Agree that the appalling recruitment of recent years is coming home to roost but Brown is making things even worse with his selection of players out of position.

I think it goes beyond Brown, the whole club structure is very fragmented. We look so unfit physically and mentally, the game plan and tactics is Browns responsibility. I,ve yet to see our team play for 80 mins this season or play with intensity that is the players responsibilty.
This team is now becoming one of the worse St Helens sides for the past 50 years.

But you'd think that being aware of our halfback situation we would at least have some set moves? We don't appear to have any.

O'Brien hasn't had time to learn the moves and implement them. I know that because I've played in the halves myself, 3 days isn't long enough.

If we see similar structure (or lack of) next week, I'll be worried then.

Agreed



No.

We need to stop making f*&%ing excuses for Brown. There were a lot of very good, very experienced individual players on that pitch tonight. A lot of internationals. A lot of NRL experience. Players who have won a lot of silverware between them. Yet there is a collective loss of form which can only be explained through poor coaching. Individuals lose form occasionally, but when a whole team does, you have to look at the coach.

Soliola, Puletua, Roby, Walmsley, Manu, Turner, Meli, Wilkin, Wellens, LMS. These are not bad players, yet none of them are even approaching form. Laffranchi's form has collapsed under Brown, while I'm excluding Perry as a lost cause whose performance can't be laid at Brown's door. Even if you subscribed to the view that Hohaia has lost all ability since he won the world cup with NZ, and Wellens is past it, then that still leaves a bunch of players who would slot pretty quickly into most sides in SL.

More to the point, even a team of journeymen can be coached to move up quickly in the defensive line, work from marker and show some f#*^ing aggression. Yet our lot play like wet tea-towels for 70 minutes of every game, looking as if they're scared of tackling and already beaten before they leave the dressing room. That's the coaching. I managed to coach my schoolgirls' team to do some attacking moves, for Christ's sake, yet tonight we had players just standing and passing to whoever was nearest, ten metres out from the opponents' line - they were clueless. That's the coaching.

There were parts of that performance which were nothing short of disgraceful. Injuries didn't leave us incapable of finding an overlap. Our injured players didn't fail to move up as a line, or drift effectively to cover moves out wide. Our medical room didn't look like it had never seena ball before whenever an attacking opportunity presented itself.

The blokes out there are highly-skilled professionals who could, and should, be doing a much better job than they are. They are collectively failing, and failing badly. The win against Leeds - which had more to do with their terrible play after hitting a big early lead than anything we did - disguised the fact that Saints have utterly collapsed. They look clueless in attack and useless in defence. Their attitude stinks, and pretty much every individual is playing well below the level at which they can play, and have played before.

Brown is responsible for that. We need to stop making f*£#ing excuses and kick the useless Aussie wage-stealer out if he can't turn this around immediately.

To be honest I feel for Brown. Saints spent big money on Perry, Hohaia, Laffranchi etc (They all played international so will have come here on a big pay packet i'd imagine)

Perry & Hohaia have been awful, Laffranchi average. When 3 of your highest earners aren't performing, your in trouble as the rest of your squad hasn't had as much spent on it, so won't be as good quality.

Then you have the half back situation. Without half-backs every team will struggle, they are the most important players in the team. Just look what Brough did to you today. You have Wilkin at the moment.

You'll still make the play-offs and probably beat us lot on Sunday as well, but I think Brown should be judged around this time next year.

I agree. And with the rest of your post.

I don't. He's brought it upon himself. We had a team out tonight that was fully capable of beating Hudds. We had forwards who actually worked hard. But Brown made wholesale changes. He does this every week, with or without injuries as an excuse, when what he needs to be doing is using a settled side. The time for experimentation has long gone. We are in trouble, the season is half over, and yet just as we are about to face the team sitting second in the league he creates chaos again by changing people around so they don't know what they are doing. Ludicrous.

I'm still unconvinced by him. He doesn't fill me with confidence at all but has had injury problems to deal with. At least he's addressed the halfback problem by bringing Walsh in for next year. Time will tell, but as time goes by, he still fails to prove himself in my eyes really.

On the outside looking in.
Brown MUST take some of the blame for the halfback situation. We are now two thirds the way through the season and according to Dastardly and Muttley he was trying his tenth halfback combination.

I know Saints have had injury problems but it is unrealistic to blame all those different combinations on injuries. Didn't he do something similar at Huddersfield with Brown, Robinson, Brough, Scott Moore etc?

How can any coach be taken seriously who fires Shaun Lunt off to Leeds, so he can bring in Scott Moore



And don't get me started on Makinson