Desperately missing Wilkin

The ref has been shocking

Dawson

That's a disgraceful decision.

Happens in France far too often.

WTF!!! How was that not a try?

High shot on swift missed

Matty Dawson is a horrendous player. Championship standard, I'd genuinely rather have Fleming in there.

Proper crap that. We need Wilkin back asap.Walsh and burns are not firing at all

We just not good enough mate. Our discipline is awful. We must be the most penilised team in super league. Constant offsides and some of those are ridiculously offside.

Our attack it's totally woeful in tight games. We can't create anything and even with the extra man. We didn't look like making a break all day.

The defence has been woeful all year so no need to comment on that.

I beleive this much of our problems are down to coaching. We can't seem to rectify any of our problems. I'm not bagging KC as I expected us to struggle on the coaching side of things as this is his first time coaching and no expernince at all.


I had us a shoe in for top four but I've serious doubts now. We are toothless in attack and poor in defence and that's hard to put right. This so called best pack in super league is struggling big time. If they pin is down in own 20m we struggle to make meters to get out.

Yeah that was rather poor.

Irrational Observations:

1) Nice to watch a game without being tortured by the aural evil of Hemmings and Stevo. Not one "Good kick, now what is the chase like?", "He knows it", "Get the message out", "Utilise the dummy runner" or "Setting up a grandstand finish" (ruined our drinking game - everybody is still sober here). However it still sounded like commentary from the home town local radio - dead biased.

2) I don't keep up to date with all the rule changes but why do Saints only get 3 tackles before they have to kick but the opposition get a minimum of 12 after the obligatory penalty? Really, I get kicking early in wet conditions but every team drops their full back early against us now so what is the point?

3) Seriously, what is it with our discipline? What is the point of putting in 3 good tackles in the oppositions own half because the penalty with certainly come on the fourth or the fifth. So frustrating.

4) Why are the opposition guaranteed two tries from kicks or knock ons when we are about to go over for our own try?

5) Not sure why Saints have lost any games lately - just suicidal rugby.

Well, I said on these very boards that I didn't want Cunningham as our coach and I've become more convinced of this view as the season has progressed. We play exactly the same way every week no matter who the opposition or what the conditions and our execution of even that boring, repetitive game plan is so poor it's just unbelievable. A great player does not automatically make a great coach or even a half decent one and having 'passion for the club' and 'knowing the systems' isn't anywhere near enough to make a half decent coach either. We were better than this last year with Brown in charge and I was no big fan of Brown.

We seemed to be going up the middle all game even after the cats player went off. From that moment on we should of spread the play but we seemed in incapable of doing so.

I don't agree with the apocalypse view.

He did win the grand final with a load of oldies, kids and no half-backs.

Saints are very frustrating at the moment but I think all we have to do is cut out the penalties.

Walsh is finding his way back and I have some sympathy with view that Wilkin might be a better bet until the old Walsh is rediscovered. But injuries always make these kind of arguments irrelevant anyway.

Cunningham didn't win a Grand Final with no halfbacks. Brown did.

Walsh was just as anonymous in pressure games before his big injury. He couldn't tackle last season either and fought shy of taking on the line when at Penrith. Burns is Cunningham's recruit and has brought nothing but penalties to the side.

We need to do one heck of a lot more than cut out the penalties and that has been the story of our season.

I know he was only the 'assistant' but ...

Walsh does not have to carry the defence when he is dominating games in attack. However he is not at the moment in the slightest. Recovering from a serious injury is complicated.

Like most super league seasons Saints will just have to win the semi to go to Old Trafford. We have only lost a few more games then the Rhinos, though do you think even Wigan could stop them this year?