Originally Posted by
DD
Certainly out of the three out of contract players, Fages is the expendable one. Regan Grace is one of the top two or three most exciting wingers in the country and Bentley has become indispensable.
If there is one chink in the armour of this Saints side it is that neither of our half backs are actually orthodox half backs. Neither have any last set plays and neither takes charge of the game. They are not leaders, organisers or generals. Lomax is a fine player, who I think is better at full back, and he'd also be a better half back with a general alongside him. If Coote does go, then I would prefer to see Lomax back at No.1 and us look to buy a half, and not a full back, where I feel we have both Welsby and Makinson who can fill in admirably.
Theo is another of those players who is a good lad, a proper tryer who can defend and generally work his bollocks off, but he lacks that Ingredient X that you need from a scrum half. A 7 needs more to his game than tackling and an aimless punt on the last.
If we could find ourselves a decent 7, somebody like Adam Sezer perhaps, somebody who could provide the missing link between the forwards and the backs, then we'd be pretty much untouchable. Our pack and our back line are miles ahead of anybody in this league, but we have Jonny Lomax playing in his second best role to fill a gap and we have a dependable but somewhat average player alongside him. That lack of natural half back nous could well be why Woolf favours the game plan that he does. He's simply playing to our strengths.
We all know we are going to finish in the top four, so the coach needs to start to use some of the games against lesser opposition now to try something different. This means giving Lewis Dodd game time and trying Welsby at stand off a little more, because we are not going to know if they are going to be good enough without first team game time. The time is coming when Welsby needs to find a home. In his early days, he looked like a half back, but he was written off after a couple of bad games. I think that was harsh, but we'll never know unless he's given a decent chance to prove it.