I understand that but we're in a salary capped sport, where the clubs can spend no more on salaries than we are now. So it's not like an enormous amount of investment is required. We're not talking £400,000 for Newlove here, £10,000 for Chris Hill would have enabled him to play prop, Laffrachi to play second row etc. What is disappointing me is that when these talented young players crop up as being available, they are never heading here. It's Warrington, Wigan, Leeds, Hull before us. It'll be interesting to see where Bateman goes, another of the potentially great young players and exactly the kind of player we would have been after 10-15 years ago.

And, lest anyone forget, we did go out and compete wholeheartedly with the loony spending in the transfer market in the '90s for a while and very, very nearly completely ceased to exist as a club as a result - there would be no Saints and no LP at all if not for Big Mac and Co. saving us from the consequences of that folly. Wigan and Widnes both paid for their years of mortgaged glory with near extinction, and the loss of their stadium and 20 years of lower league hand-to-mouth struggle respectively. Bradford spent money they didn't have buying trophies too until very recently - their birds are coming home to roost for that now. We don't know their exact financial situation, but who's to say Warrington aren't living beyond their means at the moment and may pay for it similarly in years to come?

We've lost 4 million quid in 2 years out of a business with an annual turnover of probably 5 million maximum... That, in any other sphere of existence, would be a business the banks would have closed down years ago. We are only still trading because of the "ambition" and willingness of our board members to dip into their pockets to make ends meet. I thank them for it and wouldn't care if we never paid another transfer fee so long as it meant our continued existence at their hands.

Maurice Lyndsay would be proud of you. Wigan existed for 100 years until he decided that success was important than the club, and for a very brief period in the club's history, he had massive success. Wigan will never recover from it. The will never own their own stadium, and because of that, they will fall behind clubs with far greater revenue streams like Saints, Warrington and Leeds. If you want 5 minutes of glory, then fine, spaned more than you can afford. I don't. I want Saints to be here as a competitive club for my kids and grand kids to enjoy.

The fans of Portsmouth, Rangers, Bradford Bulls, Chester City, Darlington, Rushden etc. etc. all say "hi - welcome to the party" by the way...

Anyway you try and dress it up, our recruitment and retention has been poor for past 5 years and it's going to get even worse pretty soon when TP, Perry, laffranchci all coming off contract at the same time as well as others.

I'll put money on us promoting youngsters in and not finding quality replacements.

So put your money in then as I suggest

...at least there will still be a club for fans to stay away from...

Your living in dream land mate, we will be in the same trouble financially in 5 years as we was at Knowsley road.

Success on the pitch breeds it off the the pitch, we still need fans evey week and if the product on the pitch isn't good enough then we are in trouble.

A mix of u20s and a bunch of overated Aussie OAPS isn't the team is fans was promised.

If only clubs that win trophys year in year out are going to be successful, then the game really has no future. Fortunately, that isn't the case.

When you've got a brand new spanking stadium to pay for and need 10,000 season ticket holders a season then the has to be quality on the fieid.

All this, we are saved because we've got Langtree park is rubbish, we still need crowds.

Anyway, I'm not getting involved in the running of the business side, my gripe is the poor recruitment and retention over the past 5 years.

Quote: St pete "But haven't we got the richest board in super league? One guy is with £1.6b which is a lot of money in rugby league. '" The figure of $1.6b (not £'s) wasn't the personal wealth but the size of the hedge fund of which Coleman partly manages, basically what people let him choosew where its invested. The fund charges a fee for providing the management. Obviously successful hedge fuind managers are welathy people but not to the tune of £1.6b. Interesting to note that the value of the fund has dropped by $1b over the last 12 months and talk of similar funds closing up shop completely. www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/ ... E620120712 As for the other posts relating to Warrington potentially spending beyond their means then a few quid spent with companies house would show that for 4 of the last 5 years they have made a profit. This is what Saints need to emulate with their stadium.

Quote: St pete "But haven't we got the richest board in super league? One guy is with £1.6b which is a lot of money in rugby league. '" The figure of $1.6b (not £'s) wasn't the personal wealth but the size of the hedge fund of which Coleman partly manages, basically what people let him choosew where its invested. The fund charges a fee for providing the management. Obviously successful hedge fuind managers are welathy people but not to the tune of £1.6b. Interesting to note that the value of the fund has dropped by $1b over the last 12 months and talk of similar funds closing up shop completely. www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/ ... E620120712 As for the other posts relating to Warrington potentially spending beyond their means then a few quid spent with companies house would show that for 4 of the last 5 years they have made a profit. This is what Saints need to emulate with their stadium.

...with pants and underachieving teams on the field for much of that time. [iAnd yet they've still somehow managed to attract punters and make money...[/i OMG! Maybe it is possible that Saints fans will continue to show up at LP without us needing to rival the national debt of Bolivia on signing non-existent star players! WE'RE SAVED!!!!!! Maybe RL fans aren't all glory hunting, simple minded numpty scumbags who will send their season tickets back in disgust if we don't clone Mal Meninga after all....

I'll agree that recruitment and retention to an extent have been poor. I would say the retention to a large extent was out of our control as those players we wanted to retain we could never have retained. Leon Pryce is the only one that stands out for me that we could have kept but we let go. In Hindsight it was a bad choice, at the time with a handful of games in 3 years and a serious neck injury you could see the risk. However I think we have retained some who could have gone. Although I still say the Eastmond issue started 2 years before he left.

The recruitment has been a mixed bag rather than poor if I am honest. I don't think it's down to some plan or lack of effort, I just think it's been poor choices and poor results. I don't think it's some grand design it's just the way it goes sometimes and maybe it's something that we can review as a club about where it's gone wrong. ie is it the head coach? the Chief exec or is it a team effort? If it's the chief exec, I would not say bin the chief it just has to be recognised that it's not been great and should be delegated. I find it hard to believe Big Mac has the say on player choices though, I would imagine it's a coaches call, in which case recruitment would go back as far as DA. As Milward picked the players for DA's grand final winning side.

I could be wrong, but I don't think we actually have a Chief Executive any more?