How many backs are we going to sign ?

[Overseas dragon]

Jimmy has a valid point in that we have not replaced the players we lost with players of equal or higher ability.
The end game should be upgrading your side, well by all means let's see who can offer an argument that says we have actually done that in respect of recruitment.
By the way I'm not interested in the Hunt argument as that has been over 30 years in the making.

If we follow your logic our juniors are redundant to our requirements. ....

 

[Old Timer]

If we follow your logic our juniors are redundant to our requirements. ....

Not at all Lomax would be an upgrade for Aitken or Lafai but unfortunately they remain in our squad.
So the issue is we lose some quality players whilst retain plodders, we recruit plodders and our juniors languish as we buy “prospects” of a similar age from other clubs.
If we had a coach & a system then juniors would be our life blood.

 

[Saints Forever]

Jimmy has a valid point in that we have not replaced the players we lost with players of equal or higher ability.
The end game should be upgrading your side, well by all means let's see who can offer an argument that says we have actually done that in respect of recruitment.
By the way I'm not interested in the Hunt argument as that has been over 30 years in the making.

Am bored this arvo OT so I will have a crack:

Flo circa 2018 replacement - Anyone on 2 legs ), in all seriousness, Pearson has speed, excellent leap and can defend.

Nene McDonald -Lomax has all the skills, positional sense, step, excellent tackling technique, great leap, safe under the high ball.

Leeson - Korbin Sims, tearaway, aggressive prop, may have some problems with consistency, but with Tariq Sims and Graham to rev him up, I believe he will lift to the next level.

Has anyone else left the squad?

 

[BLM01]

Has anyone else left the squad?[/QUOTE]

Just plodders that OT talks about
But I agree re Lomax. In fact I think we are no weaker but nor no stronger than last year...but he should be in the centres as has a good step off both legs. (Gasnier like )
The aim of the game is to strengthen your squad from year to year until you win a premiership.
But if we can sign a decent back as 1 of the 2 spots remaining when the washing machine stops spinning then we would have improved on last year.
Pity the coaching ranks cant apply the same rationale.

 

[Old Timer]

Am bored this arvo OT so I will have a crack:

Flo circa 2018 replacement - Anyone on 2 legs ), in all seriousness, Pearson has speed, excellent leap and can defend.

Nene McDonald -Lomax has all the skills, positional sense, step, excellent tackling technique, great leap, safe under the high ball.

Leeson - Korbin Sims, tearaway, aggressive prop, may have some problems with consistency, but with Tariq Sims and Graham to rev him up, I believe he will lift to the next level.

Has anyone else left the squad?

Sorry for not responding quicker but have had a busy day.
For sure we held onto Flo for 2 long but the point is at his best he was an international winger and that was just a few seasons ago.
Dugan an international 3/4.
Packer an international forward.
LAM now an international.
Regardless of whether they still brought value to the side the fact is that during their time with us they performed at international level and were fixtures in the 1st grade side, so when they left we didn't sign like for like, nor did we offload them with the aim of freeing up cap space to sign a top quality player.
The replacements we purchased are questionable and yet to bring what the former players actually contributed.
In the meantime we also let go of Nene who finally paid us a dividend and keep signing "depth" players and hold onto the likes of Lafai, Aitken, Latimore, Allgood, Nicholls yet a plethora of high quality players have already changed camps while we were f**king around with Hayne.

 

[AyiosYiorgos]

Sorry the constant BS re Latimore, Allgood ,Nicholls is laughable and makes me wonder if some people have a very low IQ or a just stupid, its a 30 man squad, you can't have every player either on $500k+ or every DEPTH player with 100 first grade games experience, who runs like the wind, makes 50 tackles a game is built like Hercules, go through every club and check out their 30 man squads and see what type of depth they have, the Latimore's, Allgoods and Nicholls are in every team and some are slightly better and others are worse, the issue is that some of our top players have limitations, thats where we need to be looking at, the depth players are fine they do a job of keeping us within the salary cap, Millward f**ked up when he signed Aitken & Lafai to 3-4 year deals, not needed not required, thats the problem...

 

[Old Timer]

Sorry the constant BS re Latimore, Allgood ,Nicholls is laughable and makes me wonder if some people have a very low IQ or a just stupid, its a 30 man squad, you can't have every player either on $500k+ or every DEPTH player with 100 first grade games experience, who runs like the wind, makes 50 tackles a game is built like Hercules, go through every club and check out their 30 man squads and see what type of depth they have, the Latimore's, Allgoods and Nicholls are in every team and some are slightly better and others are worse, the issue is that some of our top players have limitations, thats where we need to be looking at, the depth players are fine they do a job of keeping us within the salary cap, Millward f**ked up when he signed Aitken & Lafai to 3-4 year deals, not needed not required, thats the problem...

