and being replaced with an old welsh bloke. Tomkins will be next and despite all the crap spouted by Rogues and others they have no replacement , whoever they put at 1 will be a massive downgrade although I'm sure Pollard will sugar coat it, hold a big press conference and tell everyone it's not really a bad thing for Wigan or English RL in general and that he'll be back when he's ready for the knackers yard.

Our survey says... "Ek, errrrkkkkk!!!" Oh, bad luck....

FWIW I remember being more than a little concerned at the non-arrival of a direct replacement for Willie at the time, but I also remember not being able to think of any suitable replacements available on the market at the time either. The player pool in SL is small and shrinking daily and it's inevitable that teams that can't pay big transfer fees will have to go the odd season with fill-ins while waiting for suitable replacements for various positions to show up as free agents every now and then, as we did then until Sia became available, or as we are now having to with a #7.

[iBecause there are no replacements on the market any better!!!![/i Here we go with that stupid, clueless argument again... "Saints have ****ed up and are on the decline because we used to have Long and Scully, now we have Wilkin and Hohaia... Wigan have ****ed up and are on the decline because they used to have Lulu and Finch, now they have Green and Smith"... FFS!!! The talent pool in our game is shrinking at an alarming rate... The Longs and Sculthorpes of old are no longer available to any of us... The Lulus and Finches are no longer available even. Clubs have to sign the best available replacements for those players when they go, and those best available players are unfortunately Greens and Hohaias now.... That isn't a sign of decline in those clubs - it is a sign of the decline in our [ientire game[/i...

Fair enough with the Talau - King. Like I said a long time ago and I was at work so doing a bit of guess work.

But with the full internet to my disposal.

Ryan atkins was available a year later who we passed on.
Chev Walker the same..
There were several make shift centre's after 2008.

I can't remember them all but not to replace Talau until (2013) is pretty poor. I've put 2013 in brackets as I've been impressed with Percival, but it's a bit early to jump to conclusions yet.

A fee was paid for Atkins so that ruled us out of the reckoning. Walker isn't what you'd really call "Saints quality" - I'd rather have had Gilmour any day. And it's also supreme arrogance to assume that we should be signing any and every quality player that ever comes onto the market anyway. Every other top SL club is rabidly after any half-way decent centre that ever becomes available due to the appallingly limited selection of same - what divine right do we have to expect to beat everyone else to them every time? We won a fevered bidding war for Shenton - we can't win all of them...

It all went wrong because it all went right.

We achieved so highly for so many years that being just 'one of' the top teams seems like such a disastrous fall. Other clubs weren't just going to stand still and watch us (and Bradford) dominate super league and many have caught us up.

Wigan and Leeds are where they should be, as the biggest clubs in the game. Warrington and Huddersfield (and arguably Catalans) have worked hard and invested to improve.

Our time will come again.

Don't go being all sensible. People will say you have no ambition.

There are good points about mistakes being made, however when people harp on about us not winning silverwear, that's what gets my back up.

We should be better than we are and we should have a halfback. But that does not equate to an automatic right to win finals.

People forget we have only missed one final in all that time, that is success for 99% of clubs.