2014 The year of the Saints? : Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:54 pm  

As everybody knows and its been documented on here more times than I care to remember we have had a average season at best but I for one am very hopeful come 2014 that we can start to build a side that can challenge for all 3 trophies. I am very impressed with our business for next year with the purchases of Amor, Masoe, Walsh, Beaumont, Dawson. I truly believe under the guidance of Nathan Brown we are on the right road. People have there reservations about Brown but I believe his recruitment has been excellent and hopefully we have gone passed the route of signing overrated, past the sell by date Australians.

We have had a barren spell in terms of winning trophies and I personally put that down to losing some World Class players like Pryce, Long, Cunningham, Graham and Sculthorpe which was the core of our team for many years (with the exception of Pryce). Having to replace these players was nigh on impossible without paying huge transfer fees or breaking the Salary Cap. Now I do believe with Lomax, Walsh, Roby, Wilkin we have a core of a side that can really guide us to future trophies and create a new Saints legacy. Warrington are in a period where they are rebuilding after losing Morley, Carvell, Hodgson and Briers hasn't got long to go. Leeds im my personal opinion will come unstuck at the end of next season or certainly at the end of 2015 when Peacock, McGuire, Burrow, Leuluai, JJB, Bailey, Sinfield will all be retiring or thereabouts. Wigan have lost arguably the best player in Super League in Sam Tomkins and he will not be easy to replace, O'Loughlin has a couple of more seasons in him and a few more will be on the verge of retirement. At Saints there is only Wellens that I can think of who has 12 months left in him and possibly Manu and Laffranchi. If we keep our squad young, fresh and keep our recruitment standard high, we can amount a serious challenge.

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Fri Oct 11, 2013 8:59 pm  

Longy_7 wrote:

As everybody knows and its been documented on here more times than I care to remember we have had a average season at best but I for one am very hopeful come 2014 that we can start to build a side that can challenge for all 3 trophies. I am very impressed with our business for next year with the purchases of Amor, Masoe, Walsh, Beaumont, Dawson. I truly believe under the guidance of Nathan Brown we are on the right road. People have there reservations about Brown but I believe his recruitment has been excellent and hopefully we have gone passed the route of signing overrated, past the sell by date Australians.

We have had a barren spell in terms of winning trophies and I personally put that down to losing some World Class players like Pryce, Long, Cunningham, Graham and Sculthorpe which was the core of our team for many years (with the exception of Pryce). Having to replace these players was nigh on impossible without paying huge transfer fees or breaking the Salary Cap. Now I do believe with Lomax, Walsh, Roby, Wilkin we have a core of a side that can really guide us to future trophies and create a new Saints legacy. Warrington are in a period where they are rebuilding after losing Morley, Carvell, Hodgson and Briers hasn't got long to go. Leeds im my personal opinion will come unstuck at the end of next season or certainly at the end of 2015 when Peacock, McGuire, Burrow, Leuluai, JJB, Bailey, Sinfield will all be retiring or thereabouts. Wigan have lost arguably the best player in Super League in Sam Tomkins and he will not be easy to replace, O'Loughlin has a couple of more seasons in him and a few more will be on the verge of retirement. At Saints there is only Wellens that I can think of who has 12 months left in him and possibly Manu and Laffranchi. If we keep our squad young, fresh and keep our recruitment standard high, we can amount a serious challenge.

And who would those be, none of them are as old as the three Saints players you have mentioned. Also please consider that Wigan have won five of the last six Academy Grand Finals.

You do realise that 11 of the Grand Final team came through the Wigan academy system, and Wigan were the youngest team to ever win a Grand Final last week.

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Fri Oct 11, 2013 9:36 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

And who would those be, none of them are as old as the three Saints players you have mentioned. Also please consider that Wigan have won five of the last six Academy Grand Finals.

You do realise that 11 of the Grand Final team came through the Wigan academy system, and Wigan were the youngest team to ever win a Grand Final last week.

Bowen

But not to turn this into a Wigan vs saints thing as its great to have some optimism on this site for once!

I concur I'm feeling really quite happy with the squad we have built for next year, there are still rumours floating around so we may even see another new face yet. Regardless if we play like we did at the end of the year well turn a few heads, and well be certainly be up there! And it's gonna be our youngest squad for a long time too!

