Quote Northampton_Saint="Northampton_Saint"What strawmen would they be? I wasn't suggesting you were insisting on finding players of that quality as a priority in the slightest - you are however insisting on us finding players better than what we currently have - players that just simply do not exist. The strawmen it seems are gaily dancing around in your cornfield and not mine....'"
Don't exist? Have you arrived at this conclusion via some hitherto undiscovered mathematical proof - or an act of divination? Perhaps I should have used the word wicker rather than straw?
As stated, your argument is a logical fallacy. The fact that Saints have chosen to re-sign Meli is NOT proof he is the best player around. At the very least it denies the possibility of making a mistake.
Quote Northampton_SaintPeople who know a thousand times more than everyone else on this thread put together about the state of the league, our salary cap situation, player availability and the strengths/weaknesses of what we have available have decided that the players we have resigned are the best options available right now.'"
That's a bull copout and you know it. Let's look at reality here. None of us know how much Saints have to spend on players. That said, McManus has repeatedly stated that we are spending up to the cap. Now, we can debate this until the cows come home [ibut the fact that McManus has said it is incontrovertible[/i. If we accept this at face value then no player (outside of the NRL's top stars) is off limits. After all, other clubs cannot spend more than us.
Quote Northampton_SaintWhy do you think that you know any better than them, particularly given that, a half-back who is off to the bottomless salary cap at the Flatpack aside, you can seemingly name no other realistic targets? I am no fan of Gardner or Flannery by any manner of means believe you me, and I've wanted to brutally murder Meli on as many different occasions in the past as anyone else has, but the fact remains that there sadly just isn't anyone else better available right now.'"
You keep talking about facts and 100% certainties without supplying any at all. And the suggestion that there hasn't been a single player in the past five years who is capable of performing well in a Saints shirt (over Meli and Gardner) is laughable. We could have gone for Ratchford. We could have gone for Westerman. Hell, at a push I might even have gone for Chris Bridge or Ryan Atkins.