Quote: Grimmy "I don't care where they are from, I am talking about a settled halfback combination that we can build a team around, that's obviously not going to happen by signing a 32 year old.
We should be aiming at turning our success since 2010 into prolonged dominance similar to what Saints (13 SL/CC trophies '96-'0icon_cool.gif, Bradford (5 SL/CC trophies '00-'05) and Leeds (6 SL/CC trohpies '07-Present) have had in the past, I seriously doubt they achieved what they did by merely signing the best player available whenever anyone leaves and not thinking about long term planning.
They kept a settled spine of Long/Cunningham/Sculthorpe - Paul/Deacon/Lowes - Maguire/Burrow/Sinfield and it paid major dividends. The latter two of those combos are made up of players who barely broke into their rep teams (bar Robbie Paul) but they knew how to make the team tick, resulting in a heap of trophies.'"
During those periods I always rememeber discussing it around those times - Especially the Saints one and discussing that Saints had a steady 6/7 for Seasons 99 through to 2004/5 & Then Pryce came in and Same for another 4/5 years.
In that period we had
Smith/Florimo (That was a Big name that went down well BTW!)
Clinch/Smith (There's another name to Ponder when discussing short termism instead of long term planning)
Smith/Farrell
Peters/Farrell/Smith (Smith & Farrell seemed to split 6 between them that season)
Lam/Johns
Lam/O'Neill
Lam/O'loughlin
Robinson/Orr
Lam/Orr
Moran/Orr (Now then - Let's go out and get these Top Class Aussies again I hear you say!)
Moran/Brown
Dobson/Orr
Period covered 1999-2006 - 8 Seasons - Number of trophies = 1
11/12 half back pairings & Approx 16 half backs - Not inc. players that played occasionally such as Chester/Coyle/Reber (Shudder!) Nick Graham (Shudder!) Phil Jones etc.
Same period St Helens - 8 seasons - Number of trophies = About 8/9/10?
Martyn/Long
Long/Sculthorpe (Only when Martyn was injured?)
Long/Hooper
Long/Pryce (Who then went on to play together for a further 5 seasons (ish)
Bradford in same period basically had :-
Paul/Paul
Paul/Deacon
Pryce/Deacon
Trophies = 7/8?
Leeds established 2004/2005 through to 2012 (8 seasons)
Maguire/Sinfield
Maguire/Burrows
Maybe a bit of Dunneman early that period 2004ish
Trophies = 10ish?
Under IL
2 years of stability with Leuluai and Barrett set us up nicely IMO and then a Partnership of Leuluai & Tomkins was only broke up due Roberts injury and Tomkins Move to Full back that led to Tommy & Deacon playing together most of 2010 & 2011 with Finch thrown in 2012.
So 4 Half backs with Tommy a constant throughout in 6 seasons was a much more consistant period.
Smith & Green 2013 & 2014
7/8 seasons 4 half back pairings covering maybe 6 players Trophies = 5/6 (Dependant on LLS etc?) bearing in mind first 2/3 years was spent recovering from the issues of the previous 5 years or so I believe it was the stability of having Half backs (And Hooker & LF inc. in this) there for 2/3/4 seasons rather than 1 year and get shut and constantly chopping and changing that helped.