Not too long before the transfer merry-go-round gets going again then! I'm hoping we get some business done early, it'll hopefully me something to look forward to next season!

I'm more the other way around, I'd have no problem with a proper half, regardless of quality or experience alongside Wilkin for 1 year, until we can get a 7. As Wheeler showed, you can produce from that and with Lomax linking in from deep, it looks relatively sound.

But if we get an organiser next year at 7 or by some miracle this year. We will still only have on half of a working partnership, with Lomax making them look good from FB. When we had a decent side a few games ago, it was Lomax and Wilkin making things happen. Lance and Wheeler were not making any great impression as the stand out 6.

Just a little frustrating that we are seemingly writing of season after season, looking forward to the next in the hope that the club sign recognised half backs. I just worry that we will be doing the same in 3-4 years time, meanwhile shelling out a couple of hundred quid each for a season ticket to watch a team with the same problems as three seasons ago.

It's alot frustrating! My season ticket renewal will be somewhat dependent on what we do in the market for next year. If we go into it with Wilkin as our scrumhalf and Hiho as standoff then I will be just selecting matches rather than paying for the whole lot up front.

In hindsight not re-signing Leon wasn't the smartest.

No, it wasn't, althought there were some serious question marks over his fitness at the time. I don't think he'd solve our current problems though. We need an organising, creative half back who can kick. Leon was great for us, but he did leave most of that stuff to Longy.

I agree on all points. He's a huge step up in class from Lance at #6, though.

Letting Smith go is looking like a huge mistake now. Leon/Gaskell and Smith in the halves would be a dream.

A fit Gary Wheeler would be nice, and has shown (admittedly in glimpses) that he can do a job there, but will that ever happen for more than a couple games?

Agree now and I said in 2007 gf we should have gone with smith when he got us to the final

That is the thing, Leon would give us little of what we are missing. He is a better player than most but he is not a playmaker he is a runner. With his injuries it was a good plan to let him go. He let Les Cats down in the playoffs with injury. I think the club made the correct choice, they just failed to bring in a suitable player as a replacement.

As I've said before, with the benefit of a time machine we'dve let Kyle sod off to Warrington, signed Smith on a long deal and let Wheeler clog up the treatment room of Wigan or Leeds instead. But letting Smithy go in favour of the other 2 was 100% the right call at the time and the fates just simply haven't been kind to us since. Pryce is a whole different matter though - it looked a questionable piece of business to let him go in favour of Lance at the time and has only looked a lot worse since. The rest of the league probably wouldn't see us for dust right now with Smith and Pryce in our #6 and #7 shirts....

Whilst Leon may not have been an organiser, he would have been the experienced head we needed last year. A younger guy could have played alongside him and took on the organising. Instead we had 2 younger fella's and one older fella with no halfback experience.

I was not a Leon Pryce fan, in terms of him being seen as a half, but as a devestating runner he could do things that we just don't have a capability for.

But Pryce is just part of a long line of downgrading the halfbacks.

I'm happy for people to disagree, but I'd say

Martyn to Hooper was a downgrade
Hooper to Pryce was a downgrade
Pryce to Lance was a downgrade

However, during that time, they all had Long to back them up and take on more and more. I think Long ended up doing more at Saints as time went on, to the point where you shut down long you shut down Saints. That was the issue in the end when we were losing Grandfinals. Long could carry Saints through a season. But as he lost his more skillful halfback partners then Saints became more long oriantated and in a final lining up against Sinfield, Maguire and Burrow, that's a 3 to 1 fight.

You put Scully in the team and suddenly we look like the Golden generation.

It's no one player that we have let go, it's been the gradually reduction in creative halves that has set us back.

That's why I say, you put Lomax and Roby back in the team we are top 4, take them out top 8. But to be top 2 with a fight of silverwear we need 3 pivots. It's the one thing Leeds have had for the last 6 years and what wigan had when they won on Leeds off year.

Did Hooper and Pryce not play in the same team? I seem to remember Hooper getting number 16 and playing in the back row/loose forward.

Overall I think that's pretty fair, although Pryce was by far a better stand off than Hooper, who was an excellent loose forward. It's worth noting also that Long was pretty poor in his last couple of seasons at Saints, once Scully was out of the picture he was left with all of the organisational responsibility.

I heard Smith was offered a deal at saints at the start of this season, he was all for signing it and then Wigan offered £12k more a year. Saints refused to match it and the rest is history. I'm not sure Smith is the answer and long term, I think we as a club need a better organiser, but most fans would give their right arm for any recognised 7 given the current situation.