Saints actually gave Mark Preston a run-out in a reserves game as a trialist and had ample chance to bag him, but by all accounts decided not to sign him as he was "too small". He then of course went to Wigan instead and scored a gazillion tries for a short while while we went and paid big money for the man mountain of Brimah Kebbie instead... We really were run by a bunch of clueless muppets in those days...

Anyway, Tanner was a more than decent player who never let us down and suffered a little from being just too versatile - he would have made a very good permanent #1 in the "pre-pivot" era if not for Veivers being in the way, but unfortunately spent most of his time labouring on the wing where, as already pointed out, his lack of either pace or size/strength meant he could never be more than average. Plus, great first season scoring for fun at a completely dominant and overpowering Wigan side where I could have scored 20+ tries aside, Preston didn't exactly pull up a lot of trees himself career-wise, did he?

It's a nice story though

Based on reputation it has to be michael O'Connor,when we signed him he was a superstar,a goal kicking free scoring dual code international but he really did flop for us,some people say he was injured but we signed him anyway,when you think about some of the players we signed in the 80's and some we turned down it really does make you wonder about the people that ran the club back then.

Another that springs to mind is Gary Grienke no idea how he made a living as a rugby player.

O'Connor's problem was that the fans (egged on by Murphy and company) expected another Mal Meninga.

And Preston wasn't too shabby at Halifax either

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned Pat Jarvis. Big time Aussie prop whose only useful function at KR was to carry the sand bucket on (prior to the days of kicking tees).

On the subject of Saints' management years ago, a story which I don't know is 100% true, but sounds about right:

A couple of Saints directors were sent to Rosslyn Park to have a look at a winger called Martin Offiah. When they reported back to the board, it went something like: " We didn't think he was much good but there was a black fellow on the other wing who could bl00dy shift"!

Not it wasnt it was the fact that he was world class in ability and did absolutely nothing in the red vee. Undoubted talent, clearly came for a holiday and put in zero effort.He was 5hite all season.

He had a decent off load game did Jarvis.

I can't believe someone on here has made Stuart Evans out to be anything other than a huge flop in a Saints jersey!!

"Devastating"...you're having a laugh.

Chris Joynt - 2002 Grand Final

I don't think O'Connor came for a holiday at all. But there were limits to what he could do. He wasn't especially big, or fast. He wasn't a great ball player and he certainly wasn't - unlike Meninga - a one man team. In Australia O'Connor was the icing on the cake to teams with dominant packs and creative halves. Given space he was a ruthless points accumulator and rarely fluffed his lines.

The problem was Saints did not have a dominant pack. Our defence was leaky, our coach was unstable and with Holding spraying the ball about everywhere bar the breadbasket O'Connor was left with the expectation of not just finishing tries but creating them, too. Had he played for Wigan - behind their outstanding group of forwards - I expect he would have prospered. But for an inconsistent Saints team he was the wrong player to sign. We should have gone for someone like Gene Miles.

I always got the impression that although he wasn't the quickest, David Tanner was a 100% tryer. I could be wrong, but if my memory serves me right, he was one winger that Offiah had little success against.

The biggest flop without doubt has to be O'Conner. When he came over I think he was keeping Meninga out of the Aussie team, so we had every right to expect, yet did very very little. Although I do remember him scoring a brillaint try against Halifax.

I saw him play 2 or 3 games at least when he was near unstoppable, so go and "do one" in popular yoof parlance... Admittedly I also saw probably at least a dozen when he was a lumbering passenger, and many dozen more when he was in the treatment room instead of on the pitch in the first place, but in bursts he was awesome and with a bit better conditioning could have been a great. C'est la vie.