Quote: Saddened! "Your rant falls down dramatically, squire, when you think we have spent the same money and the same signing on fees, just on the players we have now instead. McManus went on a world tour, employed four consultants and signed Lance Hohaia. He did the same with Josh Perry. We outbid Hull for Turner and Manu. Bar Manu, the problem is just we've been targeting the wrong players. Recruiting Hohaia was a monumental mistake, as was retaining Meli, Gardner and Wellens so many times. We've not done well with the recruitment and retention decisions over the last 6/7 years, surely you can see that?
My 'team' was an example to show the suggestion that there are no good players about is wrong. Granted, we wouldn't have been likely to sign all of them if we'd entered the market for them at precisely the same point the likes of Leeds, Warrington etc did and then engaged in a bidding war. But the quality of those players and the fact that none are out of the reach of Saints as potential signings shows what could have been achieved.'"
Now that is at least a reasoned arguement. Which beats the usual. I agree there are times when we have recruited badly, however I would not say all are bad. My problem is people use hindsight far too much to critise, where actually had they been in the position at the time without the ability of forethought, they would most likely have made the same choice.
So I'll give you Lance - I doubt many would agree that he was the right man for the job advertised. (Although as a FB, but anyway)
Perry - I can't say that this was bad recruitment, quite frankly if we had not picked him up when we did, you yourself would have been saying there go Saints passing over a SOO player, look at who we are missing out on. I would also say Shenton would fall into this catergory. A good signing at the time they where signed. Whether it works out after that is not down to recruitment.
Meli, Wellens and Gardner are retention - I'll agree on Meli and Gardner, although I can see the arguement people have with Meli. With Wellens I'm more flexible. I do think others should be given games to see how they go, but I would not have got rid of Wellens the way you would suggest. If those who came in could take the shirt off him, then fine, but you don't bin a quality FB, on the hope that someone better might be around. The irony now is that we have a quality FB, but playing half.
The big question for me is Centre, Willi Talau we seamed to go through years of just filling in for him, in that senario we did get rid of a quality player in the hope that someone else would just turn up, they did not.
My point is you have to be fair about these things, I would expect a drop off in recruitment whilst funding the stadium and I did not expect us to be paying out fees for players whilst the club is incuring huge losses in the region of Millions.
