Cayless was the guy I was thinking of when I wrote rlthisrl. I don't know why Saints chose to let him go. Perhaps the player wanted a return to Oz. Perhaps we thought we weren't getting value for money. Or perhaps the decision was based purely upon medical assessment. If it's the latter and he goes on to perform consistently throughout this season for Wests then doubts must be raised about the methods of that assessment. A fit Cayless would be in our starting 17 today. No question about it.

Agreed, but Cayless hasn't been fit for over 2 seasons. It was a wise decision not to renew his contract and look at other options, because there was no guarantee that Cayless would ever return the same player. Fozzard may not be the best prop around, but he's been relatively injury free in the last 7 or 8 years and gives us an extra body up front that we clearly lacked last year. He will always give you his absolute best and he is a character around the dressing room. The players certainly seem to like him.

I dont doubt Jack Gibsons redentials but it certainly helps that when you lose a Laurie Daley you can replace them with a Brad Fittler and when you lose him you replace him with a Darren Lockyer .... Like you rightly point out though some of it will be down to smart management and imo a degree of luck when it comes to possible replacement(s)

Then, by your rationale, we should have got rid of Tommy Martyn.

Which players are out of contract this year? I know this is KC last year but who else do you loose?

The difference is, Tommy Martyn was young when he picked up his injuries whereas Cayless is 30 and approaching the end of his career.



It gave a list on the radio yesterday but for definite:

Gidley
Cunningham
Fozzard
Hargreaves

Wellens, Meli and one or two others maybe out of contract too.

Meli and Gardner as well.

Not sure about Pryce?

That would be all well and good if it weren't for the fact that good props tend to do their best work at - 30.

Surley how pryce is playing his contract has to be up?

pryce and faasavalu are

Coincidentally, they're both playing very well at the moment.

off to the dark side maybe ?

Pryce came in for some stick last year which i thought was a tad ott. He was on fire for the first half of the year and even being talked as man of steel. His off field problems seem to affect him on the pitch.

He has started this year very very well and to be fair been pretty good in all his time at saints apart from 2nd half of last season.

Maurie couldn't get going last year with injuries which effects his form. It was one niggle after another for maurie who needs games to get his match fitness up.

I agree that it was over the top with Pryce last season, however, he just didn't perform well enough and the fact of the matter is, that when Pryce is firing, then it usually means that Saints are. Last season, i think that one of the main reasons that we hit a big dip in form in the second half of the season. Take last night for example, it was no coincidence that when Pryce went off, we struggled and Crusaders started to hit back. Pryce is a key man in our team, and its important that he hits form.

At the start of the season, i thought he had continued were he left off, against Hull we was pretty poor (from what i could see), however, last night i thought he was clearly man of the match and its massive for us to keep him fit and playing well.