Meli looked disinterested today, that or not fit

Think we've won once in 5 or 6 season starts, Warrington at home 2009 season. Worst losses were Hull at home in the Fog and Broncos at home in the snow.

We was trying to think of the last time we won out first game today and we couldn't remember.

I'll take your word for it as I just can't remember. It seems like ages ago anyway!

Didn't we beat london away first game of the season once before?

I think cayless made his debut that day.

But when he first came into the team 18 months ago he was absolutely bullet proof under high kicks... Meli has never and will never be any good taking kicks: it's just simply not in his DNA - Foster on the other hand clearly has all the natural ability in the world to diffuse bombs for fun, but has just been bogged down in a mire the last year for whatever reason. I don't think he compares to Meli in this regard at all and will come good and get over whatever the heck is going on in his head and get back to the safe pair of hands he was sooner or later, but at the moment I wince every time the ball goes anywhere near him...

I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Today and the widnes friendly were hardly great conditions, so they played their part.
Makinson is better under the bomb, but if jamie can improve this part of his game, teams will stop trying to use the bomb against us, and have to run. Against Meli on one side and a wide running Sia on the other, thats going to end in pain!

That might have been in the all conquering 2006 season. Think we lost to Hull KR with a last minute penalty a few seasons ago.

If you are referring to Meli, then we can't blame him for foster dropping the ball.

I think it needs working on or we going to need a bomb disposal team on that side of the field.

Foster needs to get some catch practice and the team needs to practice protecting foster and put pressure on the kicker.

Foster doesn't drop the ball every time. He can catch. I saw him do it against Widnes. But Foster needs to have confidence in the support of his centre, and I don't think he has either.

Foster has said openly that Gidley was his mentor, that he is still in contact with Gidley. I think Gidley was teaching Foster a lot, as well as looking out for him, and Foster gained confidence from that. Meli gives the impression of not doing any of that. Meli is a poor centre with a very poor attitude and a debatable level of skill.

I was there. To be honest, I was so cold that by the last 10 minutes I'd almost stopped caring who won because I wanted to go home ! Still, for what it's worth :

Roby made the biggest contribution. Looked fresh, rubber-limbed and almost impossible to put down on occasion.
Lomax had the best game I've seen him play. He was absolutely dominant in the Saints back line, and heavily involved.
Gaskell's kicks were a bit hit and miss, but usually found the ground. Saw him get knocked off a couple of tackles, and he didn't seem to get his hands on the ball as much as I'd expect, but he was fine.
Hohaia, particularly early on, was a real threat, with a very high work-rate. Good footwork and pace that Wello hasn't offered for a long time.

If settled, these four could be the best key foursome we've had since Wello, Long, Pryce and Cunningham were winning everything for us. I would be loathe to shift them around to accommodate Wello, but I think Gaskell might have to do a bit more to shore up his place from a reshuffle putting Hohaia there.

Perry was good going forward, and made decent yards. Lacked match fitness from the look of it. Hardly surprising.
LMH looks to have beefed up. The key difference was that he no longer hits the floor early agfter contact, and repeatedly drove extra yards with tacklers hanging off him. I thought it was a solid and promising performance.
Other forwards were a bit much of a muchness. Did their job, but were well matched by the strongest London pack for years.

I don't see where the Foster criticism comes from. Some of it might be that Saints fans still expect easy wins over London, and aren't willing to give fair credit to good attacking play from the Broncos. They scored past him, but it had more to do with some very good angles and passing than it did with Foster.
Wheeler looked ok, but didn't seem to get much ball.

Meli was enormous. Possibly the biggest man on the pitch. Has he been on the sweet potatoes ? He did a couple of hit-ups which were painful to watch, and I feared for the defenders. Looked mean. Maybe he was just hating the cold.

That's about it, really. Good performance against the best London side since the nineties. The performance of Saints needs to be judged against that. This wasn't an error-strewn performance against a crap side, but a well-disciplined win in horrible conditions against a good side.

Quote: St pete "Didn't we beat london away first game of the season once before? I think cayless made his debut that day.'" www.saints.org.uk/saints.org.uk/ ... 7&seq=4572 Daniel Anderson said that the Quins on the day were the worst team he'd seen for a long time. IN the club bar after the match we watched Wigan get beat by the Cats in their first outing - great day!

Quote: St pete "Didn't we beat london away first game of the season once before? I think cayless made his debut that day.'" www.saints.org.uk/saints.org.uk/ ... 7&seq=4572 Daniel Anderson said that the Quins on the day were the worst team he'd seen for a long time. IN the club bar after the match we watched Wigan get beat by the Cats in their first outing - great day!

I listened to most of it. Sounded like London have stepped up from where they were last year. Sounded like a tough but good win.

Sounded like there were errors all over the place. Perry gave away the ball a few times, Lance messed up somewhere leading to handing the broncos the ball near our line, foster seamed to miss or drop a couple, think even Roby handed the ball over and after all of us lauding Gaskell, seams Royce was not too impressed with the kicking game.

Let's face it a first game against a tough side in tough conditions and we pulled of a win, restricting them to 1 try in the second half.

Royce's comments also seam positive, he is going to rotate, so everyone is playing for a place. So I would not be surprised if Gaskell gets benched next game. Makinson rotated to FB and Gardner given his chance on the wing.

I'm glad he put Lance at FB, shows he is picking on form, so we can't moan if Gaskell gets dropped if the kicking was poor.

Hope he is also open to rotating the back on the bench policy too?