But what if the best players turned out to be Gaskell and Lomax? I'm not saying they will be, but what if they are? Here's a long shot - but hey, just go with it - what if Pryce is out for the season, it's Lomaskell or bust, we get to the Grand Final and win it with those two as our halfbacks?



And then Leon finally gets better and Hohaia turns up.



Who do you play then?

All hypothetical.Stupid question.Briers played out of his skin in a cup semi for us and we dropped him and brought back Goulding.Good call?

I,m sure Royce,s plans for the future will be Johnny @ 7 and Lance @ 6 with young Gaskell backing up in the halves for me he dosn,t get a start. For the present Lomax and Pryce in offense and defence are the strongest pairing, both can break the defensive line, again Gaskell backing up for either position.

I,ve not seen Josh Jones play but I assume he will be challenging Lee Gaskell in the next couple of seasons.

when lomax and gaskell have played in the half this year we aint lost a game so be intresting to see what royce does when wheeler and leon are back i would play pryce in the centre and put meli on the wing

Your first sentence was accurate; your second, ignorant.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves, I think a few people are elevating Leons skills. He was sometimes very very good, but sometimes pretty average. When times got tough and the pack got dominated, he had (has) a tendacy to go missing. An excellent halfback grabs a game by the scruff of the neck and wins it. IMO Leon is a good but not great half back, proved by the way he has never had a sniff at 6 for England

If I had a choice of keeping Gaskell or Wheeler, I'd pick Gaskell any time. And that is based on what I have seen of both players over the last four or more years.



If you don't want Gaskell, send him to Wigan, we'll certainly take him.

I just don't think he will, you're all welcome to your opinion if you think he will be and I'll be humble if he turns out to be as good or better.



Yes he's only made 9 appearances for the first team. But Jonny's played less games than that at HB and its obvious he is going to be a star. I don't think Gaskell will be a bad player at all, he's certainly got a career in the game, but I think if he was going to be a superstar we would have seen something to suggest that by now. All I've seen is a good solid player.



I see your point about him only playing 9 games and if somebody else had said it I probably would of been inclined to say something similar, but I just don't see him being as good as Leon.

Its a little pet hate of mine with some people on here who bang on about how good young players are when they ain't played even 10 games at super league. Youth development is great but for every good player you get I bet you get five bad ones.



I see people write on here, we don't need to replace wello as we've got Ashe, we don't need to replace flannery we've got Dixon and so on but that's taking a huge risk. Not every player can be replaced by young kids as half won't be good enough.



We had Steve Tyrer as the next Jamie Lyon and where's he now?



I just think people get to carried away with the youth development, it's a great thing but it dont always work and not every player can be replaced with youth.

Agreed, but since Gaskell has just signed a three year deal with Saints, those who are better placed to know clearly see some potential in him. Until that potential has been given a decent amount of time to develop - at least the same amount of time that Lomax has had, for instance, would be a start - I think people making negative judgments about whether that same player is going to be as good as one who has been around for over ten years is not only unfair but ridiculous.

I'm not knocking Gaskell and I like what I've seen of him, I liked him the first time I saw him because he takes the line on well for such a young kid but IMO Pryce has the class and experience and should play providing he's up to it after his injuries.



My new pet hate is the people writing we don't need to replace Gardner for next year because weve got makinson and he's fast





Makinson has played about 3 games, we don't know what he's like under the high ball, kicks to ground of if he can tackle but because he showed some pace in two games we've got him nailed on as future winger!