That's exactly how I see it and have been saying the same thing.

Pryce and lomax are the two best halfbacks at the club and should play.

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. But are you confident we will see him again this season? I'm not. Hope I'm wrong though.

I'm sure we will see Leon playing in a saints shirt again, whether it's the Pryce we know I'm not so sure.

Some people want all youth, some people want ready made superstars from day 1.

Lomax looks great, but this is his 2nd or 3rd year at first grade. Gaskell is in his first year at first grade. He's been on the winning side every time.

What I don't want to see is Saints go through a run of years like Wigan, were we ship out the good with the average talent, just to buy in. Lets say Leon and Lance play the next 2 years. 2 years down the line our current youth will be playing for other teams and we'll be trying to prize them back.

I'm not saying that we've seen the best of Gaskell or that Gaskell is as good as Leon on a day when he was hot. But neither has Leon been running hot since he joined the Saints. We seam to forget that Leon was a seasoned SL player when he came, he was not an instant hit with the fans by any rate, for the first year to 18 months, Leon showed very little at half back for me, much less than Gaskell has. His kicking game has only developed in the last 12 months.

Yes he is a devestating runner no doubt about that. But neither is he in the same league as a Long, Martyn, Sculthorpe, Goulding IMHO.

Just as we are comparing Gaskell to the greats.

Like I said I'm my other posts, youth is all well and good but for every one good kid we prob get five bad ones. Teams need to be very very lucky to produce young lads that all kick on and make it. We've brought same great players through the youth in the super league era like wello, roby, Graham, KC etc but we've also brought through so called next generation superstars that are now no where to be seen or playing for lesser clubs.

I don't buy into the views like we don't need to replace wello because we've got Ian hardman, we don't need to replace Lyon because we've got Ste tyrer and so on because 90% of the time it just don't work.

We big these kids up so much it's scary, if it's that easy to replace players then why not just throw our u20s out.

It's a bit harsh to say they are bad players. I would say the youth development needs to produce a roby or graham or Cunningham or Wellens every 2 years at least. Lomax certainly appears to be on that mould, and possibly foster. Then we need a couple of cloughs per year. Plus enough squad players to cover for injuries. I would say we need 40 young players to make 1 top player. And to find the 40 will probably need to consider 400 youngsters . So the 5 bad players will still be pretty good even if not quite good enough to be a new roby.

I prob shouldn't have used the word bad, I didn't mean it like that. I was just trying to point out that all the young lads will be first team players for years to come as most will drift off to lesser clubs and championship clubs.

I'd love all these kids to make it and win cups for saints for the next ten years but it won't happen. Every now and then some teams do produce a group of young players that form a team that wins things, Leeds did it with sinfield, burrow, McGuire and co and in football Utd also did it but it don't happen often.

Let's hope we get luck with this batch.

I,m assuming Leon is already in training and just waiting for the scan reports. If he plays I don,t expect him to reach something like his best until 3 or 4 games.
Anybody get the feeling our super league season will really only start just before the play offs with the bonus of maybe a CC final appearance.

Forget Leon, Lomax and Gaskel/Wheeler can do the job at halfback,Wheeler ran th show at Wigan,these kids are good enough. Royce has faith in them and so should we.

He might and I'm sure the coaching staff will know all that from his performances in the u20s, which is why I'm happy to leave it to the coaching staff. However, if he is good under the high ball and if his defence is good enough then I'd like to see him there because he has real pace and an eye for an opportunity (as proven by his clean interception against Wakey).

Incidentally, Foster was tagged as a centre when he joined the first team and yet he is proving to be a very good winger who it turns out also has pace, based upon his chase up the field against the Crusaders on Friday (the first time I've seen him in a foot race when he hasn't tripped!). Saints' policy is to play their young players in a number of different positions and so just because Makinson had the tag 'fullback' when he came into the first team doesn't mean he is forever a fullback.

So long as Meli is not put on the wing I will be happy. Meli should never play on the wing again. Never! (Unless we are so very crocked that there is literally no option, obviously)

Not strictly true. He played in the halves twice last season and was on the losing side on at least one of those occasions.


Well, some of us aren't forgetting that.

Full strength (bearing in mind Gardner and Clough are long term and may not play again this season):

Wellens
Makinson / Meli
Shenton
Meli / Wheeler
Foster
Pryce
Lomax
Graham
Roby
Perry
Wilkin
Flannery
Puletua

Bench:
Soliola
Eastmond / Wheeler
LMS
Moore

Some difficult choices in a couple of positions for me. Meli is better at Centre than on the wing, but that would mean you'd have to persevere with a youngster in Makinson which is risky. It may be better to switch Wheeler to Centre and Meli to wing, even though Meli is inconsistent and dodgy on the wing.

Soliola on the bench for impact with Flannery and Wilkin starting in the back row. Royce likes Puletua at Loose when we have options so that's where I imagine he'll play. He's a better starter than bench player anyway. Moore, LMS and Eastmond on the bench if Wheeler is at Centre. I reckon that gives us a well balanced side and if we can get near that side, we'll be very strong. If Clough returns it gives us more options with the likes of Magennis, Dixon, Ashurst, Makinson in reserve for a bit of rotation.

I'm not saying throw the 20's out, what I am saying is that if they get the job done, then we should not just be switching players for names sake.

Also it's a changed game nowa days from 10 years ago. 10 years ago, with all the get outs teams could look to the talent pool in austrailia to fill any gaps. However present circumstances mean that the talent pool in the NRL is no longer a fishing ground for gaps in your own youth development. Instead we are going to have to fill our own gaps or rely on other SL clubs to fill those gaps.

So we did have Steve Tyre, but I think most fans can say he did not make the grade at Saints, but he was given his chance, to try and grab that spot. For me Lomax has taken his chance and proved he is up to the first team half back position. Gaskell has also taken his chance and has shown potential, I'm not saying he is at Lomax's standard yet, but also he plays a different role to Lomax and Pryce etc. Which is why I would have him in my team as although not the finished article he gives something different. Now if Wheeler was ready, then I would not be able to say which of the 2 are better, but you would expect it to be Wheeler, who like Lomax is 2 years ahead of Gaskell.

It may very well be that Gaskell does not make it, but if he keeps getting better and better with each game it will be difficult just to say well wait 2 years with no game time as we are keeping Leon, Lance, Lomax and Wheeler. Same goes for Wheeler.

As for Hardman replacing Wellens, I'm not sure where that one came from as, I don't think during the time of Hardman, that Wellens was up for replacement. He's only just turned 31.

Ashe maybe a replacement for Wellens, or Lance or Lomax or Wheeler, but I never thought it would be hardman. Hardman may have been a stand in for injury, but that's a different senario.

I agree with most of your post mate. I'm not saying pick certain players because of there names. I'm all for picking form players. Lomax has been awesome at 7 and IMO he's earned that role and Kyle has lost his shirt.

In the Gaskell situation, I think he's done really well, he's done everything asked of him and I really like him but I don't think he's played that well for pryce not to take his shirt. He's been steady and that's all that should have been asked of him but at this moment in time I think a 60% Pryce is better than Gaskell at this moment.

IMO I don't think we will win anything this year or next year at least with lomax and Gaskell as the halves. They will never let us down and will rip it up against the not so good teams but in the big games against Wigan, hudds, Leeds, wolves I think they would struggle.

I'm not saying drop Gaskell altogether but maybe he's a good shout for the back that Royce likes on the bench and bring him in against the teams we are expected to beat so he's still active in the first team and getting regular super league game time to keep his development up.