We started off fairly flat in 2006 IIRC and some people were still critical of us halfway through that season for being poor in atack because we weren't racking up length of the field tries every week. Strangely that side turned out to the best to ever grace the British game in the professional era.

In my opinion one of the main reasons we have been so succesful since the inception of super league has been our ability to both retain key members of our squad for very long periods and to succesfully replace them when needed.



The ability to retain key players like Newlove, Joynt, Martyn, Long, Scully, Wellens and KC and even Lee Gilmour, has undoubtably meant we have been fortunate to maintain a consistant core and this consistancy is as big a factor as any other in any successful team as Leeds will fans will surely testify to.



However it is important to remember that many of these players were replacements for equally as important key players before them and that others have already been replaced successfully.



The hard work and sensible, well considered thoughts and actions of people behind the scenes at Saints saw Sean Long succeed Bobby Goulding at scrum half and Paul Wellens ultimately succeed Steve Prescott at full back, Willie Talau succeed Newlove in one centre role and Kevin Iro replaced by Martin Gleeson, Jamie Lyon and then Matt Gidley as the other and has also seen Leon Pryce succesfully follow Jason Hooper as Tommy Martyn's replacement at stand off.



I've a strong belief that those same people at the club who have brought through and bought players like Roby, Graham, Lyon and Gidley over the past few years will succesfully see us through a period of a year or two that will see us lose KC and Long as they did in 2003 and 2004 when we lost Newlove, Martyn and then Joynt but managed to maintain the pursuit for silverwear.



The big difference this season being how much faith the coaching staff are willing to put in such a large number of academy products. Yes this will be partially due to the financial aspect but i'm sure equally as much due to having one eye on the future rule changes that come with the franchise system and also due to the quality and performance and potential of these players.

Bookmarked.

Make sure you roll it out when we hammer you the first time we play

That could come back on him!

Ahhhh Lent!

I seem to have said this before but here goes ..... Saints are in a transitional phase, one that will see a lot of quality players go, to be replaced by a younger crop, of that I am sure ... as for the coach I feel that Mick Potter is on a hiding to nothing, if we are a success this season he will have done it on the back of Ando's team.... if he fails then it will because we are in transit to a greater success either the way a 2 year contract doesnt leave a lot of room for error and to that end I suspect we will not be as successful as previous seasons. Hopefully I will be proved wrong and therefore will be worthy of the brickbats that will follow ....but

Excellent post, get your case of beer for that one!!!!!

Fine post and one that should be rolled out to every opposition fan who continuously refer to our demise.

Good Friday in 2003 when Wigan came back from something like 22-4 down at half time to beat us. I think it was in the same season at KR when we went into a quick 20-0 lead and ended up losing 36-34 or something like that. Think Luke Robinson got a hat trick that day

Oh dear.