Not sure, but if it happened in Wigan though it would cause hundreds of pounds worth of damage.

This is pretty much how I feel. Wigan really gave it to us in an impressive manner accross the park.
I don't buy the fact that Leeds and Warrington gave us the games against them and I don't buy the idea that we could have won 2 out of the last 3 games with Royce in charge.
Whilst last year we did improve as the season went on, its not like we beat Leeds and everything was rosey. Wigan beat us at the Stobart in a far more convincing manner than last friday and I specifically remember, as we were struggling to string a set of 5 tackles together, the away end chanting "You're so its unbelievable" and me thinking "Jeez, they're right".
As long as we stay in the play off places the board won't move against the temps. If we go lower than that that then maybe someone will come in to steady the ship.

I'm fairly confident that making the playoffs won't be a problem. I reckon there will come a moment when the inexperienced KC and Rush will run out of things in their locker, but hopefully that will be a bit further down the line. I guess the next two fixtures against Widnes will go someway as to telling us whether we can be confident of picking up points in the more modest fixtures.

I agree with this; however, they now have to deal with injuries to four key first team players (three, if you discount Wheeler as key on the basis of him still finding his position / struggling to stay fit), including our 1st choice half back.

Injuries were put forward, and largely accepted, as a reason for our substandard performances for most of last season. I hope the same latitude is given to the temp set up if we find life a little tough with Lomax, Wheeler, TP and Gardner out.

Whereas, I have difficulty ranking the performances against Hull and Bradford against those against Leeds and Warrington because Leeds and Warrington offered us little opposition - especially Leeds. They offered us no opposition! Warrington gifted us at least two tries thanks to their crazy offloads and when they did take the game to us in the second half, they made progress and we began to give away penalties, etc, just as we had been doing. Also, against Bradford we had neither Lomax nor Roby, thanks to injury, and as we all know, they are two of our best go-to men.


You didn't think Good Friday 2011 contained some exciting rugby league? Or the first play off against Wigan? There are others too but those two really stand out as fabulous performances by us, especially considering we had two raw halfbacks and more than a smattering of inexperienced players. Against Leeds this season we had no opposition and virtually a full team.

We produced a dire performance against Cas too under Rush & KC. As well as that somewhat half-hearted affair against Wigan. TP watching the ball have a rest on the floor in front of him was particularly special. Had Jammer been around he would have scooped it up and gone blazing down the pitch. But Jammer isn't around and so some of our less than enthusiastic senior players are exposed, and will be exposed again and again over the season.


Simmons stated quite clearly that he was trying to teach Gaskell and Foster to deal with adversity, that all young players have to go through that time. HOwever, he then had no choice but to play them because we lost others to injury (Makinson and Lomax for instance).


Ah. So Royce was criticised for not playing Dixon once (I think it was only once he did not play him) but you excuse Rush/KC for dropping him entirely, in spite of said form, because Flannery has apparently been contributing. He contributed some errors against Leeds and Wire. I didn't see him at Cas but give me Dixon any day of the week.


I would agree with you in terms of a win against Leeds and Warrington but then that is how I felt last season too, and we turned it around against Leeds. We will never know whether they would have turned it around under Royce because he was sacked, so the point is moot.

Mmm, I reckon Gaskell and Lance could go OK in the halves while Lomax recovers. Lee has had a little break which should hopefully mean he'll come back fresher. If we do that then Jones can continue in the centre which means we'll survive without Wheels.
TP will be a miss because of his X factor that is lacking elsewhere in our pack, but we've still got 4 good senior props, backed up by Magennis and three promising juniors, to take the battle to the opposition.
Gardner is actually one I'm really worried about, he's opitimised our fortune's turn around and I'm worried that, given what we've been through, our form is somewhat on a knife-edge and the positive mental attitude from guys like Ade is keeping us focussed.

The performances were poles apart, not just the impact of Roby and Lomax. Passion, flair, offloads, support play.

Clear for all to see


I didn't think either of those games, or any others under the Simmons / Potter regimes, produced the flair RL of the Leeds / Wire games. They simply did not coach that type of game.

I'm ignoring the 'no opposition' comments in respect of Leeds and Wire; I'd expect Wigan fans to come up with that type of nonsense as an attempt to detract from anything positive in relation to Saints.

We blew both of them off the park, and withstood their efforts (particularly in the case of Wire) to turn the game around. Top performances, both.


As you weren't at Castleford to comment on the actual standard of performance (and nor was I), it's best to look at the facts: in appalling conditions, and losing 3 key players mid-game through injury, and facing an onslaught on our line for 5 sets after losing said players and unable to make substitutions, we held on and we won.



Bad decision.



No, I was also critical of Rush and KC for omitting him. You see, I have no agenda with this. I wasn't shouting for Simmons to be sacked but understand the reasons for it and, most importantly, I'm prepared to support the current set up and see how the season pans out rather than tie my colours to a particular mast and ignore any evidence which does not support my stance.


We'll never know, but on the balance of probabilities, he couldn't have coached a win - and certainly not those standards of performance - given the state we were in and given that during his whole coaching career with Saints, they hadn't played such a brand of RL because it is not the brand he favours.

But, we can all give a reasoned opinion of whether it was likely. Most would say no.

We looked extremely 1 dimensional and predicatble against the likes of Hull and Bradford. We weren't dropping ball or missing tackles, but we couldn't test the defence at all. The forwards were gaining yards but, because there was no movement around them, the defence were numbering up on the ball carrier meaning no offloads and extremely slow play the balls. This meant that our already predictable wide moves were now completely inaffective.

