Quote: daveyz999 "There's a bit of a difference, going into a game against Huddersfield, to the play-offs of 2010.
Lomax made his breakthrough under Potter, along with Foster.
Matty Smith was used with Lomax and did pretty well until the final - the youngsters are better this year so the injuries have not had such a big impact.
Only my opinion, but Saints did very well to get to the final last year.'"
Ok. Let's put this into perspective. Seven academy players were promoted to the first team in time for Potter to arrive. Of those seven only one ended up with a regular spot by the time Potter left: Jamie Foster. They all had their debuts under Potter (Foster in his second year here). But having debuts, playing bit parts now and again, is vastly different from what has happened under Simmons (who, incidentally, has introduced a further seven u20s players to first team action).
And had Potter chosen to utilise either Jamie Ellis (who has gone on to do wonders with Leigh and has been signed by Hull) or Lee Gaskell (who has done remarkably well this season), he would have had a full one third of the season in which to do it because that is how long we went last year without recognised halves. Even if he had played one with Wilkin then that would have been good as both Ellis and Gaskell have kicking games. But he didn't. He preferred to cause chaos in the team by shunting them all around just to accommodate one injury. He did it for the Grand Final, playing Lomax at centre to start with when he'd never played there before and had just come back from injury. Meanwhile Meli had played centre before but he stuck him on the wing. He was crazy stupid where personnel were concerned and from what I've read on here, he hasn't changed.
