SAINTS trio of NRL recruits bring experience, quality and variety - but more importantly all three have immediately bought into the ethos of the back-to-back Super League champions.

That respect for the club and their new team-mates was there even before Sione Mata'utia, Joel Thompson and Agnatius Paasi boarded the plane.

And coach Kristian Woolf explained that this respect has been heavily in evidence since all three reported to training, running in tandem with the big qualities they themselves bring to the table.

Woolf said: "When you get new players coming in what you want them to do is show that the team really means something to them, to make a go of it, be a part of that continued success and earn the respect of their fellow team mates.

"All those guys have done that really well and that is the biggest compliment I can give them.

"They are all experienced and have a right to have confidence in their own ability because they have been such good players in the NRL.

"But at the same time, throughout all the discussions I have had with them, they were very interested in what the team was doing and taking note of that and extremely impressed with the players that are here.

"I spoke to them all on a regular basis through the back end of the year and every time they expressed how impressed they were with what the team was doing and how they were playing.

"And they have certainly done the same since being here about the quality of the player here.

"They have all fitted in seamlessly."

Woolf knows exactly the capabilities of the players coming in - and the challenge for the coaching staff is to get them up to their optimum playing level.

And they have made a good start by arriving at the weights that the staff asked them to come in at, and obviously have done a lot of work in the off-season before departed.

"They all bring a lot of experience," Woolf said.

"Joel Thompson has played almost 250 NRL games across 10 years and has been with a lot of clubs – some successful and some not so successful either. He has seen it from both ends.

"Sione Mata’utia has only been at the one club, but for a young man he has played almost 130 NRL games.

"He is a very talented player and we are getting him in his prime with some improvement left in him.

"That is exciting in itself.

"Meanwhile Agnatius is in his prime as a front rower and is someone who was the cornerstone of the Warriors pack in 2018-19 and that is the sort of form we intend on getting him to again.

"That is the fitness he has come in at and so we are very confident we are going to do that."

And as an added bonus - they bring variety, as all three forwards come with contrasting styles.

"They all offer something a little bit different – and that is the beauty of them as players," Woolf said. "They are all very different and that gives us a bit of diversity in the team with regards to how we can play.

"They will all offer us something on the field when we get to that as well.

"I have been really impressed."