But no-ones slagging of Flash and Jones (currently).
We all acknowledge Turner has his faults, mainly based around decision making in defence, but they're far from the top of out list of things to be fixed imo.

Serious ? You don't think that left edge is near the top of the list of things that need fixing?

That left edge is massive massive problem and 100% near the top of the list.

And has it occurred to you that the main issue with our left hand side edge might actually be a little bald man wearing a number 7 shirt?

Turner has always had faults defensively, but for the early part of the season he was looking a lot better and more confident - even down to shooting out of the line and actually making tackles.

What exactly has changed between then and now??? Earlier in the year we had Wilkin (who is good defensively) operating the half role on our left hand side. We looked a lot tighter and players would have confidence in Wilkin to make his tackles. Cue Walsh coming back in (who lets face it isnt there to tackle but is one of worst defenders I have seen this season) and we look a lot worse.

Maybe it is down to a combination of Walsh's bad defence, and Turner making different decisions due to a lack of confidence in the ability of Walsh but either way our left hand side defence has looked miles worse since Walsh came back in. Maybe Walsh and not Turner is the biggest problem

Had it occurred to you read my posts?

I've said having walsh and Turner tohether is a open invitation to attack us but Turner was a poor defender at salford, poor defender at hull and he's still a poor defender at saints. We been miles open on the left ever since Turner arrived as every man and his dog knows he can't defend.

As you say, we now have walsh next to him that makes it 100 times worse.

Turner's defence didn't tighten up, it's been poor all year. He's 11th in the league for missed tackles, you think this only started when Walsh came into the team? And that stat doesn't even fully illustrate the problem because it doesn't reflect the times where he makes a bad decision causing someone to go through a gap where he should have been, like Leeds' final try in the CC Semi Final.

For your theory that Wilkin fixed the problem and Walsh is now causing it, despite Turner's defence being poor all year: Walsh has missed 28 tackles in 11 games this year. In his 12 games at halfback, Wilkin missed about 35. Turner missed about 36 tackles with Wilkin as his halfback, and only around 20 with Walsh there.

Not saying Turner is the cause of this either, but the last match, with Jones as his centre, is the only match Walsh has missed no tackles this year.

it has occured to me to read your posts...

The point I am making is that at the beginning of the season (pre-Walsh coming back) Turner's defence was actually looking good. He was moving up well and making good, hard tackles and stopping plays out wide before they became dangerous. It is only since Walsh came back it has got worse. Granted JT misses a lot of tackles, everybody knows that, but our left hand edge wasnt leaking tries/breaks galore in like we are now. It has got 1000% worse since Walsh came back and I would say the finger of blame points firmly at said little man in the 7 shirt before Turner as to how suspect our left hand side defence is.

turner has been one of our stand out performers for most of the season and I think its harsh some of the criticism thats been aimed at him. Also very disappointed (if its true what I have heard) that he is only on the bench for tonight's game with Jones staying in the centre...after watching Hull v Cas last week, the defence of Sa & Lineham is very suspect (would make Turner look world class in defence stakes). We should have him attacking those as it could be a great opportunity to score points...Jones is better defensively but isnt anywhere near as good with ball in hand as Turner



Not sure where you are getting those stats from, but Turner has missed 55 tackles so far this season with 28 of them being in the games Walsh has played in so that doesnt really add up. I wasnt saying that turner only misses tackles when Walsh is there (as said above we all know he is good for missing 2-3 a week). My point is that our left hand side defence wasnt being targeted and pulled to pieces earlier on in the season like it is now and the difference in that is Walsh has returned. Walsh (when fit) is a great ball player and obviously has to defend somewhere in the line, but pinning all the blame on Turner for our left side problems is very harsh considering he has Walsh who cant tackle, and Swift outside him who has a habit of shooting out of his line and being out of position.

FWIW I was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago and was talking to a current SL player about the same thing, and he even admitted that his team would attack Saints differently when Walsh is in the team as they know how much he struggles to cope defensively in comparison to having Wilkin in same role so would trust what he was saying

Fair enough but Wilkin didn't position himself on the wing in defence so the comparisons are difficult. Clearly Wilkins is a better tackler than Walsh and we looked more stable when he played at HB.

Walsh has been a major disappointment at HB and added to that is his very poor defence. But as a major big name signing he won't be dropped.

My initial reaction to Turner being on the bench was disappointing, but when you think about it we are leaking points in the first 20 mins, so Jonesy might tighten things up defensively but you can,t bet money on it at the moment.

We are still far too soft in the tackle down the middle, which causes and exposes the problems out wide, for tonight I would like to see a lot more dominating tackles shutting the opposition down, especially offloader Liam watts. If we allow Hull freedom to run. then they will gain a lot of confidence that they can win this game.

The clock is running down for Walsh and Burns to get there act together, they have got these 2 home games to get the team playing into form towards the business end.

Walsh and Burns are not just a disappointment they are a disaster. We all expected a dynamic duo and have ended up with a pathetic pair. As a previous poster said time is running out for them.

I shall await the melt down with interest.

Have other teams upped their game or have we got worse.

where's rommel no comments tonight ????