It's a balancing act though. It's not like football with numerous friendlies throughout the year against decent sides. If he doesn't give players a chance how does he give them international experience and how does he assess how they cope against good teams?

Playing France is a waste of time as would playing an All Stars team. These opportunities don't come up much.

Yeah I think you may be right. He jumped the gun with his signing too, telling the media in Oz before Saints had announced it.

Saints fans are going to need to be patient with him, and there is now a lot of pressure on Lomax to run the show single handedly like Smith does for us.

Took 3 years to transition French into the 6 position even though he only has that free role.

I think Sailor will be facing a lot of traffic down his edge as whilst he has pace and talent his defence is questionable and moving up into the line will make him a big target.

What makes you say that John? He only switched at the end of last season. He's only done 18 months there in total and was a success from the off, although he has obviously improved this year with a full season under his belt.

In regards French?

He was used as a half during games a number of times when he first came over.

He may not have started there but during games he was shifted and was poor.

Remember Wakefield away where fe was moved there for 20/30 minutes and he was shocking and his line defence was exposed. I’d go so far as to say his line defence is maybe where his biggest improvement has been, it’s gone from being poor to excellent.

I think in the background there has been a plan in place from the off and the injury/loss of form from Cust accelerated it to him having a chance but I believe a lot of work since he signed has gone into that positional shift away from the glare of SL.

I've said a few times, I think the scariest thing with French playing 6 is that he can get even better. He got to the point towards the end of last season where he basically just choose when to cause havoc and he's seeing those opportunities now and not just moving the ball on, as he seemed to think was his role when he first went in to 6 on a regular basis. It's easy to forget that for all the flashy stuff, he's a real team player but if he's just a touch more selfish, I think you could see his level go up even further and that is a crazy thought.