True, we offered him 3 year deal which he didn't accept and signed a one year extension. The following year he left to union.

The question needs to be asked as to why we always draw the short straw though. With Leneghan at Wigan, he seems to get them to sign long deals with the understanding that they are moving. The club then gets a big transfer fee for the player. We don't do that.

Wigan's success is that they are ruthless and will move players on
good or bad , star or fringe player depending on circumstance. The contract length is
a side issue.

Tompkins is a superstar but the price is right. Goodbye.
Tuson is a good club man (a la Clough). Goodbye
Hock is a balloon. Goodbye.

The Pies know how to manage a squad.
If Wellens was a Pie he would have been canned 4 years ago,
Gardner would not have made it to testimonial and players like Clough
and Wheeler would be elsewhere.

Long contracts for star players are fine but need to be backed up by the belief
that the club will sell you, and ambition from the players themselves.

Hohaia and Wilkin have 4 year deals both are too comfortable to be moved.
They are laughing up their respective sleeves. Well done their agents.

I'm actually talking about the contract he signed in 2008.

He wanted a longer deal then and we asked him to prove himself.

We could have again offered him a better deal at the end of that season but we waited.

By the time we went back to the table end of 2009 - a season later he was an England international and had Union interest.

Of course there where injury concerns even after the contract extension was signed and you can make an argument about why we didn't act sooner based on that.

That's fine. But it was a defining moment in our recruitment for the next few seasons.

Pre eastmond when we let the like of Gilmour go because we wouldnt offer him a longer contract.

Post eastmond we were offering 4 yr deals, signing and resigning players, keeping on youngsters.

I still can't believe we started this season without a 7.

Well never know if the club made a mistake on the playing side, it certainly effect the club as a whole after it.

I'm optimistic after having to act this year that we've moved on.

Ah, I see - fair enough.

It's not rocket science really , you keep players hungry and get rid when it suits the club not the player. The goons did this well back in the days they were pummelling part timers with players like Hanley and Gregory, who if they were current day saints players would have been given contracts till they were 40. We will start being successful again when we start being ruthless again, it's no coincidence that our super league success was kicked off by dumping several loyal servants (who were either surplus or past their best) and bringing in a world class player...

Modern sport can't be compared to the times of Wigan in the 80s the power has shifted from the clubs to the players (or rather the agents.) it's the same in every sport now - meaning getting players in is harder (more expensive) and players staying is easier (so long as the price is right).

This whole we need to be ruthless in getting rid of players thing doesn't make any sense to me - take perry as a prime example - I doubt there's a saints fan out there (myself included) who didn't at some point mutter "I don't know why we don't just get rid" and free up the quota spot etc etc - yet there's a reason for it, and it's simple - given the drain if Aus talent available, having players to speak well of the club will become more and more important - say us and Warrington are in for an Aussie, perry and Matt king are both respected in aus and well known so said player is going to speak to both before making a decision - if perry turned around and said yeah it was a tough time so they dumped me off it's not going to do us any favours at all, where as the reality is, being able to say he struggled with it, but the club honoured his contract and stuck by him throughout his time in England tips the scales in our favour - at least that's the way I see it! Do you not think Walsh will have spoken to Lyon about saints before signing? Etc etc

We will start being successful again with a few more tweaks here and there - we weren't a million miles away this season (yes we were dire at the start but I believe that's more to do with brown adapting our style) we took Leeds to the wire - and would have probably put up as good if not more of a fight had we progressed - another ball handler in the squad would be great (like Kyle) but even without we should still see an improvement on this year.

Back in topic, is there any more to this story now it's all gone quiet? Or is it a usual Kyle hissy fit before quietly going and picking his dummy back up?

I watched a re-run of the Grand Final where Eastmond scored every point for Saints, and I was thinking that that was the point we really should have sat Eastmond down and discussed a decent sized contract to sign... Hindsight is a wonderful thing

I'm sure kyle will enjoy standing around in the freezing cold waiting for a pass for Bath reserves tonight.

Had he stayed in RL, chances are that he would have been running around for England on Saturday at Wembley.

I hope for his sake that he has hit rock bottom now. Seriously he needs to get away from Bath ASAP, or his career will be completely over.

On the contrary. If he walks away from Bath, his reputation will be tarnished. If he stays, works, and puts a difficult patch behind him, then people will see him a merely being human, a guy who had a personal rough patch and got through it without ing too much up.