Re: Vatuvei : Wed May 25, 2016 5:50 pm  

Starman wrote:

Us spending presumably big money on him is like buying a new flash car when you already have a car and the kids are starving. There are other areas that should be priorities. We need a centre, a hooker and at least 2 forwards. We're either wasting a bunch of our cap on a 30 year old winger who will play for us for 2 or 3 years or we're going to turn him into a centre instead of signing a specialised centre which for me would be another mistake.

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Great opening analogy. Spot On.

Classic Saints Panic Buy. Wrong on so many levels.

Agents must wet themselves when the phone rings and its Saints.

Re: Vatuvei : Wed May 25, 2016 6:30 pm  

Starman wrote:

Us spending presumably big money on him is like buying a new flash car when you already have a car and the kids are starving. There are other areas that should be priorities. We need a centre, a hooker and at least 2 forwards. We're either wasting a bunch of our cap on a 30 year old winger who will play for us for 2 or 3 years or we're going to turn him into a centre instead of signing a specialised centre which for me would be another mistake.

It seems incredibly short term thinking and just signing a name for the sake of it. I'd be very disappointed if we were to let one of Swift or Makinson go (who could be our wingers for the next 5 years) when neither are a major issue just to sign this fella.

I disagree. One of the reasons (not the only one) our forwards are getting smashed is that our tiny back three keep getting sat on their behinds on the first 2-3 tackles. Our sets aren't getting started. Having a winger like Vatuvei would go a long way to changing that IMO. Then that has a knock on (excuse the probably quite apt pun) effect: win the contact in the early tackles and you get quicker play the balls, meaning more opportunity to move the ball.

Also, there's no reason why we can't sign Vatuvei and sign other players too.

Re: Vatuvei : Wed May 25, 2016 6:36 pm  

Exactly a signing we need. Our wingers are too powder puff and just cannot get us out of our own 20 to give us some momentum on kick returns.

Regards

King james

Re: Vatuvei : Thu May 26, 2016 6:34 am  

my priority would be hooker to spell Roby above all else.
Big winger would be welcome, but I think a top centre would be priority over winger especially with the man of steel contender Owens now playing on the wing

Re: Vatuvei : Thu May 26, 2016 1:28 pm  

The Mole says - no chance of him signing for St Helens.

We will probably end up with Tom Armstrong or another championship standard player

Re: Vatuvei : Thu May 26, 2016 1:47 pm  

The guy is clearly a unit but having watched a lot of him in the NRL, he has one fundamental flaw in his game and that's his lack of consistency under the high ball. He's as bad if not worse than Meli in that regard. For someone to command a 3 year deal on big bucks, I'd expect him to be a bit more secure in what is a wingers primary job.

Re: Vatuvei : Thu May 26, 2016 5:00 pm  

Ah Meli, those were the days of roll a dice catches.
Our current crop can catch a ball but apart from swift we don't seem to cover the distance we should even with vast quantities of space infront of them.

Re: Vatuvei : Thu May 26, 2016 5:35 pm  

The Chief wrote:

The guy is clearly a unit but having watched a lot of him in the NRL, he has one fundamental flaw in his game and that's his lack of consistency under the high ball. He's as bad if not worse than Meli in that regard. For someone to command a 3 year deal on big bucks, I'd expect him to be a bit more secure in what is a wingers primary job.

Super league is inferior than the NRL so I think he would do a good job at centre with another signed big winger along side him. We need some very big quality players for centre, wing and prop position.

Re: Vatuvei : Thu May 26, 2016 6:00 pm  

Judder Man wrote:

Super league is inferior than the NRL so I think he would do a good job at centre with another signed big winger along side him. We need some very big quality players for centre, wing and prop position.

I'm not disagreeing for the sake of it but if we need a centre, let's sign a centre, not some guy who's played 215 games over 10/11 years in the NRL on the wing. He clearly doesn't have the handling skills or evasiveness, let alone the lateral movement in defence to play centre, exactly the same problem as we saw with Soliola and now Peyroux.

Re: Vatuvei : Fri May 27, 2016 8:16 am  

The only way I would be an advocate of this signing is if it meant one of Swift or Makinson to fullback and we were going to use the unreliable Lomax as a utility player. Otherwise it seems an incredibly short term thinking panic buy. I remember at the start of 2014 when Lomax, Makinson and Swift were all fit and were getting praise at how good they were as a back 3. I'm not suggesting any are Ryan Hall types, but I feel this amount of money should be spent on a proper centre, a prop or a hooker.