One of my sauces.

We were poor through most, although the opening and closing 10 mins were good.

Roby had a poor game, which sums it up, throwing a couple of bricks at Walmsley and the knock on at the PTB.

A lot of Walsh's attacking kicks were poor too, which seems like it wont happen too often.

Most of all, we let Huddersfield dictate the speed of the ruck throughout most of the game. It lead to a higher penalty count for them, but meant that through most of the game we were quite easy to read.

Following his dream game against Leeds, Hohaia has gone back to type. He's got one move which, to be fair, worked for our first try, but fails to bring much to the table. Although he did give us one lovely long kick which sat in the in goal.
I'd love to see Charnock given a run out.

I think if we'd have played LMS, that bit of X factor he has might have spurred us into action a bit quicker.

I'm more pleased with the whole attitude of Saints. We seem to have learnt again how to play badly and win.
We'll play well in most games, but every team will have an off day, like we did on Sunday. To do that and win against a quality side like Hudds, shows class

Agreed.

I'm with Nathan Brown on this one. We got lucky. Had Ferres not been sent off I don't think we would have won.

It concerns me that we saved our worst performance so far for the knock out game, the pressure game. If we repeat that against Leeds in the cup then I don't think we will get anywhere this season. However, I'm still hoping that it was just a one-off. Sure, we will lose games, but if we are going to hope for silverware this season then our players have to be capable of playing their best rugby in the pressure games, when it really counts.

You know what, I'm developing a bit of an affection for Lance. He's working really hard and is showing his class in attack.

Does he ever play the ball properly. he could/should have been penalised a couple of times for it. It's a BIG bugbear of mine in the game today. We are obsessed with the speed of the ptb so much so that it is done incorrectly on about 60 - 70% of the time. Either scrap the rule or enforce it.

It's not just Saints but every team, but Masoe is one of the worse culprits.

It's just lazy, he uses the ball to get up quick and it's only a matter of time before it seriously costs us a game.

Do you mean placing the ball before he's got to his feet? I noticed him doing it, but as you say, it seems quite common at the moment. Not only are you risking a penalty, but imo you're more likely to lose control.

It's the whole ptb. Rod Studd, I think it was, who mentioned it on Superleague backchat a week or so ago. It's a farce. As you know I posted a few years back that it was creeping into the game and now it's just the norm.

There should be no problem for a player to put the ball on the ground and THEN use his foot to play the ball. That IS the rule, NOT, attempt to play the ball with their foot. With the ten metre rule the attacking side has enough advantage without giving them more.

Just watch this Thursday night game as an example and see how many incorrect ptb's there are. I'll bet it'll be 60 - 70 % minimum.

While I'm on about it the other thing happening more at the ptb is walking of the mark. Either penalise the player or allow the defending team to take their defensive position from where the tackle / mark is made. That would shorten the 10 metres.

That really annoys me. Wow, I agree with Rogues on something.

I actually think Mose executes a quick PTB perfectly, what he does is completely legal and the technique is excellent (bar the knock on).

Although I completely agree that it's an area the game needs to look at, it's very sloppy at times.

It isn't. You have to regain your feet (stand up) before playing the ball. What Masoe does quite a few times is to push himself up using the ball still on the ground.

The ball has to be lifted off the ground, then replaced on it before playing it with the foot.

I don't have it recorded so can't check but as long as his knees aren't on the floor then it's fine. If you are on your feet (even if not fully standing) you can play the ball.

Having you been drinking meths?

Hi Ho was shocking, even Wello was better!

I couldn't believe he kept Lance on; he had clearly "gone" - when taking passes in the 2nd half, he just stood around indecisively like he didn't know what to do, but I optimistically put this down to fatigue.