He did get offered more money by Pontypridd as is mentioned in his book on more than one occasion but he isn't bothered about more money which is mentioned quite a bit too.
The whole club was unprofessional when Lee first came in, the drinking culture at the club was appalling and used to wind me up.

Throw in the fact that Saints had Sculthorpe, Cunningham, Joynt, Newlove, Gleeson, James Graham, Jamie Lyon, Matt Gidley to name a few...(there are more) maybe they were the reason we got spanked so many times. have we spanked them in every game at their new stadium because Long no longer played for them or was it because Lee Briers had a better team around him.

To blame it on Briers v's Long shows you up to be quite bitter towards Lee Briers' standing in the eyes of most Wire fans.
Or maybe you really would have preffered Tommy Martyn or Leon Pryce at stand off instead of Lee Briers....

and Saints bought Long from Widnes Not Wigan

People seem to forget that when Smith first came in that Briers got a kick up the ass to improve and was almost shipped out to Barrow.

I would have loved to have seen Harris carry on playing for us but the club was a shambles at the time.

saints didn't buy long from wigan.

I wouldn't have had Long ahead of Briers. As flying biscuit says he won a lot more trophies because he played in a side with much more talent, Long wasn't the difference.

I thought Long was a great player in around 1999-2000, before Brandon Costin smashed his knee in early 2001. Long back then had genuine pace and he was a bit like Jonathan Davies that he would find a gap then surge through and run the chasers off, when he won Man of Steel he was doing this. After he came back from that injury he never had the pace to do that. Having said that he was always a good player with a good boot on him and could work a team around the park and make good players around him dangerous: similar to what Briers did for us. But for me if its Briers in the second half of his career v Long after his knee injury then I rate Briers higher.

Long was on loan from Wigan to Widnes when he signed for Saints but he was a Wigan player.
I said Long was one of the reasons we got second prize for so long. Since the mid 50s, apart from the Ossie Daies era and present day, we have been selling our best players to Saints and taking their cast offs.
I completely accept that Long was playing in a better, more professional team than Briers.
Although I stand by much of my criticism of him regarding his lack of professionalism, I am a great admirer of Briers and appreciate his undoubted talent and his efforts in the P&B. What could he have achieved if he had tried?. My post was deliberately OTT to try to bring some sanity to the OTT Briers debate in which he was in serious danger of being canonised. He was a great half back but IMO not as good as Edwards or Greenough and nowhere near as good as Gerry Helme.
With regard to the thread, I think it is impossible to compare the two since they are such different players.
However the one player I really regretted losing in recent years was Paul Sculthorpe. I would have given Briers and Harris in exchange for him.

Long was a Widnes player, he went there in the deal that took Lee Hansen to Wigan.

He joined Saints for £80k from Widnes.

I stand corrected. Thank you for disabusing me of a long held misconception.

Harris by a country mile

We’re talking about two different players who both had two separate eras in their careers. Harris pre union was very good for all the reasons mentioned already. Post union his pace had gone and he was half the player he was before. Briers before Smith got hold of him was unfocused and unreliable albeit playing in a poor side. After Smith came in there seemed to be a lot more maturity in his play. At their peak they were both very good SL players. Not top international quality but then few British halfbacks of the past 20-30 years are.

Disagree with this completely, at their peak both these players were definitely international quality.

I think Briers is one of the best players super league has seen, he's always been consistant

Sorry, I should have made it clear what I meant. Neither competed consistently well against Aussie or NZ opposition when they had the chance.

TBH not many British SL halfbacks were up to antipodean standards.

How many chances did Briers get to compete consistently well against Aussie or NZ opposition?

And if 'not many' British SL halfbacks were up to antipodean standards, who were the few that were?

. ....since smith took control.

I finished your statement for you.