Read the post I quoted.

Roberts didn't play. You meant Richards.

Slow the PTB and disrupte Roby then you stop Saints. No plan B
No adaptation to the circumstances.

The top sides have got saints worked out. Mid table teams have to but
have not got the players to carry out the tactic.

In addition to turn the screw teams exploit Wellens via the kicking game.
It is just a rerun of the GF defeats again and again. We need a pacey dangerous
fullback. Wellens needs to be replaced as FB (been saying this for a couple of seasons
not just a kneejerk). Would be happy to have him in the backrow.

As a sidenote - How many times has Roby had the ball knocked out of
his hand by the opposition markers recently? Has the penny not dropped
with either Roby or the coaches.

Wire will have a field day.

I got Roberts and Richards mixed up. Hardly proof I wasn't there.

Most of the tripe you type proves you've never even been to a RL game in your life.

Do you not know why that is? I thought it was obvious. We have no experienced halfbacks and Wello has lost his mojo. The halves were shown to be inexperienced tonight because they were up against Grand Final winning halfbacks. Simmons plays off Roby because he is an experienced Grand Final player. We can't have adaptation because the halves aren't ready for that yet although Gaskell tried his best (Lomax only chirping in towards the end of the second half).


Of course they have. It's easy to work us out just now. That's why we need some experience.


Roby should hold on to the ball tighter. He is being targetted because he is the main man. We don't have a thinker on the field; the two thinkers we do have are both injured (Pryce and Wheeler).

Maybe it was just me but our forwards did not take the ball in with any real conviction tonight. Wigan were fierce in the tackle, but to be honest our forwards have to show more desire to make yards in the tackle. To be fair I have not seen this in the other games this season, but it could be that the Wigan forwards really intimidated our tonight.

I seemed to read a lot of our fans saying that they thought we had better forwards than them in the lead up to this game. Do they still think the same now ?

On tonights performance we look miles behind Wigan, and the only straw I can clutch at is the other two games this season which have both been very close. You also have to remember they will bring Hock and Fielden back in the next month and they will be even stronger in the pack.

It is going to take a monumental effort for us to something, but maybe we can get to the cup semi and avoid wigan/wire and give the fans a trip back to Wembley. Given the problems of this season, I think most fans would be happy with that

If it makes you feel better, I'm much more apprehensive about playing you next week now after having Wigan dominate you.

Saints need to do more than keep hold of the ball. Gaskell was pinpointed by Wigan to such an extent, it was painful to watch. Simmons needs to work out another way of integrating him in the defensive line without being so easily isolated.

I don't think I agree with you on much, but this I do. Againats the big teams this year we haven't really competed bar once on Good Friday. We got lucky at MM and the other 3 games we've been outplayed in every area. I think Wire will beat us next week.

I don't think we got lucky at MM. At MM we wanted to win. Wigan did exactly the same last night as they did at MM. They wobbled in the second half. That's when we started to score tries. But because we couldn't hold on to the ball, we fluffed most of our chances. From the East Stand there were three occasions when the line was ahead and we could have got there, but we dropped the ball when we weren't under any pressure.

But when Jammer makes his first decent tackle at 65 minutes, what can we expect? The forwards couldn't be bothered last night. They were still at the Exiles game. LMS wasn't in a game at all. He needs to take ball handling lessons.

Its clear for all to see that at present the league is split into 3 first rate teams Wigan, Huddersfield, Warrington.

Four second rate teams Saints, Leeds, Castleford & Catalans

The second rate teams are capable of causing the odd upset against the big three but on the whole are not good enough.
Catalans by the way are imo the best of the second raters, and are pretty close to being part of the first raters.

Then the dross, who are pretty much whipping boys

=#FF0000Paranoia :
a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically worked into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality.

Er............have you been drinking? We've not been "blitzed" all season,so what makes you think it will happen next week? I think there's more chance of a long overdue wire double than a saints win,and i'm fairly confident that will be the outcome,but I do hope the saints fans travel in numbers and enjoy the game. I am a west stand(away end)season ticket holder and the wire club shop staff have told me that saints have sold nowhere near their usual amount of tickets for next weeks game. Have you all given up on it and decided to keep your cash in your pockets?