Why did we resign Kerr then?
Surely he has to be ready for his turn to find out whether he can or can't make it?
Nicholls gets 1 game and that was it yet other opportunities did present when he could have been called up so why have him on the books as he will never play 1st grade surely your ISP half has to be your go to player?
Millward said Allgood would have made 1st grade last year except for injury so whose spot would that have been Lawrie's?
By all means if you are going to sign them then make sure they aren't in your top 30.
Our roster is ageing and we carry some pensioners as well and that does not fair well for our future.

 

[AyiosYiorgos]

Why did we resign Kerr then?
Surely he has to be ready for his turn to find out whether he can or can't make it?
Nicholls gets 1 game and that was it yet other opportunities did present when he could have been called up so why have him on the books as he will never play 1st grade surely your ISP half has to be your go to player?
Millward said Allgood would have made 1st grade last year except for injury so whose spot would that have been Lawrie's?
By all means if you are going to sign them then make sure they aren't in your top 30.
Our roster is ageing and we carry some pensioners as well and that does not fair well for our future.

All im saying is that ALL CLUBS in their 30 man squads have players of the caliber of Latimore, Allgood and Nicholls i dont get why people want to harp on them constantly when we need them to round off our 30 man squad, why dont you pick a Dragons 30 man squad and put salaries on them and lets see what you come up with, i bet your squad will have players like Latimore, Allgood and Nicholls in it just like the other 15 teams.....

 

[Old Timer]

All im saying is that ALL CLUBS in their 30 man squads have players of the caliber of Latimore, Allgood and Nicholls i dont get why people want to harp on them constantly when we need them to round off our 30 man squad, why dont you pick a Dragons 30 man squad and put salaries on them and lets see what you come up with, i bet your squad will have players like Latimore, Allgood and Nicholls in it just like the other 15 teams.....

Yes I very well might but they wouldn’t be 30 plus years of age.

 

[Dragonslayer]

Sorry the constant BS re Latimore, Allgood ,Nicholls is laughable and makes me wonder if some people have a very low IQ or a just stupid, its a 30 man squad, you can't have every player either on $500k+ or every DEPTH player with 100 first grade games experience, who runs like the wind, makes 50 tackles a game is built like Hercules, go through every club and check out their 30 man squads and see what type of depth they have, the Latimore's, Allgoods and Nicholls are in every team and some are slightly better and others are worse, the issue is that some of our top players have limitations, thats where we need to be looking at, the depth players are fine they do a job of keeping us within the salary cap, Millward f**ked up when he signed Aitken & Lafai to 3-4 year deals, not needed not required, thats the problem...

Yes indeed this is the problem.
At that time Aitken was/is considered a golden boy, playing City/Country, and playing test matches for Scotland. Yes, I said Scotland.
Also at that time Lafai was representing Samoa.
Both considered internationals and offered long term deals to secure them based on that status.
But there was no forward planning, especially regarding Aitken, he was assumed to progress naturally rather than by coaching.
Fast forward to now and Aitken in particular is now considered a road-block to one of our most promising juniors we have seen in several years.

The issue with our so called depth players, is that our coach doesn't consider them to be that. The continued use of NRL tried and tested players such as McCrone, Latimore, Farrell to name a few, reflects on the coaches mindset, not the players. The unwillingness to either blood youngsters and then play them on a consistent basis, baffles me no end. 10 minutes from the bench then hurled back to ISP is not blooding a player imo. There is also the constant cry, especially from supporters, about fatigue, so instead of giving a youngster good game time he'd rater run them into the ground.

Yes the Latimores, Allgoods and Nicholls all serve a purpose in any team, and as you say every team has them, however, instead of being used as a last resort, we use them as a first resort. No wonder they are so keen to re-sign.

 

[Saints Forever]

Sorry for not responding quicker but have had a busy day.
For sure we held onto Flo for 2 long but the point is at his best he was an international winger and that was just a few seasons ago.
Dugan an international 3/4.
Packer an international forward.
LAM now an international.
Regardless of whether they still brought value to the side the fact is that during their time with us they performed at international level and were fixtures in the 1st grade side, so when they left we didn't sign like for like, nor did we offload them with the aim of freeing up cap space to sign a top quality player.
The replacements we purchased are questionable and yet to bring what the former players actually contributed.
In the meantime we also let go of Nene who finally paid us a dividend and keep signing "depth" players and hold onto the likes of Lafai, Aitken, Latimore, Allgood, Nicholls yet a plethora of high quality players have already changed camps while we were f**king around with Hayne.

