78 points conceded through 9 games!


Is this the best defence the league has seen? Saints have the second best D (on teams playing 9) and have conceded 79 more than us! I can't ever remember a team averaging under 10 a game for so long. Obviously this will mean little with no silverwear this year but it's a great foundation to launch an attack on the elusive double.

Wigan conceded 230 points in 25 games (222 in 23 regular season) in 1999. We'll have to go some to better that but, yes, we've been defending well so far.

It is much improve, but you also have to take into account we have played London,Wakey and Widnes at home out of that 9 games.played Catalans when they were awful and Bradford are an easy beat at the minute.All 5 teams mentioned posed little threat on the day.Huddersfield and Warrington have not started the season anywhere near the level they played last year in their attacking pomps. and we got them nice and early on, Wire showed today what they can do on a nice dry track.

Not trying to do down our efforts this season so far, because i do think we look far more solid than recent years, i just don't believe we have yet come accross a side that has been in top form.

More of the same whipping boy opposition for Leeds on Monday I suspect, particularly given the short turnaround as Salford haven't even played their first Easter fixture yet! Easter Monday SL fixtures are also notorious for being several gears undercooked in comparison to the previous round played 3 or 4 days earlier.

Leeds 48 Salford 6 is my prediction, even if they rest several players again. Awful stuff unworthy of being tagged under the banner of full time professional sport. Super it most definitely ain't. It's tragic what this sport has been reduced to.

Yawn.

Stop talking about it then.

Go follow another sport then, simple.

You mock those who attend games even though they enjoy it.....yet you post on here constantly even though you have massive dissain for the sport currently......you're the biggest fool and waster of your personal time on here.

"no really"

4 different posters quoting the same drivel from some sadsack WUM? I bet he's dragging himself round his bedsit in triumph!

Its undeniable though that the standard of opposition in SL this season has been diluted to the point where, with the exception of three or four teams you just simply expect to win and not concede many - how shocked would you all have been to lose at Odsal on Thursday, how shocked will you be to lose against Salford and why is your expectation to win well and concede few ?

Thats not how professional sport should be and it will not flourish while it is so.

Well I think the defence has improved massively, regardless of the opposition. If it is anything to do with the opposition, then why is every one else no where near to us in this department. And credit to Printer for trying to make the argument for quite a while that we were improving there.

Personally I think a big part is JJB missing also. We concede less penalties, and don't leave yawning gaps with his enforced absence.

William is correct, unlike yourself he is not putting his head in the sand and hiding behind "this is what I do on a Friday so who are you to criticise" or even worse "Go and follow another sport if you don't love what is on field"!!

The standards on the pitch have fallen significantly in the last few years - even Stevie Wonder can see that - that position is unsustainable. RL is, for most people, a distraction from the pressures of everyday life not the be all and end all of their existence?

Whilst ever that is the case the sport needing to offer value for money is paramount - £20 to watch a glorified training session in laughable facilities is not good value. The same can be said of the game at Wakefield and whilst the facilities are better at Leeds the quality on the field of the last two games have been similarly uncompetitive.

The sport is in a catch 22 position it needs money to attract better players but it needs better players to attract the money. One thing is certain unless things improve on the field the financial status of the game will continue to decline. The fact you cannot see that suggests to me you have head so far in the sand that you can do a headstand without the need for your hands as support.

I am concerned at the state of the game in this country. There are to many clubs who simply can't afford to play with the big boys. They survive on minute crowds by using sky money to prop them up. I'm not sure how the game gets out of the mire. Short term you'd improve SL by dropping to 10 teams, but yours send a few clubs to the wall. The lower SL clubs seem to rest on their laurels knowing they will get their sky handout so they don't need to sell the games to people. They are complacent and are the reason that the salary cap has stayed constant fire a decade. If The salary was working correctly then we'd have seen it increase year on year. As it is is stayed constant and has diluted the quality at the top and the leagues best players have moved elsewhere.

Love him or hate him the likes of Koukash coming in and wanting to change things a bit is what the game needs. He's at least trying to take a traditional also ran team and make them better.

The only thing I'd add to that is that the sport needs money to attract better players to clubs other than the usual suspects (ie the five teams who you can even now predict will be in the playoffs).

Its absolutely pointless to let the usual suspects sign the best players with this "wishlist" of more money, if this wishlist came true then you need central contracts and players allocated to the clubs who DON'T regularly make the playoffs, however that would need a massive change in the way that club owners and more especially supporters cling to their own club interests - very few people in and out of the game have the actual concept of professional rugby league at heart, I'm convinced that most of what is now down to a hardcore of club supporters are quite happy to see their own team walk all over opposition teams by 50 points every week - its extremely short sighted.

There is nothing short sighted about that at all. People pay good money and support THEIR team. There is nothing wrong with that or a desire to see THEIR team hammer another. It happens in the NRL also. It is incredibly arrogant and ignorant to critisize them for that.

We all want a competition that produces high quality intense games, but why should supporters put money into a club to be penalised for supporting a club that is run successfully? The problem is from the bottom, not from the top.