Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 9:27 am  

SaintsFan wrote:

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. But are you confident we will see him again this season? I'm not. Hope I'm wrong though.

I'm sure we will see Leon playing in a saints shirt again, whether it's the Pryce we know I'm not so sure.

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 9:27 am  

Some people want all youth, some people want ready made superstars from day 1.

Lomax looks great, but this is his 2nd or 3rd year at first grade. Gaskell is in his first year at first grade. He's been on the winning side every time.

What I don't want to see is Saints go through a run of years like Wigan, were we ship out the good with the average talent, just to buy in. Lets say Leon and Lance play the next 2 years. 2 years down the line our current youth will be playing for other teams and we'll be trying to prize them back.

I'm not saying that we've seen the best of Gaskell or that Gaskell is as good as Leon on a day when he was hot. But neither has Leon been running hot since he joined the Saints. We seam to forget that Leon was a seasoned SL player when he came, he was not an instant hit with the fans by any rate, for the first year to 18 months, Leon showed very little at half back for me, much less than Gaskell has. His kicking game has only developed in the last 12 months.

Yes he is a devestating runner no doubt about that. But neither is he in the same league as a Long, Martyn, Sculthorpe, Goulding IMHO.

Just as we are comparing Gaskell to the greats.

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 9:37 am  

Like I said I'm my other posts, youth is all well and good but for every one good kid we prob get five bad ones. Teams need to be very very lucky to produce young lads that all kick on and make it. We've brought same great players through the youth in the super league era like wello, roby, Graham, KC etc but we've also brought through so called next generation superstars that are now no where to be seen or playing for lesser clubs.

I don't buy into the views like we don't need to replace wello because we've got Ian hardman, we don't need to replace Lyon because we've got Ste tyrer and so on because 90% of the time it just don't work.

We big these kids up so much it's scary, if it's that easy to replace players then why not just throw our u20s out.

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 9:55 am  

St pete wrote:

Its a little pet hate of mine with some people on here who bang on about how good young players are when they ain't played even 10 games at super league. Youth development is great but for every good player you get I bet you get five bad ones.

It's a bit harsh to say they are bad players. I would say the youth development needs to produce a roby or graham or Cunningham or Wellens every 2 years at least. Lomax certainly appears to be on that mould, and possibly foster. Then we need a couple of cloughs per year. Plus enough squad players to cover for injuries. I would say we need 40 young players to make 1 top player. And to find the 40 will probably need to consider 400 youngsters . So the 5 bad players will still be pretty good even if not quite good enough to be a new roby.

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 10:03 am  

SomersetSaint wrote:

It's a bit harsh to say they are bad players. I would say the youth development needs to produce a roby or graham or Cunningham or Wellens every 2 years at least. Lomax certainly appears to be on that mould, and possibly foster. Then we need a couple of cloughs per year. Plus enough squad players to cover for injuries. I would say we need 40 young players to make 1 top player. And to find the 40 will probably need to consider 400 youngsters . So the 5 bad players will still be pretty good even if not quite good enough to be a new roby.

I prob shouldn't have used the word bad, I didn't mean it like that. I was just trying to point out that all the young lads will be first team players for years to come as most will drift off to lesser clubs and championship clubs.

I'd love all these kids to make it and win cups for saints for the next ten years but it won't happen. Every now and then some teams do produce a group of young players that form a team that wins things, Leeds did it with sinfield, burrow, McGuire and co and in football Utd also did it but it don't happen often.

Let's hope we get luck with this batch.

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 10:06 am  

I,m assuming Leon is already in training and just waiting for the scan reports. If he plays I don,t expect him to reach something like his best until 3 or 4 games.
Anybody get the feeling our super league season will really only start just before the play offs with the bonus of maybe a CC final appearance.

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 10:42 am  

Forget Leon, Lomax and Gaskel/Wheeler can do the job at halfback,Wheeler ran th show at Wigan,these kids are good enough. Royce has faith in them and so should we.

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 11:19 am  

St pete wrote:

I have moaned in the past about a lack of pace in the backs but we can't just say play him wing because he's fast. He might be worse than meli dealing with kicks, he might not have the positional mind to know when to drop back and when not to as he's not a natural winger.

He might and I'm sure the coaching staff will know all that from his performances in the u20s, which is why I'm happy to leave it to the coaching staff. However, if he is good under the high ball and if his defence is good enough then I'd like to see him there because he has real pace and an eye for an opportunity (as proven by his clean interception against Wakey).

Incidentally, Foster was tagged as a centre when he joined the first team and yet he is proving to be a very good winger who it turns out also has pace, based upon his chase up the field against the Crusaders on Friday (the first time I've seen him in a foot race when he hasn't tripped!). Saints' policy is to play their young players in a number of different positions and so just because Makinson had the tag 'fullback' when he came into the first team doesn't mean he is forever a fullback.

So long as Meli is not put on the wing I will be happy. Meli should never play on the wing again. Never! (Unless we are so very crocked that there is literally no option, obviously)

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 11:23 am  

bewareshadows wrote:

Lomax looks great, but this is his 2nd or 3rd year at first grade. Gaskell is in his first year at first grade. He's been on the winning side every time.

Not strictly true. He played in the halves twice last season and was on the losing side on at least one of those occasions.

We seam to forget that Leon was a seasoned SL player when he came

Well, some of us aren't forgetting that.

Re: Who should play where : Mon May 30, 2011 11:28 am  

Full strength (bearing in mind Gardner and Clough are long term and may not play again this season):

Wellens
Makinson / Meli
Shenton
Meli / Wheeler
Foster
Pryce
Lomax
Graham
Roby
Perry
Wilkin
Flannery
Puletua

Bench:
Soliola
Eastmond / Wheeler
LMS
Moore

Some difficult choices in a couple of positions for me. Meli is better at Centre than on the wing, but that would mean you'd have to persevere with a youngster in Makinson which is risky. It may be better to switch Wheeler to Centre and Meli to wing, even though Meli is inconsistent and dodgy on the wing.

Soliola on the bench for impact with Flannery and Wilkin starting in the back row. Royce likes Puletua at Loose when we have options so that's where I imagine he'll play. He's a better starter than bench player anyway. Moore, LMS and Eastmond on the bench if Wheeler is at Centre. I reckon that gives us a well balanced side and if we can get near that side, we'll be very strong. If Clough returns it gives us more options with the likes of Magennis, Dixon, Ashurst, Makinson in reserve for a bit of rotation.