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Fri Oct 11, 2013 11:22 pm  

Longy_7 wrote:

As everybody knows and its been documented on here more times than I care to remember we have had a average season at best but I for one am very hopeful come 2014 that we can start to build a side that can challenge for all 3 trophies. I am very impressed with our business for next year with the purchases of Amor, Masoe, Walsh, Beaumont, Dawson. I truly believe under the guidance of Nathan Brown we are on the right road. People have there reservations about Brown but I believe his recruitment has been excellent and hopefully we have gone passed the route of signing overrated, past the sell by date Australians.

We have had a barren spell in terms of winning trophies and I personally put that down to losing some World Class players like Pryce, Long, Cunningham, Graham and Sculthorpe which was the core of our team for many years (with the exception of Pryce). Having to replace these players was nigh on impossible without paying huge transfer fees or breaking the Salary Cap. Now I do believe with Lomax, Walsh, Roby, Wilkin we have a core of a side that can really guide us to future trophies and create a new Saints legacy. Warrington are in a period where they are rebuilding after losing Morley, Carvell, Hodgson and Briers hasn't got long to go. Leeds im my personal opinion will come unstuck at the end of next season or certainly at the end of 2015 when Peacock, McGuire, Burrow, Leuluai, JJB, Bailey, Sinfield will all be retiring or thereabouts. Wigan have lost arguably the best player in Super League in Sam Tomkins and he will not be easy to replace, O'Loughlin has a couple of more seasons in him and a few more will be on the verge of retirement. At Saints there is only Wellens that I can think of who has 12 months left in him and possibly Manu and Laffranchi. If we keep our squad young, fresh and keep our recruitment standard high, we can amount a serious challenge.

This is the kind of lunacy that makes me such an important feature of this forum. Without me, you lot would all get so high you'd end up having a breakdown.

Amor, Walsh and Masoe are all good signings on the face of it, but by no means certs. The other two appear to be on par with the likes of Heath Cruikshank and Liam Felton as signings.

You are suggesting a team with only ONE halfback in it's squad is going to win something? Looking at the squad, it's going to take at least another season for us to return to competing for trophies. We NEED another halfback and by the looks of it we're going to be enduring another season having to field 16 players, as Wello is staying.

I'm not convinced our pack is up to it either. Masoe is unproven, and if he turns out to be a Feka-esque joke of a forward, I don't see who is going to be making the hard yards for us. Walmsley can't do it on his own.

And what if Walsh gets injured? We'll be just as bad this season if that happens.

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Sat Oct 12, 2013 7:46 am  

Saddened! wrote:

This is the kind of lunacy that makes me such an important feature of this forum. Without me, you lot would all get so high you'd end up having a breakdown.

Amor, Walsh and Masoe are all good signings on the face of it, but by no means certs. The other two appear to be on par with the likes of Heath Cruikshank and Liam Felton as signings.

You are suggesting a team with only ONE halfback in it's squad is going to win something? Looking at the squad, it's going to take at least another season for us to return to competing for trophies. We NEED another halfback and by the looks of it we're going to be enduring another season having to field 16 players, as Wello is staying.

I'm not convinced our pack is up to it either. Masoe is unproven, and if he turns out to be a Feka-esque joke of a forward, I don't see who is going to be making the hard yards for us. Walmsley can't do it on his own.

And what if Walsh gets injured? We'll be just as bad this season if that happens.

Sadly what you say is true, particularly about Walsh. We are pinning an awful lot on him for next season, if he picks up a serious injury then we really are back to square one. However, if he stays fit, and if the likes of masoe and amor live up to their promise, then we really do have grounds for optimism, especially as turner and manu were starting to come good in the second half of this season. I wouldn't exactly expect a year of the wolf, but I do think we will continue to build on the good work towards the back end of this year

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Sat Oct 12, 2013 8:36 am  

I can,t see us being as bad next season as the first half of this season gone. It took about 20 games before the swapping and changing stopped through experimentation or injury.
We,ve got an off season now for Walsh to teach Lance something about half back play. Amor is a great acquistion and Masoe giving us true impact from the bench.
Injuries will damage any team if they are all your pivotal players as in the saints case.
Think I am a little bit more optomistic with our new team for next season especially as our debut players of Manu,Turner, Swift and Walmsley having a decent season under there belt.

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Sat Oct 12, 2013 8:46 am  

SomersetSaint wrote:

Sadly what you say is true, particularly about Walsh. We are pinning an awful lot on him for next season, if he picks up a serious injury then we really are back to square one. However, if he stays fit, and if the likes of masoe and amor live up to their promise, then we really do have grounds for optimism, especially as turner and manu were starting to come good in the second half of this season. I wouldn't exactly expect a year of the wolf, but I do think we will continue to build on the good work towards the back end of this year

I've made the point a few times on this forum that Walsh is a player that doesn't like pressure and he openly admits this. This could be a major problem as Walsh looks to have the weight of our season on his shoulders!

