Bloody hell Stu, bit much this.

Saints will still be spending the salary, they’ll still be using all the overseas quota, they’ve still got one of the top teams in SL.

You’re making out like 3/4 of these 18 year olds will be in your starting team every week.

Roby has retired and you’ve literally signed the England hooker to replace him. Also replaced LMS with a starting back rower from a Grand final team.

Apart from one of the wingers, you’ve no holes in your squad.

You’ve just promoted youth players to be squad numbers 27-33 (which most teams will do) after letting several of them squad numbers go from last year.

Class of 92

There’s a huge ignorance from a few Saints fans towards Kaide Ellis in general. I’ve read a number of disparaging comments about him but that’s fine. In fairness, I don’t think some of our fans realise (or realised) how good he is but that’s turning now (I remember on TotalRL a couple of Wigan fans saying we shouid get shut mid season. I nearly fell off my chair). Silly suspensions and an injury just halted his momentum at times last year, so he flew under the radar but he was excellent and statistically that was backed up. I’ve said before, I think he’s the most underrated player in the league. He’s got pretty much everything you’d want in a modern day prop.

There will be a signing or two yet I’m sure. There has to be at least one back brought in you’d imagine. I just can’t buy that Saints will go in to a season with Hurrell and Bennison first choice, Davies and Ritson first reserves and then no real back up (outside of kids) for Welsby or the halves. Trying rack my brains if I’ve forgot someone but nobody is jumping out. We’ve only really got Hampshire in terms of experienced back up but he along with Keighran and French are extremely versatile and Eckersley and Douglas are a year or two in front of those kids Saints have promoted.

Not so sure you know, I think our signings are done.

There were heavy rumours of Waqa Blake and then Olam but they’ve died a death now and we don’t seem to be linked to anyone.

I know we made a play for Ackers with a view of Mbye playing 7 with the thoughts that Dodd was off to the NRL but obviously that’s all fallen through and Ackers has ended up at Leeds.

Suppose Mbye can cover a few spots but that backline definitely looks like it needs at least one more option. Plenty of time yet though. On the rumours thread somebody mentioned Toby King. He’s come on leaps and bounds this season in a few areas (fitness and defensively being the main two) and I know you wanted him before he signed that big deal at Wire.

Looking from the outside squad wise, you'd think a left winger and a centre must be top of their wish list, finding them is obviously the hard part

Interesting that 3 players were carded today. One was never a yellow and the other two were both Saints players through grubby play. Hair pulling and throwing punches in the tackle respectively. Given the constant 'anti Saints conspiracy theories' that were prevalent throughout the season, I wonder if they'll finally accept that they have some real grubs in the Red Vee these days and that perhaps it was their discipline that was the real (and indeed, only) reason?

To be fair to Lees, the hair pulling was extremely silly but he was taking a swinging arm and a facial whilst he was on the floor

No clue what has happened to Hurrell. He was an absolute mess today, though that kind of aggression is fairly out of character from him (or at least from what I’ve seen of him). That said, I’m incredibly worried that not only is he gonna be a first choice centre next year, but we have literally zero back up for him. I have nightmares about Ben Davies playing 20 games at centre next year.

Something seriously wrong with Hurrell today. Was very emotional pre game and then was acting really out of character during the game with lots of grubby play. Really odd from him.

Didn't Hurrell get banned for something towards the back end of last season? Sorry, I can't remember the incident but I do recollect people saying it was out of character then too.

I've read over on RedVee (yes, that again) people claiming that Hurrell and Percival is as good a centre partnership as any in Superleague or some such. I thought it was a very blinkered view then and doubly so after today. Percy has been quality but is regularly injured (in fact his non appearances for England this series are very indicative of where he is these days) and Hurrell seems to have completely lost whatever it was he once had, and what he once had was very flawed to start with, albeit he could be destructive going forward.

I'm genuinely unsure, Welsby apart, where the threat is going to come from next year for Saints. Tommy Makinson, if he stays relatively injury free, but beyond that it's all likely to be bit part stuff without some further signings. Last season was poor in attack but next year has all the makings of being worse.

Well Percy is still quality and is very consistent pretty much every time he plays. The worry as you say is that he seems to be getting injured and missing games more and more often. He's also a pretty good source of strike in attack as he's pretty good at beating his man. Hurrell on his day is also very destructive in attack. Could even be argued he was our only real attacking threat early in the season and we'd have been lost without him. Problem with Hurrell is he always gives you the impression that even when his fitness is good, he's always right on the edge of letting himself go. And his margin is such that if he's 5% off it then his liability in defence becomes too much to compensate for and he starts having brain farts such as offloads that aren't on, giving away penalties etc. He looks very much to be well over the line atm, and has a huge pre season coming up. If they're both fit and on form then I'd agree they're up there with any centre partnership in Super League. I just don't see that being the case very often and a centre really has to be top of our shopping list. We cannot be going in with Ben Davies as first cover, although I suspect Whitley will be filling in before Davies

I found the Whitley signing strange Stu, as Saints didn’t need to strengthen their back row. I can only assume that they thought a player was moving on but he didn’t and, by that time, Whitley had already signed on the dotted line. Outside backs are definitely required but, like you, I am not sure how much spare cash there is in the pot.