Interesting to see Leeds signing Ben Cross on a 2 year deal. Now its not that this is a bad signing but i associate Leeds with signing overseas players such as Lauititi and Eastwood, players who are in their pomp. I was dreading them signing a world class overseas player to replace Eastwood. They have also retained all their out of contract players.

Now the point is apart from Wigan (who have Melbourne connections) Saints seem to have done very well signing the calibre of player we have. A Aussie international, England International and a potential International are looking like great signings indeed with this climate.

I think the days of signing top overseas players have well and truely gone with the Pound sterling being much less. Looking around the league we have strengthend the most along with Wigan imo. I know of quite a few people including myself who have been dissapointed we handed Meli and Wellens 2 year deals but the fact is it doesent seem there is much available at all! Warrington only signing being a 33 year old Aussie (Prooving my point).

Only time will tell but i think Saints should be credited for signing the Calibre of players we have this off season.

I hear what you are saying Eammon, I really do. We've covered the main problem, getting some real front row support for the Big Red Machine.

BUT although that was an important issue there was another big problem, our lack of strike players.

If you type "Royce Simmons St Helens Coach 2011" in to that site that cannot be named you see an interveiw with him talking about his new appointment.

He talks about his preference of being on the training pitch improving skills instead of watching videos and drawing on a white board. Only half your skills are with the ball he states, but [ino-one attacks more than the Wests Tigers[/i.

Shenton's going to bring some pace in, and if we can keep wheeler fit in the other centre role, then a more expansive attacking game should see these guys getting the ball in a bit more space.

Back the the OP. We've made 3 decent signings - 2 more than in previous years. I'm happy, although just one more would've made me really happy.

Whats Les Quirk doing nowadays?

It's two England internationals isn't it? Hasn't LMS played for England (v Wales, 2008)?

Alot of the skills improvement is identified when watching videos so its a bit of a vicious circle and Royce knows that. Some players are visual learners, they need to see what they are doing wrong rather than just being told, so I think thats a bit of a red herring.

As for Wests attack, I would be saying the same if I had Benji Marshall pulling on a shirt for me. Its all very well encouraging the team to attack with flair, but if you dont have the players to carry out such a game plan then its like platting fog.

I hope he can get more out of our back line than we have seen over the last two years.

All fair points, but I still found it encouraging. Call me me an optimist......

That makes me think he isn't going to be a tactical genius.

Possibly, but our current tactics haven't been great. There's a couple of other clips of him talking and he certainly doesn't appear to be a slick, media savvy type a la Justin Morgs, more a guy that'll answer your questions alright, but would rather be getting on with his job. There's kind of an old school, rugby dad feel about him.

Whether he'll be cutting edge, I don't know, but hopefully he can bring a bit of expansion to our attacking game to help break down those tough defenses like Wigan and Hudds, along with the boost in team defence that we've come to expect from a coach fresh out the NRL (McGuire, Brown). Hopefully our conditioning will imrpove too, so our youngsters can stay on the pitch longer than 1 game at a time.

I he gives them a pre-season as grueling as Maguire gave the pies, I'll be happy.

Indeed.

If our squad is as fit as that next year, we'll be fighting for top spot