We are going to expect Walsh to provide organisation, kicking game, lead us around the pitch,
Kick goals etc with no help of another halfback.

If he gets injured we are back to square one, hence the reason I've been banging on about the need of a stand off since we signed Walsh.

I must admit, I'm pretty happy with our business for 2014. Amor and maose should provide us with the go forward we lacked last year alongside LMS and Walmsley. Walsh is the halfback we've been in dire need of.

I'm much more optimistic for next season than I've been in a while but that's providing these new signings work out, the is a risk with all new signings. IMO we are a stand off and centre away from a super league winning team.

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:35 am  

St pete wrote:

I've made the point a few times on this forum that Walsh is a player that doesn't like pressure and he openly admits this. This could be a major problem as Walsh looks to have the weight of our season on his shoulders!

We are going to expect Walsh to provide organisation, kicking game, lead us around the pitch,
Kick goals etc with no help of another halfback.

I,m pretty confident that the above will be shared by Wilkin, Walsh and Lance. This season has been the making of Wilkin as a pivotal player which he can now do and operate from no 13 spot, the back end of the season has seen Lance more effective taking on the line with a bit more space which he can progress into next season. That leaves Walsh biggest influence being his strength of a kicking game which we never really had since Bobby Goulding left.

Also losing Meli means we won,t see the barging tackle busts, instead we might see more of an expansive game from Percival and Swift, both of them have good footwork very elusive and quick off the mark, if we can send the ball out wide quickly our attacking structure will be very similar to Wigan and Warrington by breaking out from deep.

Next season we seem to better covered for injuries with the exception of the half backs, short term injuries we should be OK by using as already mentioned Wilkin/Charnock/Wheeler.................but I just have the feeling like every other superleague club there will be some competition for a proven half back from the World Cup, the most sought after position in Superleague.

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Sat Oct 12, 2013 10:41 am  

Just for a second lets play out the scenario, and Walsh gets injured before a balls touched in anger.

We still have a stronger squad than last year, we hopefully won't have as many disruptive injuries early in the year (Roby and j lo only managed 33 games between them last year and we did alright during the backend when they both were playing) and, even if we do our youngsters have been blooded this year so should be more effective, and bringing in the likes of Dawson and Beaumont means we have a bigger squad this year.

Comparing in and out like for like is difficult but out of the ones going only Meli has really been in form last season - and many a word has been posted here and elsewhere about him in a negative way - he makes a very good centre, but jones/Percival has been judged to be ready (alternately a new centre as we're supposedly still looking with Percival becoming blooded more) and jones will put the work in to relieve the load on the forwards like Meli did - he may not be as effective at it, but he be better in other areas - our back line has been improved 10 fold on what it was as we are much more exciting going to the wings these days.

In the forwards we have Masoe, Amor and Beaumont in with puletua, perry (and potentially Laffranchi) out - I'm not sure how anyone can argue this isn't an improvement - Masoe may not work, and may become like feka (he may of course turn out like a young puletua but let's ignore that) but that still gonna have more impact than perry! Would people rather we had signed feka as hull? I really feel as though puletua should go this season as it seemed a season too far, was caught out flat footed occasionally and doesn't find the miracle ball as he used to - he got held up against Leeds in the last game and I'm convinced he'd of got it down 2 years ago - Amor who replaced him has the stats to impress and should go well, and well many on here don't want Laffranchi to resign so I shouldn't have to go through him

Turner turned out a lot better than I was expecting and I really have enjoyed watching him last year and hope he kicks on and could be challenging for internationals next year and so should j lo.

Ben Roberts agent is apparently touting him around the super league clubs so if we are that desperate for a 6 I'm sure there'll be talks, if you can get over his off field indiscretions and we have space on the cap (if he's not asking for silly money)

I feel like we have another signing in us but who and when I don't know

Re: 2014 The year of the Saints? : Sat Oct 12, 2013 11:06 am  

Let us be honest the standard of the competition is not that high. We are in the mix with five others who could potentially get to the cup final and then win it. Those same teams and I have to include Hull could get through a play off system in theory. We have I feel recruited well on the face of it, and added to world class talent in Robes and Lomax, and decent club players like Wilkin Jones and Turner must have a chance of a far more consistent season.