Saint Toppy

I used the number '14 team' because thats what IMG used in their launch statement regarding SL changes. They never said it was fixed at 14 in fact they hinted it could grow further if there were more A Grade license teams in the future. The longer term aim is to have a top flight consisting of only A grade license clubs and a 2nd tier of B grade license clubs. IMG believe that this is the best way the sport can market, promote and grow itself going forward and bring in the extra 3rd party revenues the sport needs if it is to continue to compete in the sporting market place. Going forward the division your in will be based on the grade of license you can achieve (and maintain). If Barrow can get themselves to an A grade license then great, they'll fully deserve their seat at the top table, if they can't then they'll have to stay as a Championship club and continue working to improve.

This is the whole point of IMG's role to help put things in place to grow the sport. Yes the days of 30-40K crowds are long gone but that certainly doesn't mean we should be settling for average pathetic crowds of 5-6K. What kind of an image does that portray to potential new sponsors or TV companies. It says were a small time sport and were happy to stay that way. The only way the sport will grow is to generate more income from 3rd parties, and in order to do that we need to make the sport and the clubs as attractive as possible as well as the product itself on the pitch (which most of us all agree is a pretty good product to start with). Its time to draw that line in the sand and say we can't continue with top flight clubs with poor stadia, poor crowds, living on the breadline year after year teetering on bankruptcy from one season to the next. Its time for clubs to grow & improve and if you want an A Grade license and a guaranteed spot in SL then level yourselves up to match what the top clubs are already managing to achieve. The sport needs to be aiming for a SL with 12-14 clubs on the same level as a Saints, Leeds & Wigan, not a league with a large number of clubs like Wakefield, Salford etc. As romantic a notion as it may be to the traditionalists to have a club like Barrow in SL, the reality is they're unlikely ever to be able to achieve a level to be able to match it with the top clubs. Barrow need a very wealthy owner to come in, build a new stadium and market the hell out of the club to massively increase crowds & sponsors. Personally I can't see that happening anytime soon.

Crowds of 5K isn't fine, its appalling for a top flight club. How can a club with crowds like that ever expect to compete with ones getting 12K-13K and all the extra income that comes with that ? Poor crowds is something that IMG seriously need to address if they want to grow the sport and make it more attractive to TV companies & sponsors. Crowds should be a licensing criteria and the cut-off for being able to achieve an A License should be set well above 5K. Whether we like it or not RL is a business and all this sentiment of give the little guy a go doesn't cut it when it comes to the commercial viability of the sport.

4K-5K is poor, very poor, no SL club should be happy with that and i'm sure IMG wouldn't. All SL clubs should have plans in place to be getting at least 8K-9K and preferable 10K average crowds.

Not sure they would given their relatively small population size of around 60 odd thousand. Yes its more than the population of Leigh but they can attract fans from a wider area around Greater Manchester. For Barrow there isn't that many other conurbations around them to try and attract fans from so they'll always be on the back foot in terms of getting good crowds. Given we're moving towards licencing this would probably see them struggle to convince IMG that they can grow to such an extent to get an A Grade licence.

Don't know if it clashed with the CC dates but even if its a 'free weekend' there's a good chance that Saints will be playing Huddersfield on that free weekend as the rearranged Round 1 fixture. So no Saints or Huddersfield players will be available for England or France mens teams.

He did declare for England, then when Wane didn't pick him in the England squad he quickly changed to Ireland

Saints won't be signing anyone on that OOC List, Wellens has pretty much said their recruitment is all but done now, however he also hinted that they aren't yet fully up to their cap limit. There's also be rumours for weeks now that Saints are trying to bring Thompson back from the NRL which would then see Bell leaving.

