You mean like Barba did?

The man is toxic. The argument, even if you take it solely about ability, has to be taken in the round. You can't simply say he was a better attacker therefore he was better. He was an awful...and I mean truly awful...defender. He was a quitter who, in his final season was a total liability. He was disruptive, selfish, a criminal and many other things beside. Virtually none of which, apart from his attacking threat, made him a good player to have in your team.

You can't argue for the change in winning mentality in one post and then hold up the very antithesis of that as being a good player. You're arguing opposite sides of the same argument there. Good players contribute to a winning mentality. Bad ones help destroy it. You choose which you value the most. I know which I do.

But you have to as his playing ability does not stand apart from his character when you are considering him as a player!

Let me put it this way: would you consider the final season Barba to have been good for Saints? If not (and I'm assuming not) do you think that was down to him suddenly losing all his ability or was it because of his character and him being a self ed quitter?

You can't separate the two. They don't exist in isolation. Every player is a combination of their ability and their mental strength and character. Barba had all the (attacking) ability in the world but his mental strength was, shall we say, questionable. That doesn't make for a great player! Flashy?...yes! Capable of some eye catching moments?...yes! A great player? No. A hundred times, no.

Edit: I think I can resolve this by asking who you consider to be the better player for Saints: Coote or Barba?

A good joust with reasonable debate going on.

Can anybody see this happening on RedVee?

To be fair, I've read this site for a long time, always nice to know what the enemy thinks of you

Despite the rivalry there's some very sensible and knowledgeable posters on here that can give credit where its due. I've certainly not come on here for unncessary arguments. Both YG and Rogues Gallery will confirm that I'm fair minded.

I agree 100% It wouldn't even be worth a debate. Just to relate that back to the discussion we're having, he's by far the better player despite having nowhere near Barba's attacking threat. In fact he doesn't even have anywhere near French's attacking threat for that matter. The reason he's the better player is because he's the better player in the round. Not as good in attack but waaaay better in defence, a better influence on the team, better professional and a better club man. All things that combine to make him the better player.

As I said, you can't separate out 1 individual aspect and say "because they're exceptional at that, it negates all the negatives". If that were the case you'd have picked Barba over Coote.

Never mind sitting back and being entertained...get some work done! I'm doing all the heavy lifting here

It’s a strange one with Wigan at the moment for me. I can’t work out if they are any good or not. Clearly it’s an improvement on last season and they have some real pace in the backs. The pack has looked decent but I feel they would come up short against Catalans or Saints.

They’ve also played HKR who looked really out of sorts and a new spine and then Leeds who had lots missing. However Wigan have definitely looked much better, I guess time will tell.

Longevity?

You only had him for 3 years from the age of 28…

Compared to some overseas signings, 3 years is a decent time, some only do a year before they get homesick. Also I was comparing him to Barba who only did one and a half seasons with us so Coote was at Saints for double the amount of time.