Why can't he start with the team that played so well in the first half against the bulls with wello at fullback and lomax at 6?

We all know lomax is our future fullback but wello at 6 doesn't give the team any balance at all.

Howarth at 2nd row was always going to be a disaster.

I'm not a sack the coach man but it's surely past the time! Enough is enough.

You're of course spot on that the team set up like that doesn't have any balance - but I don't agree with your solution.

With O'Brien more a play maker halfback, it'd be most balanced to put Hohaia next to him. Lomax for me has to stay at FB.

Wellens has been a great servant, but the game's now passed him by. He's far from a poor player still, despite a lack of pace, and I can see the temptation to play him *somewhere* but he just isn't good enough for any individual position.

Howarth is just so far from SL standard it's a joke.


But back to Brown....

Anyone else think he reckons himself far too smart for his own (and the club's) good? RL isn't that complicated a game. And yet, Brown's tactical talks must be like getting a lecture in quantum physics. He has players lining up in different positions for different phases of the game - not just attack or defence, but seemingly at different times in the tackle count.

Rush was ultimately too safety-first (and hampered the development of certain young players as a result) but his positive impact on results arose, IMO, from his simplification of the gameplan.

I appreciate Brown has had to try to work out a formula within the key pivot positions, and has been hampered by injuries, but he's still dicking about with players being moved out of position and into unfamiliar roles - even within games.

We're reaching the -end of the season now, and he's still buggering about with different combinations and roles. As the OP said, there's no consistency, no opportunity for players to gel and become familiar with what each other can offer and how their team mates' operate in their role within a game.

I was critical of Brown's appointment before it was even confirmed but so wanted him to do well after the abysmal Potter, the inconsistent Simmons and the out-of-his-depth Rush. But he's becoming a disaster for Saints and the worst part is, there's not even a chink of light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

The clock is ticking for me with Brown now.

The injury situation at the club is now not a concern. We have our big guns back.

However tonight players didn't have a clue. A couple of things sum it up for me. They were asking each other who was going to kick the penalty in to touch. They should know that. Secondly when forming scrums when your 16-0 down you don't amble across without a care in the world, you form a scrum quick get the clock stopped and get some momentum in attack.

These players were last year good enough to finish in the top 3.
Tonight they looked like a side that is bottom 4 material.

I have to question the dropping of Paul Clough to accommodate Howarth in the second row.
We would have been better with Clough at prop and Lafranchi playing right side second row.

I know he isn't great but Hohoia also offers more at 6 than Wellens does.

Our team is currently vastly underperforming and that comes down to the coach. The side we had out tonight should be a side challenging for a top 4 place on paper. The fact we look like we will struggle to make 8th says it all.

Why would we want to stick with a winning formula when we can stumble around the field looking like a team of strangers!!! ?? Brown seems to have lost the plot totally. That was one of the most inept performances I have ever seen saints produce, I dread to think what the completion rate was

I personally don't think O'Brian is good enough. I've not seen a saints scrumhalf drop the ball of pass to the ground like he did tonight.

I'd be very reluctant to keep him to be honest.

Next 3 games, Cas A Wigan H Catalan A. 0 pts? Time for Brown to prove himself.

It was confusing as hell tonight. Howarth at 11, Wellens at 6 then 11 then 3, Turner at 3 then 5 etc etc

Some of his subs were baffling tonight. I couldnt believe he didnt bring Hohaia on earlier to at least have a go.

I'm not a man who chops and changes, stick with S!

Well we won't - but he is a ball player (despite occasional butter-fingers), and in that respect is closer to the proper scrum half we've signed for next season. The theory is that playing with O'Brien at 7 should get the players more into the mindset of having a genuine No7.

The problem is that Brown won't play a No6 at No6, instead preferring to pick a third-rate hooker, a has-been full back or a centre/winger.

Then again, before long what's the betting we see O'Brien line up on the wing?

It's just awful.

There is not much more to say really just awful.

