Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 1:28 pm  

It would surprise me, given the injuries he's had, given the recent experience of keeping players too long. Given that we would not offer Longy a 2 year deal. Only a few years back.

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 1:28 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

Gardner consistently makes a hash of competing for high balls and if only three instances of him actually taking one can be recalled in a career spanning ten years then that suggests he is very poor. In fact, the only thing going for Ade is his kick returns. He doesn't have pace, he isn't exactly a great finisher (at least not these days), his defence is iffy and his ability under the bomb debatable.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if all our OOC contract players were re-signed but I wouldn't agree with any of them being re-signed myself, bar Laffranchi on the basis of him playing in the second row and even then I'd be 50/50 on it.

He was very good at it around the 2006-07 period, but he's had period where he's been equally as dreadful.
I can only think that the club are panicking about replacing two old wingers at once, even though we have have Swift and Makinson who are in many ways as capable as Ade.

Does the club not have any young wingers? It seems like we always use young standoffs/centres as back up in order to break them in. Makinson stuck there, but he was a centre originally. What young wingers do we have?

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 1:39 pm  

I've been prepared to be patient with Brown, as he has had a lot of rubbish to deal with since taking over. I can accept a bit of short-term suffering if there is a clear plan to get things changed, both in terms of our style of play and the scale of our ambitions.

If we give a two year contract to Gardner that will suggest to me that no such plans are in place, and I will really begin to worry about the future of the club.

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 1:41 pm  

It cannot be true. It simply cannot be true. The likes of Briscoe is available and we're gonna offer a 45 year old winger a new 2 year deal?

Stick a fork in us. We're done.

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 1:42 pm  

Offside Monkey wrote:

Does the club not have any young wingers? It seems like we always use young standoffs/centres as back up in order to break them in. Makinson stuck there, but he was a centre originally. What young wingers do we have?

Who knows? We never get to see them. Either we don't produce specialist wingers or our young wingers are actually players playing on the wing but are better elsewhere on the pitch. In the short years I've been watching Saints (since 2007 on a regular basis), I have simply never seen us play an indentified young winger on the wing. They've always been something else. It's like we see the wing spot more as a means of blooding a young backline player rather than as a spot in itself.

But whichever way we play it, keeping Meli and Gardner on the wings for another two years is not the way forward. The rest of our backline will be faster than the wingers and that is just ludicrous.

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 1:42 pm  

Unless this means we have given up on the hunt for a Winger???

It's not really replacing 2 old wingers if both Ade and Meli go. Makinson is well versed in RL now, he's not really what I would call a youngster. Although it's worrying if we only have 2 wingers for next year in Ade and Makinson.

Surely we should be scouting the Athletics clubs of the UK for their top runners, they will only be drawing down a few £k in lottery funding. For most they will never hit big money in Athletics. It's not beyond the concept of man to find 2 or 3 15 year olds who are lightening fast and train them for 3 years with rugby ball into how to play wing.

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 1:44 pm  

Dux wrote:

I've been prepared to be patient with Brown, as he has had a lot of rubbish to deal with since taking over. I can accept a bit of short-term suffering if there is a clear plan to get things changed, both in terms of our style of play and the scale of our ambitions.

If we give a two year contract to Gardner that will suggest to me that no such plans are in place, and I will really begin to worry about the future of the club.

According to Brown in his latest statement though contracts aren't simply his choice. They're the result of discussion with Rush and 'all the coaching staff'.

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 1:49 pm  

Meli is better than Gardner. So does he get a new deal too? And if not, why not?

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 2:07 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

Who knows? We never get to see them. Either we don't produce specialist wingers or our young wingers are actually players playing on the wing but are better elsewhere on the pitch. In the short years I've been watching Saints (since 2007 on a regular basis), I have simply never seen us play an indentified young winger on the wing. They've always been something else. It's like we see the wing spot more as a means of blooding a young backline player rather than as a spot in itself.

But whichever way we play it, keeping Meli and Gardner on the wings for another two years is not the way forward. The rest of our backline will be faster than the wingers and that is just ludicrous.

To be fair, I've often looked at wingers as poor relations on the pitch. In the junior teams, if a players got the star quality to be a future SL player, you tend to want them getting hold of the ball more often, rather than on the wing, waiting to be serviced.

Re: New 2-year deal for Ade? : Mon May 20, 2013 2:36 pm  

Dux wrote:

I've been prepared to be patient with Brown, as he has had a lot of rubbish to deal with since taking over. I can accept a bit of short-term suffering if there is a clear plan to get things changed, both in terms of our style of play and the scale of our ambitions.

If we give a two year contract to Gardner that will suggest to me that no such plans are in place, and I will really begin to worry about the future of the club.

I'm tempted to agree.
Whilst he has a reasonable track record, there's always this nagging feeling that our faith in brown is slightly misplaced, fueled for me by continuous inclusion of Wellens in key positions and a couple of other bizarre choices on the pitch. I hope its wrong.