I'm not particularly concerned. Looking at the side we're one year of experience and one or two good signings away from being right at the top (provided we steer clear of injuries). Hohaia and Laffranchi will certainly stiffen up the team - both in attack and defence. Next season Gaskell(ish), Lomax, Wheeler, Foster, Makinson et al will all be fully developed SL players and they'll tear apart many a team. But we simply MUST address the loss of Graham. It would be utter stupidity to jeopardise next season (the most important perhaps in Saints history) by failing to sign a top prop.

By blitzed I don't mean necessarily scoring lots of points over you. I mean not giving you a chance to win. We could be stung enough by our own performance to out-perform you next week or we could have just packed in the season and gone home already.

Hohaia is a good signing, not sure if he'd be better at full back or at half back though. If Lomax plays the other role I think we're a more dynamic and attacking side.

Laffranchi is a good player, but is he a prop and is he as good as Graham? For me we're still a forward short and a quality back short and with our quota full it doesn't leave us many options.

as long as the team put the effort in next week at warrington and wear the shirt with pride i would not complain win lose or draw i still think we can win silverware this season the team is up there when they turn up which as not happened to much this season

If we win on Friday, will this suddenly mean we are odds on to win the GF???

I'm just getting my swing o meter adjusted so I know how to over react next week in line with everyone else, as I feel I've missed the notification of the end of the world this week that has got everyone so suddenly up in arms.


We are currently 2 points off Wigan, Wigan, Huddersfield and Warrington all have to play each other so they are all going to knock points and spots of each other.

Huddersfield tonight have le Catalans who are hardly a side of easy beats.

Let's imagine the top 3 win this weekend and wigan win their game in hand. That makes Wigan 2 games better than us and the other 2 a game and a half ahead of us. It's hardly an insomountable lead. I reckon we'll still make at least one of the finals this year. I think top spot is more or less gone, but top 3 is still a possibility. Given this at the start of the year with the injuries, the new coaching set up and the Eastmond fiasco. For a side in decline and looking to rebuild we are doing pretty well. It's hardly the drop into oblivion that most teams suffer from after being at the top. Anyone here wanting a slide like Bradford? Or like what Wigan suffered in the year of agent milward?

As for signings next year. I would not hold my breath. We have our 5 non-fed already signed, so we can only either bring through the academy or sign from another SL club. Can't see many props of Graham standard coming from either of those sourses. So it will be down to the coach to bring our own players on and down to the fans, not to expect Megennis to be a Graham in 1 season. Graham was not Graham in 1 season. he played understudy for 2 or 3 years as a prop, before being the Graham we know today.

For this season, I'm looking forward to clough returning, bringing a bit of sixe back to our pack and doing the boring work of getting bashed in the tackle. Rather than stopping before the tackling line like many of our pack did yesterday.

I think the notification said 'Wigan did the double on you' and 'You forgot to turn up or keep hold of the ball'.

Quite simple really. What has gotten people up in arms is that it was Wigan and us not making any real effort to compete (Grand Final like). Not that we lost.

Fair enough, I get that, but in the end it's 2 points and everything that went wrong yesterday is fixable in my opinion. And fixable this year.

Oh, I agree it's fixable, and this year too.

2 games (bradford and wigan) where Roby hasen't been on top form and we've struggled. Think it's harsh by the people of sky saying he hasen't been scooting as much though, he's playing with a broken eye socket!

We cannot expect to mount a [iserious[/i challenge for the title next season without signing [iat least[/i one first class prop. It's just not going to happen. Ideally I'd like to see a young prospect from the lower leagues come in as a cover, too.

Given the outstanding talent we have about to burst into full maturity and the move to a new stadium it would be tantamount to pressing the self-destruct button if we don't cover the loss of Graham.

With who though?