Wigan got beat by 20 last year, this year Saints 40. When we play the very best NRL teams we are found wanting.

We didn't do too badly against the great melbourne and Manly sides, a win and a reasonably close loss to both.

This Souths side are probably better than both of them though imo.Monster pack, smart halves and devastating three quarters.Glenn Stewart is a great replacement for Sam.

Good player, but I'll cut him a bit of slack. He's doing it tough at the moment, a lot on his mind.

Did he kill Lucy Beale???

The final score of the loss to Manly looked close (28-20) but we were 26-4 with 15 mins to go and then scored with the last play to get it up to 20. We were never really in that game.

We also beat Manly in 2012......in 2009 whilst they did win more comfortably than the final score suggested it was nowhere near the one sided ease that Souths had tonight.

Agree about the Manly game, although it also showed Leeds refused to accept a blow out in the scoreline. Souths are a very dificult side to contain, and are capable of blowing teams away. The fact that they could do that to one of the top SL sides when they are a few weeks off being fully match fit tells its own tale about the gap between SL and the NRL.

no you're right, 28-14 would have been about a fair reflection of that game and my point was we would have got as close in standard as we were that night about a couple of tries better than us.

We would have definitely given them a game. Saints we've pathetic last night. I expected nothing less though. How didn't Luke get MOM? He was ace.

Those comparing the weekends games to WCC games we had even 3 years ago are comparing apples and oranges to a certain extent. The gulf in the salary cap between the two competitions means that wheras a few years ago the nrl top sides could pick the best of the aus and new zealand talent, and a good share of the islanders too, it can now also add in pretty much all the top islanders talent, and a significant chunk of the top UK talent too.

When I saw that Wire hs been beaten by st george, I feared it would be a tough weekend for SL

I thought Wilkin's comment after the game, something along the lines of the weekend being a wake-up call showing that teams can't afford to make errors at the highest level, was a revealing one.

What a thick fu(ker. How many grand finals, internationals and WCCs does he need to lose badly in for the penny to drop? I have grave doubts that we would have come close to winning last night but at least our players are, and have been, fully aware of the importance of playing error-free rugby in those type of games.

The souths team by and large are superior player wise than saints, what enhances the team is top class coaching .
They did everything correct both in attack and defence. I liked the cross kick ploy which you don't see much of in our game.
A telling moment of the weekends games was in the Wigan match in extra time. Was the smith attempt at a drop goal from way out. The better option was to kick into the corner and force Brisbane to run out from virtually there own line. He just panicked .
Looking forward to this weeks giants game, whilst its still early season this match may indicate if we can make this season a success .

I don't think we'd have beaten Souths, but Souths murdered Saints in their 3/4s and we have personnel there. Their last-ditch defence was great but you'd back Watkins with his extra strength to score at least one of the Percival no-tries and Hall to get over where Swift was barged into touch. That said, Souths are that good they'd have found another way to batter us, probably up the middle.

So the question is, how do English players get to the standards that Souths set last night?

Too many seem to reach a level where they are comfortable in just getting first team rugby and have no desire to push on and improve their games even further. The accuracy with which every single player in that Souths team was able to pass the ball, at pace and under pressure, isn't a talent you're born with. It takes endless hours on the training field to develop and refine.

We can bleat all we like in the UK about conditions and weather and not being the national sport that gets first pick of the talented athletes, but in the end these are all too often lazy excuses for not being prepared to put the work in to test ourselves. Any British player worth their salt should be biting off the hand of any NRL club that comes calling. Otherwise they're sitting in their comfort zone and being part of the problem, not the solution.

I agree with this.
How anonymous was Travis Burns?
The Saints pack tried hard but against a pack as big if not bigger & certainly stronger they struggled.
Again the Souths kicking game was exemplary, something that Phil Clarke for once correctly highlighted in his commentary.
When we let in 30 vs HKR that was largely down to their very recent Aussie imports Kelly & Campese. SL has to improve the home-grown talent in this area of the game.