The SL Teams 1st team squads will change a fair bit over the next 3 years and there's probably players not getting regular 1st team action now who will be prominent for their clubs by the time the next WC comes around. As a couple of examples from my own club Saints, Jake Wingfield just started to establish himself as a 1st team regular this year and I think if he continues his progression, by 2025 he'll be in the starting 13 every week, he's only 21 now which is pretty young for a forward. I also think teenager George Delaney will be in the Saints starting 17 by 2025. At just 18 and having only made a couple of 1st team appearances he's already been picked for the England Knights and Wellens has just promoted him into the 1st team squad for 2023. I do think there's probably quite a few young players from all SL clubs who will really be pushing for England spots in 3 years time.

Radley's got no chance after such a poor performance on Saturday. Addo-Carr has put his poor club form behind him and really stepped up this WC, he's gotta start as favourite to win it.

Someone's got their knickers in a twist again !! Nobody was faultless in that game. While Farnworth did OK with his try's he was also brushed off in the tackle a few times - thats just a fact so I don't know why your getting so defensive over it. Farnworth was OK but he wasn't great, just like many of the England players. IMO the 3 players that posed the biggest threat all match were Williams, Makinson & Whithead, but all 3 of those also made mistakes

Not sure you could class Farnworth as having a good game, he got swatted off a few times in the tackle, particularly in the 1st half and never really troubled his opposition centre for most of the game

Welsby was left on the floor from the tackle and never got back into marker properly. In hindsight maybe he should have attempted the tackle and given away the penalty for being offside, but he didn't. This coupled with Watkins making a wrong decision in deciding to go early and run infield left a huge gap on the outside for Sao to stroll through. Both players made the wrong decision, but they weren't the only ones who did that all match. Some they got punished for by conceding points like the Sao try and others they managed to get away with. It was an all round poor team performance with some poor individual dislays

You could say the same about 14 of that 17 England players on Saturday. Aside from Williams, Makinson & Whitehead the rest were utter garbage. Some were even more garbage than others with McIlorum nothing more than a tiny speed bump who got run over all afternoon & Watkins playing at being the best statue ever seen on a rugby field

Actually there's 6 ! Welsby's usual position for Saints is FB and he has the No 1 shirt in the squad. He only moved into the halves when Dodd got injured. Lattrell Mitchell plays at 1 regularly for the Bunnies.

Typical Wire - They mass buy in props and release one of their youngsters with promise never having given him the chance to establish himself at the club.

He's not even fit enough to start pre-season training let alone be ready for the WCC. At least with Wellens now in charge he won't be an automatic pick for Saints just because he's Tongan. He'll be 2nd choice centre (behind Percival & Hurrell), 3rd choice FB (behind Welsby & Bennison), and 3rd choice winger (behind Makinson, Ritson & Bennison)

Saints have signed 19Yr old Wesley Bruines from South Sydney's Academy. Born in Dewsbury, Played for Yorkshire U17 and England Community Lions before spending a season at Wakefield and then moving to Aus to develop himself. Decided to come back to the UK and now Signed for Saints Any Wakey fans know much about him ?

Got sent my renewal info from Saints well over a month ago now and just renewed all our family tickets. Saints tend not to put out anything on ST number sales until the New Year

Presume you mean Les Quirk ? I remember when he left Saints thinking he must have been gutted that he fell just short of scoring 100 try's for the club

Not sure thats how Saints see it as him being a stop gap. Makinson is 31 now so trying to sign someone like Murphy will probably be their longer term strategy as his replacement. This deal is a great bit of business by Saints. It gives them the cover they need on the wings and the opportunity for Ritson to see if he can play at SL level. If it works out they have the option to sign him permanently, if it doesn't then he just goes back to Barrow.

Not a cat in hells chance of Leigh getting any of those Samoan or Tongan front rowers. The only one who was OOC was Taukeiaho and he's already signed for Catalans. BMM might come back to the UK as he's been pretty poor since returning to the NRL

England 42 - 12 Samoa Samoan forwards to run out of steam after 30mins and the Penrith show pony backs to just prance around again doing not much

Heard a few rumours today that Saints are looking into trying to release Hopoate and have spoken to Denny Solomona about a return to League !!!

Didn't even manage to make it back to Pre-season training before getting injured again