Theo Fages : Thu Sep 24, 2015 11:39 am
So, it's official and Theo has signed a four-year-contract with Saints. Since Marwan Koukash has taken over at Salford, we've signed Tim Smith and lost Marc Sneyd. During this time, Tim Smith flopped and left to join Wakefield, he has since been involved in a drink-driving offence and has generally failed to impress since arriving back at Belle Vue. In contrast, Marc Sneyd has reached the play-offs twice with Cas and Hull and has played in a Challenge Cup final.
We've also signed Rangi Chase and Michael Dobson, but just lost Theo Fages. Despite moments of absolute individual brilliance from Rangi Chase, he has failed to consistently influence games and as a result our league position hasn't improved (much) since he joined. Michael Dobson is another who has had an indifferent first season with Salford, he suffered a knee injury (something he was known for before joining Salford) which forced him out for around 8 weeks and whilst he has been on the pitch his contribution hasn't been anything special. Again, similarly to Rangi we've seen glimpses of what he is capable of ie controlling games, kicking teams around the park and generally being a leader but not a consistent basis. Theo on the other hand has attracted interest from the current Super League champions, who have just signed him up on a four-year-contract with the seemingly likely scenario that he will be playing first team RL next season alongside Luke Walsh in the halves.
I wonder just where Salford would be right now, had we kept hold of Marc Sneyd and Theo Fages and not made any of the above signings. Would the combination of both those young, talented players have improved our league positioning in 2014 and 2015? I guess it's difficult to say, but judging by the way Niall Evalds has performed following Kevin Lockes arrival/departure I would hedge my bets that we certainly wouldn't have done any worse and in the process Marwan would have saved thousands of pounds and the club wouldn't have its name dragged through the press due to club imposed suspensions and the like.
We're also strongly linked with signing Gareth O'Brien. Whilst I like O'Brien as a player, he is certainly no better than either Sneyd or Fages. It just beggars belief.
Marwan said when he joined, the days of our youngsters leaving to sign for other clubs is a thing of the past. Lets hope we signed Niall Evalds up to a lengthy contract ASAP and that we've learnt our lesson when it comes to signing overseas players when we've got more than adequate youth at our disposal.