Or we could look at the year as a whole??

I get the point I really do. If it is lack luster then it will raise questions, but this game is as tough as they come and if we do lose. I hope we don't go and chuck the baby out with the bath water.

There are lots of reasons to be positive this year. But since Easter there has been a little bit too much micro inspection.

I want a win against Leeds as the Cup is a great competition to win and a sign of a springboard back to success. However, it's far from a gimme game so there will be an element of a decent performance showing some balance.

For example one of Wigan or Leeds is going to lose again as they have to play each other twice in May. As do Leeds and Cas.

So we have just been through our 'toughest' run, we now have a period where we can move up the league or put some distance from those around us. By playing 'weaker' teams.

Good luck from all at Cas Tigers.
Hope you smash 'em.

It's easy to say judge someone come the end of the season but Rugby doesnt work that way. If we lose on saturday 50% of the season has just evaporated for us. Nobody really cares who finishes top unless it's part of a double or treble so that leaves us a GF to play for with a team running on 1 halfback , 1 hooker (who is alleged to be injured) and a set of forwards who look decent until the going gets tough (which it will on the way to a GF)

IMO the root cause of the inconsistent form lies with inconsistent selection

Stand off - Turner wheeler Lance Wello Wilkin

Six ( may be more ) half back combinations

Over rotation of young forwards - Walker, Greenwood, Richards, Thompson, Savelio sometimes
At the expense of more experienced players such as Lafranchi Flanagan ( okee cokee - in out in out shake em all about)


Josh Jones ? Centre or Back Row - make your mind up
Starting Prop ? Walmsley or Mose - make your mind up
Lance - Stand Off Fri then FB on mon - make your mind up

How are players supposed to feel confident with all combinations both offensively and defensively when you don't know who is stood next to you week in week out. We had consistency up to HKR at home due to no injuries. Once we had a few injuries NB thinks he's some selection wizard instead of keeping square pegs in square holes etc...


NB needs to get back to basics decide on his best team and stick with it for a period of games - if we get an injury then change like for like , don't shuffle the whole pack. We've got as good a squad as any team in the league -The spotlight is on NB for me.

No, no he doesn't. We need to do that from late august until the end of the year. The only thing we need to do right now is:

a) stay in the cup for as long as possible; and
b) rack up as many league points as possible for doing as little as possible

I think after the good start, and poor Easter, people have lost sight that playing well consistently now. You win nothing for that. Were ahead of where we were last year, and we've seen vast improvements on what we can do. We'll see where we are in september

No worse than where we did last year - except with better tools for the playoffs.

Walsh and Amor into the team that lost to Leeds in the playoffs would of won last year, then who knows.

We will do a lot better this year in the amount of winning games. I think people forget Saints have had a tough campaign over this first third of the season and have won 9 out of 11 games.

The contenders in Leeds, Castleford and Wigan are all going into a tough period after next week all of them playing each other turning them into 4 pointers.

In our next 12 fixtures we play London and Bradford twice home and away and a home game against Castleford. I expect to see Saints topping the table in Mid May.
But at the moment we can forget this until the result tomorrow.

Wigan purposefully rotated people in and out last year and almost manufactured a bad run to be ready for the business end of the season.

Yet we want to be running at 100% in May???

Next year we will need to be at 100% in May due to the split and the CC proposed changes.

At the moment we should be looking at are we improved on last year?
Yes by some margin - I go into games expecting to win.
There are only 3 games where my expectation was not a result.

Wigan Leeds and Widnes.

I expected us to lose to Widnes as soon as the draw was made (widnes have not been playing badly at all and we where always going to change the whole team)

Leeds I expected a loss we got a win
Wigan I thought we would win but we underperformed by some margin.

So I get one over performance, one under performance.

It's all about expectations. At the moment Saints are meeting mine. Others seem to be expecting results more like the 2006 season. I was never expecting that.

Brown is known for tinkering with team selections but I do think he should keep the spine of your team as far as he can bar injuries.
Surely he should be maintaining - Lomax, Hohaia, Walsh, Wilkin and Roby?
Wilkin at 13 due to Manu being out for some weeks.
The Cup Tie at Leeds is so important for your season and a win there would mean Easter is soon forgotten.

Jesus, we've lost one game proper, and one by resting half the first team before a cup game, lets get a little perspective.
We're 1 point off top in the league.
By this time tomorrow we could be joint favourites for the cup (with Wigan)

oh, and our 2 main rivals (leeds and wigan) play each other twice in May so they'll be dropping points soon