Even though Wire lost their fixture to Leeds, they'd been showing some very good goal line defence and I said to one of my pals, maybe even Dux, that I could honestly see us not getting a single try against them the way things were going. You can say they gifted us possession too often, but they'd beaten Wigan and Hudd earlier in the season with a similar approach. In fact they were in the curious position of being top of the league AND being top of the errors made count



We got our season on track with that win against Leeds last year, but it was far from plain sailing after that (and lets not forget that Leeds were struggling themselves at that point). We got seriously whacked by Wigan at the Stobart, failed to beat Wire at all and had that dreadful experience in the semi final when we had about 30 minutes possesion on Wigan's line in the first half but didn't look like scoring. We may not have been convincing on Monday, but lets not forget we only won the same fixture last year thanks to a last minute try by everyone's favourite 3/4.

Looking back over Royce's tenure, although an affable chap, 2/3rds of the time we were below par, which is not good enough. He did save some grace by having his best run at the business end of the season.

Some have questioned the players and while they will always have some responsiblity, such a drastic underperformance can only be levelled at the coaching set up. In our squad we've got
Perry (former Australian International and NRL Grand Final Winner),
Laffranchi (former Australian International and NRL Grand Final Winner, who was told there was a job at Gold Coast waiting for him when he retired from playing as his professionalism is held in such high regard),
Tony Puletua (former Kiwi Captain and NRL grand final winner)
Chris Flannery (NRL Grand final winner)
Lance Hohaia (World Cup Winner)
Sia Soliola (Kiwi International)
If all these guys, who've acheived so much between them, are struggling for motivation at the same time, then the man management of the coaches can't exactly be fantastic, can it?

We also have players like Michael Shenton & Louis McCarthy-Scarsbrook who have become FORMER england internationals since they've joined us, despite being a decent age.

The up turn in our performances against Wire and Leeds could well have been nothing more than a change being as good as a rest. KC and Rush may not have any more in their locker than Royce, but imo we've got two more good performances (wins) than we would have got if he'd stayed and will be in no worse position looking forward.

Whatever good things Royce had, he'd seemed to have lost them and the performances against Bradford and Hull confirmed that for me. Some have asked that we consider that Roby was missing for those games, but when you've got all week to prepare, we should be able to come up with something to compensate (F*** me, Huddersfield have been beating teams with Lee Gilmour playing prop, for crying out loud and we managed to lose to Bradford who had about 12 players missing).

I understand the idea that things turned around last year and it could've happened again, but with the resources we have in terms of players, we shouldn't be having to turn things around once a season.

Good luck in the future Roycie, but I'm afraid you weren't up to the task.

At times Friday and then what I saw from yesterday some of the players looked clueless positional wise, which I find unbelievable, yesterday at one Saints play the ball both half backs were in the centre positions, so no one to control the game, perhaps Rush and Cunningham can get them hyped up but do they have all the attributes of a super league coach?

I praised out appointment Rob Powell young and someone within the club, but when we spend as we did this season to the cap it is clear he also does not have the attributes of a super league coach, is it good enough if we want our game to be taken serious, it is a big climb up from working with teenagers and more so with the cost of tickets these days.

If we look at the Easter Monday fixture last year. We played Castleford, at home on a dry track and only just won the game with a last minute try and goal.

So this year we where a vastly better team than Cas, but the lack of a goal kicker and 3 injuries, kept Cas in the Game.

Some people are really looking for anything to beat this new set up with.

I'm not going to argue further with you concerning our performances because they can be viewed from a couple of perspectives, each with supporting evidence and much speculation. To continue arguing is pointless as we will never agree.

However, I was disappointed with your following statement. I had you down as somebody who could think for themselves rather than simply spout the latest childish garbage, as you have done here:

Yes, I was - and still am - against the sacking of Royce Simmons but for a number of reasons. Here they are:

Firstly, yes, he was a decent bloke, etc, etc and I had no objections to him as a coach.

Secondly, while Laffranchi and Flanagan both openly said that one reason they came to Saints was because Royce Simmons was coach, clearly some senior players were not happy with him and my guess is that they didn't like being dropped. Certainly that is being borne out by some of their whinges, Josh Perry (of all people!) being the most recent. I don't like player power, especially when said group of players include lazy gits who frankly deserve to be dropped.

Thirdly, I thought his sacking was utterly unjust. The man had taken us through probably the most unstable period in our club's history, getting us to a Grand Final against all the odds, and was given hardly any time at all to enable his players to get through a sticky patch, a sticky patch that IMO was in part due to the absence of James Graham (and the subsequent exposure of said lazy gits) and in part other factors which are still around just taking into consideration the Wigan game (never mind the Cas game). I have a particular problem with injustice.

Fourthly, the chairman has put the club in a precarious position this season. The current set up threw the baby out with the bathwater: they ditched taking the two under any circumstances whatosever, they ditched more conservative football under any circumstances whatsoever, they ditched the back on the bench under any circumstances whatsoever, they ditched rotation (which Royce was using to try and keep his troops fit) under any circumstances whatsoever and they dropped two young players in great form (Makinson and Dixon) all to appease certain senior players (a decision I also think unjust, to Makinson and Dixon, as well as detrimental to the team's performance overall). So what happens? Rush says in his statement following the Wigan game that in retrospect they should have taken the two. In two games now a back on the bench would have been extremely handy and would have minimised disruption to our attack and defence - thinking especially of Wigan here.

So, to summarise, it is the approach our rookie coaches have taken in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, the injustice of it all (including to Makinson and Dixon), the risk our chairman has taken and the attitude of some (and only some) of our senior players which are the reasons behind my ongoing irritability.

But by doing so have won more games than Royce.