Why can't we turn ball carriers onto their back whilst Wigoon and Wire can? That's not the players fault. Why aren't they being coached to do it? That has nothing to do with guile, pace or attacking nous. Our defence isn't good enough.

I can see what your saying. Wigan have improved 109% under maguire and I've no doubt in my mind it's down to coaching but to he fair to Royce he's had awful luck with injuries.

We had a near enough full strength side out today and yet we were still comfortably second best.

It's the same move everytime, that's down to coaching.

Its not fair to bag Royce as he's had a tough time this year with injuries, Graham saga on moving, eastmond saga and also lost his dad so he's had a tough first year.

I don't expect him to be here longer than the two years he's signed for tho.

The injury situation has been an excuse, sometimes its been a pretty valid one, but on the whole its been nothing more than an excuse.

Today we were at pretty much full strength and were comprehensively outplayed.

Given our move into a new stadium can we really afford to mediocre again next year? Our squad is good enough to push for a top two spot and I'm sure that Maguire or Smith would love to have our pack at their disposal.

I'll be honest, Im pretty shocked at our recruitment for a team moving into a brand new stadium.

The lack of fitness and pace since DA left is a big problem but our lack of moves and tactics today must be down to the coach. Tony puletua must be shattered after today's game, same move every play up the middle.

BUT IN FAIRNESS WE HAVENT PLAYED A FULL(ISH) STRENGTH TEAM FOR A WHILE WHEREAS WIGAN / WIRE HAVE. IF WE CAN KEEP TO FULL STRENGTH THEN THE PLAYOFFS COULD BE VERY DIFFERENT

Praise the Lord - someone else has seen the light.

next year i'd put lomax at fullback and lance at 7. think if leon goes we should definately sign another halfback.

Maybe the fitness training is the problem? Most of the posts refer to "bad luck with injuries" - could be that the strength & conditioning regime needs looking at?

We've had injuries for the last two years now so it's possible the is something going wrong somewhere at the club but Royce says they have looked at all aspects of training and he can't find anything wrong.

Spot on.I can see another trophyless period of tenure as per Potter

Another major weakness -his use of substitutes-amply demonstrated yesterday

Simmons took Pryce off and replaced him with Gaskell with 6 mins to go. Bizarre.

I've banged on al year about the way Royce uses his subs. It's just strange.

Maybe Pryce was injured? After all, it was only his fourth match back after a year out and that was his most intense match so far. Simmons will have had Friday to think about.

I know. It's getting a bit boring to be honest Pete. You seem to have transferred your angst about Wilkin on to Simmons and his subs!

It's is a strange one tho. In your post above you say maybe Gaskell come on because pryce was injured, if that's the case we'd have done the full 80 with 16 men and and 65 mins with 15 men.

I'm sorry but it just don't make sense to me.

Maybe Royce learned his trade when we only was allowed two players on the bench and is just stuck in his ways

Why you skipping to 2012 already? This season is far from over, with a full 17 your contenders for Old Trafford as you are every year. Your 3rd in the league and got to the challenge cup semi final hardly an awful season so far.

Think some of the comments on here are pretty harsh tbh. We've been crippled with injuries and had to throw in a load of kids. We've played all our games this year away from home. We've had the off field sagas that have caused problems.

And yet we're still in third place and have a great chance of a good run in the playoffs.

I was happy with the performance yesterday and had Wigan +20 points before the game. The one major difference between the two sides is Tomkins. If he can stay fit and keep his form Wigan will be a force for a decade.

My only concern is Wello. He needs to hang up his Fullback Boots. The lack of pace at the back is what kills us imho.

Are we going to blame injuries every time we lose or is something wrong with the coaching staff ? www.saintsrlfc.com/news/page/1122

Are we going to blame injuries every time we lose or is something wrong with the coaching staff ? www.saintsrlfc.com/news/page/1122

I'm not blaming yeterdays loss on the injuries, we came up short by 6 points to the top team in the competition. Some on here will say use terms like an average side, or a team that needs 5 or 6 players.

This actually shows how out of touch as fans we have got from what it means to be lower down the league than the top 2.

If you think this team is average, then actually we should be 7th. Look to 7 and 8 and you will see an average team. People throw around terms like average, without actually thinking of the meaning. What they mean is that we are not the top side in the comp and anything less than the top side they rate as average or less. This is hugely OTT in my opinion, but that's what forums are for, opinions.

From what I saw yesterday there were 2 defensive sides on top for most of the game. With Wigan having that little bit extra than Saints at crucial points. ie Charnley and Tomkins, but both could have been stopped.

As for replacing the centres, what we are saying here is that we have a top 2 english centre and a top 2 exiles centre (meli would have been centre apart from King having to give up his wing spot), which is not good enough. Therefore we can only top this by either signing Carmont or an Aussie as everyone else would be below Meli and Shenton.

I can understand the call for a prop,

All year I've heard calls for we need Leon back, to only a week ago, telling the board we must sign Leon, to the very same people saying he went missing yesterday. Lets be thankful the board are not so short term, otherwise we would be hiring and firing on a week by week basis. We were good, yesterday ,but not good enough.

We where a vast improvement on the GF from last year, and an improvement on MM and the wigan game after the exiles. I would say we where not as good as at the DW. But this is far from an average team and there are still enough games left to mount a challenge for the playoffs.

The rest week of the CC final will do Graham the world of good, last week he could not run and at half time this week he could not even see. Leon was 3 games back. These are not excuses for the loss but reasons why we may yet improve further this year in the final 4 games.

It's always depressive to lose to Wigan, but lets not go OTT we are off the pace, but hardly and in summountable position to pull back this year, never mind next year.

Royce after the game made some excuses with the injuries and that's the first time this year he has done that IMO. But afterwards I was thinking about it and was that speach more for him or for the team, so that they don't get into a mentality that Wigan can't be beat. More just we got them at the wrong time for us and we still can beat them. It's impossible to know a mans mind, but he does not often draw attention to the injuries.

Fans are fickle. I think yesterday was too much for Leon given that he has only just returned from a year out. He was clearly match rusty - his passes were off and he made wrong calls. That's to be expected. But the fact was he didn't play well and that was a problem for us. The right wing got no ball, etc. It's all understandable but still a valid point.


He should point out our injuries IMO. They have been very influential this year. Particularly he should point out how seriously injured Robes and Jammer were because that speaks to their commitment and the fans should know the degree of their commitment especially given our loss and the closeness of it (in spite of all the problems).

I prefer a coach not to blame injuries like potter, Anderson and millward did. Sure a coach can bring it up but it's getting a little boring now hearing royce go on about injuries.

Injuries are part of the game and we should just get on with it instead of making excuses.