I could name a different line up that I think would do better, but in the end it would still mean playing a loan halfback and a none halfback.

But as has been said there is enough money and quality on the field to put up a better fight than that. But if some players have realized that the end is nigh for them, how do you motivate dead weight.

I agree Brown has to take responsibility for the bad stuff, but we have just signed players specifically on his say so.

Lost patience with Brown, now proved to me that he is clueless. Left the ground on 70 mins never done that for 25 years.
What was the fiasco on the bench in the second half, our coaching team didn,t know who to bring on or off, Lance warmed up for 20 mins and took 3 attempts to get him on the field.
Just hope we finish 9th, I,ve had enough of Brown and his selection, lack of game plan and destruction of the conventional Saints style of play.

I was calling for Hohaia at half time at Hooker & moves Robes to 13. At least try & speed up our play. Lomax & Wellens should have reverted roles not sure what our coaching staff watch at times. The difference in line speed & how their forwards ran onto the football was alarming.

Did our forwards run on to the ball at all during that match?

I hate to say I told you so, but if you read back to my posts when he was announced, I said this would happen. His defensive and offensive patterns are very different to what we're used to and it was always going to take a long time to sort. Not getting him in as soon as Huddersfield sacked him was another enormous mistake from McManus.

Having said that, I've had enough of Brown. He was another coach, like Potter, who clearly didn't want to do the job in the first place. He clearly wants a job in the NRL, but having achieved nothing he's never going to get one. So instead of going home to no job, he's staying at Saints as a backup plan. He doesn't care about the club or it being successful.

When you've got a Chairman who also doesn't give two hoots about winning trophies, you've got a potent recipe.

The whole culture at the club needs to be changed. They don't want to be successful.

I'd keep him until the end of the season but we shouldn't be signing him permanently. I deliberately avoided the O'Brien thread because I had my doubts based on the Huddersfield & Bradford games when he made a few errors but tonight confirmed what I thought that he isn't really good enough for a permanent deal.

As for Saints tonight, it was the most clueless and heartless display of the season. We were poor against Huddersfield but they were red hot that day and we were dreadful against Widnes but we had 10 out. Tonight we were full strength, we have no excuse whatsoever for that shower of a showing. Another disgraceful home performance. Having a season ticket is the equivalent of burning money.

The forwards were dreadful from minute one. I cannot believe Laffranchi is getting a new deal, he is absolutely woeful, he offers no impact. Puletua isn't the same player he was a few years ago, he's lazy and looks like a player that is ready to retire. LMS is the most frustrating forward I've seen in years, he is a penalty machine and it's usually a stupid penalty when we're working our way back into the game that he gives away. Walmsley is the one prop who makes yards for us and tackles hard but at the moment his fitness isn't great. He was lagging a few times and teams start targetting him in defence. He has great potentisal and has had a great season but he's still a young kid learning the game. We badly miss Soliola's graft and aggression in the pack. I posted that he'd be a huge miss for us and it proved that way tonight, He's an irreplaceable player in our team right now.

The lack of attacking ideas was really worrying. Hull KR are 7th, they're not s top team, yet we didn't really know how to break them down. Apart from one good pass from Lomax (for Meli's try) we never really challenged the Hull KR defensive line. Hopefully Walsh can help remedy this next season but he will need a stand off to partner him, we cannot persist with Wellens in that position and Wheeler as we know is unrealiable.

The lack of direction, passion and heart was probably the most worrying aspect tonight. There was not one player in the team driving us forward. It was 17 individuals trying to do a job with no real direction. Since Graham left we haven't had anyone to do it and it was massively in evidence tonight, summed up by the lack of urgency to form a scrum.

I think unless our recruitment and retention approach changes dramtically in the next few years we'll remain trophyless. Myself and DD from redvee discussed how many more years it would be before we won a trophy. He reckoned another 5 to make it 10 without a trophy... it's difficult to argue especislly when players like Wellens, Gardner and Laffranchi are supposedly "earning" new contracts.