All g OT

Agree my examples don’t represent an upgrade.

Had our coaching staff been more progressive, Lomax, Lawrie and Leilua would have been further advanced today.

 

[dragonssamy61]

Not at all Lomax would be an upgrade for Aitken or Lafai but unfortunately they remain in our squad.
So the issue is we lose some quality players whilst retain plodders, we recruit plodders and our juniors languish as we buy “prospects” of a similar age from other clubs.
If we had a coach & a system then juniors would be our life blood.

Agree with what you say ot.
We need to be like a lot of clubs .
We need all our grades expecially jersy flegg and isp to be getting player ready for nrl.
That is the most important thing.
If you look at say the storm feeder clubs they are all trained to be ready for the next level.
If you do that well then you have no concerns about who is playing in the nrl team as they sould all be nrl ready.

 

[kit66]

Are we talking to Alex Johnston ? If not, why not. Let him know if things don't work out with Wayne then we have a No1 jersey with his name on it waiting. I'm a Dufty fan but a readymade upgrade shouldn't be overlooked.

 

[Como Connection]

Are we talking to Alex Johnston ? If not, why not. Let him know if things don't work out with Wayne then we have a No1 jersey with his name on it waiting. I'm a Dufty fan but a readymade upgrade shouldn't be overlooked.

They are talking to him with Jennings as the the backup.
CC

 

[dragonssamy61]

We have talked to AJ as cc said.
Let see what happens

 

[SBD82]

Are we talking to Alex Johnston ? If not, why not. Let him know if things don't work out with Wayne then we have a No1 jersey with his name on it waiting. I'm a Dufty fan but a readymade upgrade shouldn't be overlooked.

I disagree that he is necessarily an upgrade. He has played fullback for a couple of seasons now, and hasn't fixed the gaps in his game. I think he has reached his ceiling and it's not particularly high.

While dufty has flaws, he at least still has improvement left in his game.

 

[BLM01]

We have talked to AJ as cc said.
Let see what happens

Listening to Bennett yesterday it sounds like he is showing AJ some love. It is as simple as now..if Bennett wants them both him & Jennings and I cant see why not..they stay. We wont be signing AJ to play fullback, we need a winger come back up for Dufty. Why would he leave Souths even if he gets shunted to the wing?. It is all up to Inglis. If he wants the fullback gig..he's got it.
And another one bites the dust....do do do do
Jennings..not so sure

 

[Saint_JimmyG]

Listening to Bennett yesterday it sounds like he is showing AJ some love. It is as simple as now..if Bennett wants them both him & Jennings and I cant see why not..they stay. We wont be signing AJ to play fullback, we need a winger come back up for Dufty. Why would he leave Souths even if he gets shunted to the wing?. It is all up to Inglis. If he wants the fullback gig..he's got it.
And another one bites the dust....do do do do
Jennings..not so sure

Spot on.

Sorry folks, Saints’ 2019 “recruitment” was finalised a long time ago.

 

[dragonssamy61]

Listening to Bennett yesterday it sounds like he is showing AJ some love. It is as simple as now..if Bennett wants them both him & Jennings and I cant see why not..they stay. We wont be signing AJ to play fullback, we need a winger come back up for Dufty. Why would he leave Souths even if he gets shunted to the wing?. It is all up to Inglis. If he wants the fullback gig..he's got it.
And another one bites the dust....do do do do
Jennings..not so sure

I agree with Bennett there they may both stay.

 

[Old Timer]

All g OT

Agree my examples don’t represent an upgrade.

Had our coaching staff been more progressive, Lomax, Lawrie and Leilua would have been further advanced today.

Exactly correct and if we had of done that we would have known if they were going to make it or they need to be offloaded.
Instead we keep them in limbo land and have the Latimores of the world playing ahead of them.
Lots of other clubs with 20 year old forwards let alone backs playing regular 1st grade but we keep offering up "well he's only young" when they are 23 or 24 FMD it just shits me to tears.
The notion that Aitken is "only 24" whilst making excuses for his deficiencies shows how retrograde our thinking pattern is and combined with a mentality of having to have 30 year old "depth" players is just madness for mine.