IMO I don't think Saints have filled the gap left by Graham.

Simmons hasn't changed the structure of the team, which suugets he is probably hoping one of the props will fill Graham's boots, but that doesn't appear to have happened yet.

Unfortunately Graham is pretty much irreplaceable. It seems the idea was that with Laffranchi and Flanagan coming into the side, plus a returning Josh Perry, who is effectively a new signing, Jammer's work rate could be spread more thinly throughout the forwards. It hasn't worked so far, perhaps partly because Perry's match fitness isn't up to scratch yet, but it's early days yet.

It hasn't worked because someone whoever is in charge of recruitment at the club is stupid. Laffranchi is a former test international back row forward. He's a tackler more than a metre maker and will not top a 100m average for the season. He isn't big enough or hard working enough to do the job he's being asked to do.

Why we didn't just sign one or two of the 20 or so prop forwards that moved clubs last season rather than two average backrowers is beyond me.

Well, if he continues to tackle as often as he is doing at present then he should certainly be able to mitigate Jammer's loss in defence. LMS should be stepping up in terms of metres made but he isn't. He's been useless so far this season.

I watched the Catalan game again and the turning point was when Soliola went off for Flannery and Cats brought on Casty and Fakir.

We look small and weak in the middle. The key to fixing this is to stop treating Clough and/or Puletua and/or Laffranchi as props. We need at least one of these guys to be playing as a loose forward. We looked a different team last year when Clough was starting at 13. The problem is we have very little real props (Perry and LMS) and lots of lean second rowers (Wilkin, Soliola, Flannery, Flannigan, Dixon, Maggenis, Hale).

We look like the Saints team from the late Ian Millward era, when we had players like Stankavitch and Darren Smith as starting props.

Props may not fit in with the Saints style of play but they are needed in every team. With Graham we got away with having a number of ineffective props like Hargreaves and, in has last year, Fozzard. Now we don’t have Jammer we need to have a real pack not just Roby and 5 second rowers.

LMS was okay at the weekend. Not amazing, but much improved.

Im like-in your -10 handicap against hull we played them sunday they looked rubbish! What do you think worth 50 quid???

I'd put a couple of hundred on it.

But that says it all.

I though Flanagahan and La Frank, took the ball forwards with some real agression. But that again is an issue, each week week we can say 50% of the pack put in a real stint, but we are yet to have a week were all 6 or 9 of the pack turn up together. Once we start doing that we'll look less like a team with a weak pack.

True, but I thought collectively the pack was much better on Sunday. If we can add a fired up Perry to that pack (admittedly a big 'if') then I think we won't look too shabby up front at all.