I thought it was a pretty good effort by an inexperienced Saints team against a pretty good Catalan team. your doing it tough at the minute, but some of those youngsters will learn a big lesson from that, enjoyed it good game.

Bottom line was we were too soft in the pack, which meant Catalans totally controlled the ruck speed. Henderson & Pryce had a field day off the back of that.

Not much fun to watch, but then we were missing an entire front row and two back rowers.

Idiots like LMS don't help. Should have dragged off after the second penalty

The flourish at the end doesn't disguise the fact we were dominated. When we actually got ball to the backs we looked relatively threatening but squandered too many opportunities. There was way too many wrong decisions taken on the Catalans line, something which a proper half back partnership could repair.

Tommy went well again today but we're missing the spark that Lomax brings from the back. Walmsley was outstanding.

Laffranchi got dominated once again and shouldn't be given a new deal, an average SL journeyman could give us the same performances, part of that is probably because he is being played out of position.

Meli had another good game and despite his age is worth a new contract for me.

LMS is becoming a liability, he gives away stupid penalties in crucial positions and it really crippled us tonight. He's turning into Scott Moore more and more each game. He has the ability, but at the moment lacks temperament.

I think that the addition of Roby, Lomax and Manu would make a major difference to that side.

A very good attendance of 11,000 considering it was on Sky and Catalan will have brought no more than 8 fans.

Yes but 8 fans from Catalan made more noise than 11,000 saints fans.

You're dead, you don't have an opinion.

Tell your lad to pack it in too.

Ha ha yes my despot son needs to be given a kick up the ass

Can your son play 7?

Bet he can put up a good bomb!

Prop forward best position. plus he has a good fan base about 1.1 million die hard fans

Just not good enough again. We started pretty good and had pleanty of ball on their line in the first 20 mins but all that pressure mounted to nothing. The French scored two soon as they got on our line. They took their chances and we didnt.

They run harder than us and wanted it more than us.

The was times, especially the last 20 mins when we made little half breaks and looked for the off load but nobody was there, that boils down to ATITITUDE.

Feel so sorry for our squad at the moment. Absolutely shocking recruitment policy from the main men at our club.

Completely disagree. Its our attitude that is keeping us in games, on paper we should of got tonked tonight.

The French run much harder than our forwards. Lafranchi today was stopping before impact. Laffranchi is getting worse and worse as the season goes on. His slow, small, soft and stops before impact. I wouldn't give him another deal.

If players don't get their in support, its either down to not Being fit or not wanting to get their.

People talk about the need for a half back but there is no point signing a half back with that pack.

We were going backwards all night in defence, and couldnt burst out of a paper bag going forward. Just about the only two forwards that did any damage were Walmsley and Soliola.

We are desperately short of a couple of BIG front row forwards to give us some field position and to stop the opposition just using us as speed bumps.

Howarth in particular was tonight very poor defensively, Casty and others just ran at him repeatedly and bounced out of his tackles.

There was simply no spark and enthusiasm out there tonight from the experienced players.
This was summed up in how slow we were to form a scrum with 6 mins left, and also when Swift tried to do a quick tap restart and the rest of the team just looked shocked that he would even bother to try such a thing against a team with 12 men.

Tonight also showed Makinsons weakness at fullback. He just hasnt got the rugby brain to draw a tackler and release a good pass. On the plus side he is enthusiastic returning the ball and made one excellent break.

Your season will be over by tea time next saturday

I was just bored. Chasing the game and we are doing the same kick off. Getting to the last tackle and kicking to the same young full back who never looked like dropping a ball all night. Biggest disappointment for me was the number of breaks or half breaks where we had absolutely nobody pushing with the ball carrier. Nothing to do with the youngsters we had out there or the players missing, its the little things that we weren't doing, getting left on the floor at marker and letting Hemderson take the p*** out of us all night. Just a dull performance and had we nicked a win at the death, Catalans would be right to have been upset. We were second best in most departments......again. We desperately need half backs and props.

It's unfair to judge tonight as we had 10 players missing and alot in key areas. Lomax, Soliola and Roby are our best players and two of those were missing. Add Manu, Perry and Puletua and that's a fair amount of size in the pack missing too. The effort was there tonight but our forwards bar Soliola and Walmsley just didn't match up to their big pack. We were getting pushed back when defending and we weren't making enough yards to force them under pressure with territory. They were kicking the ball in good areas whilst we weren't and when our kicking game is as average as ours is, then that led to us playing catch up all night.

The big problems for us come with our props and in the halves. In Walmsley we have a fantastic prospect who we need to build our forwards around. It's imperative next season we sign a couple of props with mongrel who will run through brick walls. There's plenty around and they are easy to find both over here and in the NRL. Catalans had several of them in their team who just kept running and running at us making massive yards.

Our main problems though come in the halves. There is no control or leadership in this area, there is no kicking game and there is no real creative link between our 6 and 7 to our outside backs. It has to be our priority to sign at least one half back but I'd personally be looking to bring in a 6 and a 7. I think this is McManus' most important season for recruitment because it'll be our 3rd season in the new ground next year and the initial fascination about the new stadium will start to wear thin with fans soon, they want to see entertaining rugby, they want to see winning rugby. We won't see this without good half backs so it is more important than anything else that we bring in some quality in this area. To do this we basically need to offload all our OOC overseas players leaving just Hohaia and Soliola. Laffranchi, Puletua and Perry can all go for me with reinforcements coming in from overseas. Add Wellens and Gaskell to the outgoing list and we should have plenty of cap space to manoevre and rebalance the squad next season.

As for this season, if we could bring in a 7 then great but with no quota spots and who knows what remaining on the cap, that could be difficult to impossible so we just need to make do with Wilkin and Hohaia unfortunately and hope we can get Lomax back soon and keep him fit as he makes a difference to our attack from full back.

I've noticed in the last two games that Howarth can't complete a tackle on his own, he needs a 2nd and 3rd man in to complete the tackle.

I agree, sia and Walmsley was very good tonight.

Pack is a problem but half back is definately the main problem. Catalans where starting there sets on our 30 most of the night because we simply dont have a kicking game. Our forwards where starting the sets on the 10 metre line. That was a massive difference.

I agree and would go a step further and offload other oocs such as Gardner and offload Hohaia to someone.
Need to clear all the baggage and the comfy cliques.

In addition there needs to be some streamlining in the backroom.
Brown has brought his own people in but nobody has gone.
Hence there is a gerard houllier /roy evans scenario , this is clearly not going to work.

It's time for McManus to put up the cash to buy a couple of players, or leave. Just going through the motions as a club isn't acceptable.

As mentioned on the thread, tonight's late surge when Catalans tired and were down to 12 put an unfair gloss on what was a horrible performance. There is no urgency at all, 4 minutes to go and the ref has to stop the clock because we're taking so long to take a drop out. The next scrum, again there is no urgency to stop the clock, the players simply don't care if they win the games or not. No leader, no team spirit, none of the desperation to win Catalans showed.

That lack of urgency I mentioned shows in our defensive line speed. There is none, there is no intensity at all. We were receiving Catalans pack tonight rather than meeting them or attacking them like they were us. Kick chases were poor, our kicking game in general was appalling.

I've joined the drum banging about a scrum half. But is having another big forward more important right now? Laffranchi is an absolute embarrassment, he's a complete fairy ,who would struggle to make 20m a game if you take the easy metres he makes at kick offs off him. If the club gives him a contract for next season, I will be really disappointed. Clough tries hard, but is a very average plodder. Without Sia and Walmsley tonight we'd have been slaughtered, they were both magnificent in attack and defense.