The last 2 month or so we have had trouble getting out of our own half. I agree the halves have been awful but the pack has also struggled.

Totally agree and im shocked at some of the excuses that's been made for mose by some fans. If he's wasn't the happy go lucky smiling samoan then people would be calling for his blood.

My favourite is that mose won us the grand final for that one shot in first min! He lasted 8 mins in that grand final and sure he made one carry in that spell.

who said he won us the grand final with that shot in the first minute? If you can remember back to last year, just before he went off after 8 minutes it was Mose who chased back down the left hand side and made the last ditch tackle on what would have been most likely a Wigan try. He also did a similar chase back against Wigan at our place this year again stopping a certain try, for such a big bloke to do this is a phenomenal effort in my book and again it was in the big games when he stepped up to the plate.

After watching him for Samoa against New Zealand in the world cup at Warrington I believed we had signed a gem of a player but if he could perform at that level week in & week out then no way would the NRL have let him come over here so all in all deep down I new he would have his flaws and have been satisfied with his contribution whist over here and enjoyed his stint in a Saints shirt. He has certainly been an improvement on the last big name import we last had although that wasn't hard to achieve.

Since when did ANY forward pack - no matter how good - dominate EVERY game throughout a season?

Packs - like players experience highs and lows. Being off its game for a few weeks is not unusual in a long season. Huddersfield looked like bottom-of-the-league material at the beginning of the year.

But not being able to effectively engage the back division for most of the campaign is suggestive of something far more serious than form.

Jones was in precisely the same situation as Turner because Saints are always defending narrow close to or near the line. We get away with it on Percy's side only because Percy is an unusually good defender who also happens to have arguably the best crash-tackle technique in the competition. But you can't expect everyone - whether it be Turner or Jones - to defend as well as Percy. He's a natural.

Why we cram so many guys into the centre of the field leaving both centres with the devil's own choice should someone clear the ruck and first receiver quickly is a question which only Keiron Cunningham can answer.

That's why I said over the past 2 month or so. I never said a pack should dominate every single week.

The last 8 or so games we have struggled to make meters apart from alex and was merely pointing out that last Friday we seemed to be more of a unit and share the work out more.

You mean to tell me Jones shot in on a 3 vs 3 because we were tight around the ruck? Every team defends narrow nowadays, how many teams don't use a sliding defence? Problem being that slide doesn't work if you've got centres and wingers doing their own thing and shooting in unnecessarily.

I haven't seen a single side in SL which encourages its centres to blaze out of the line and crash tackle as often as we do.

To be fair to Cunningham, it began to creep in more under Brown. But Brown aint here now.

My guess is the coaches aren't confident in the one-on-one defence of some of our bigger guys - especially against smaller, nippier halves and hookers. It's the only reason I can come up with.

I wouldn't play Masoe again now. I'd tell him he can pack his bags and go home early. I'm baffled as to why posters on here defend him and make excuses for his lack of carries, blaming poor passes or whatever. It doesn't seem to limit Walmsley's impact if that was the case.

There's no reason why Masoe can't make a similar contribution to the team as Walmsley does. Walmsley's a big lad, like Masoe. Yet he doesn't shy away from the graft. He knuckles down and does a magnificent job. He appreciates how lucky he is to be at a club like Saints after learning his trade in Championship. So for me, it's an attitude thing. Mose is the Nani of Rugby League.

IMO if we had 13 alex Walsley's in the side we would win the NRL but he is the exception not the rule. If you are looking at the pack IMO I am more disappointed with Amor than Mose and feel he has gone rapidly down hill since his first dozen games last year for whatever reasons. I feel he has lost size, strength & power.

Part of the problem of us not getting good yardage has been our poor and repetitive style of play. Pushing everything up the middle on drop off passes has been easy to defend against.



We did look better, but we were also shifting the ball wider more often and better. That created gaps in the middle for our big forwards to make breaks and half breaks. I'm not sure that the lack of yardage in the pack has just been down to individual players.

Masoe tends to gets a pass from most because he does tend to show in big games and people remember him rattling players. I don't think his stats are great and some of that will be down to him, but I do also think he's been used poorly at times. Last year, when he needed to do big minutes (generally in games when we carried injuries) he did them.

Comparing Masoe and Walmsley is silly. They are two completely different players with radically different physical builds.

Masoe is, what, 21, 22 stones?

How many forwards do you know who top out at a similar weight as Mose and do the same work as Alex Walmsley?

And before Mose's weight is used as a stick to beat him - yes. When he arrived he was clearly overweight. Right now he's close to optimum. He's certainly not failing his fitness obligation to the club.

20 stone apparently at 6"6 (and a half). Walmsley is 6"5 at nearly 18 stone. So admittedly I did get a bit giddy.

I doubt Mose is 20st. I used to think Mal Meninga was big but Masoe makes him look like a halfback. The guy is absolutely huge.

We shouldn't forget the difference in shape, too. Ask any sports fitness conditioner. They'll all tell you the same. Certain body shapes are more effective than others - depending on the role.

You only need look at their legs. Walmsley's are much longer with less of a cross-section. He has an absolutely enormous stride. Probably why he covers so much ground so quickly.

This is all about whether he deserves a place on the bench and although he is a bit of a fat pudding, on balance he is worth the bench place as he can offer something different if required during the game. Normally I would say that a 22 minute total mins player should be in the 17 but he can sometime do it for us.