I'd recorded the match to watch after kids' bedtime. Have to say I wasn't looking forward to it. What a lovely surprise. Not just the score, but seeing a Saints side passing the ball, breaking the line and supporting the runner. So much better to watch than the one-man-up stuff we've had so much of. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's some collective guilt by the players that they lost Simmons his job. But let's hope they can keep it up for at least another two weeks, hey ?

Spot on. And they know it too.

It's a chicken and egg thing though isn't it.

We can say well they should have done that for Royce, but if the plan was not right under Royce then how could they???

It's like saying, ok boys Royce has told us to do x , y and z all week, we all know it's pants so back on the bench, don't turn up on Friday night well get a forward in.
TP I know your down to prop, but forget it just run out wide like a loose forward.
Guys, we've been told, hold the ball inside our own 40, but actually scrap that and get those offloads going.
Lance Gaskell and Lomax are playing in the half backs but you sneak in there and take control from them.

etc etc etc....

We say they have to play to a plan but if that plan does not work we say they should be good enough to do better or must not be following the plan. This week they follow a different plan and we say they should have done that last week.

Just a reality check


9 th St. Helens
Played 8
Won 3
Drew 1
Lost 4
Points for 220
Points Against 161
Point difference 59
Game point 7

There is still a huge amount of damage to undo and the next 2 games are no gimmies by any stretch of the imagination. We are still more likely to hit Easter outside the top 8 than inside it. Even if we beat Warrington we will still be 4 points behind them. Not trying to be pessimistic, 1 win out of 3 in the next set of games looks good when you see Leeds Wire Wigan. But it looks less good when you look at where we are in the league. In reality to get back in the fight we need to beat one of Warrington or Wigan. If we could beat both then it really would be game on. But I'd be happy for a good performance and close games to show we are up there, then try and get a run together to get as high as we can, before we meet them again.

That's the most fun I've had watching Saints in a while.

Not only did the whole team move well, but they did so at pace, which pushed and pulled the Leeds defence all over the shop and allowing our runners to take advantage.

You could see that every play the defence had a few things on their mind, rather than a single prop rumbling towards them.

Who knows how long this will last, how much is down to [ishock factor[/i and how much is the new coaching approach, but we crammed mroe good rugby into that 80 minutes than we have in 7 games previous.

Anybody else want sunday rugby back it was brilliant, the atmosphere was the best since the Millward days.

Very true, alot of those options came through Lance taking first receiver. He could pick forward either side, or run cross field and take a wider option, or spread the ball to Lomax. It was good to see.

It was tremendous. Players in movement all over the place, an aggressive pack, Lance running the show nicely, Ade and Meli getting us rolling early in the sets and Puletua wreaking havoc on the left fringe. Great to see them playing so freely. Lets hope we can sustain these elements on something like a consistent basis.

I think you should be rather peeved with the players that the same team (plus roby) can put in a performance like that yet couldn't be d to do even 50% of that in the previous losses (bar maybe Cats)
Yeah it's great you turned over the whinos & in very decent fashion but I'd be more worried about player attitude. There's no way a game plan can be that wrong for this kind of massive turnaround and what happens if things go wrong some time in the future, will you give the players the same kind of leeway or just allow them to dictate how much commitment they are going to put into playing?

It starts at a confident dummy half. Even before Roby's abilty at running, his presence is already giving the defence something else to thing about.

I've argued about the things we needed, moves, runners etc and knew if we got that organised we'd be much improved. I didn't expect it to be to that degree theough and one thing I definately didn't expect was Lance's kicking game!? Where did that come from?

Past the players already praised, I'd like to give a little mention to Mark Flanaghan, he punctuated a night full of attacking with some brutal defence. LMS had a smashing game, too.

When I saw the bench, my words were "Well, they're not f***ing about."
I spoke on another thread about how, since Meli had moved to the centre, we'd missed his go forward on the first tackle, but that you had to offset that against his weaknesses. Luckily Leeds didn't have enough field position to put any pressure on him except for the one high kick that he took.

Its not just about players turning up and doing that though, and Roby was not the difference. Lets not forget the rott set in whilst Roby was still playing before his injury. But the time off did make him look alot fresher. And they took him off once the match was wrapped up. (he does not need to play 80mins even if he can).

The game plan was different in many aspects there are also other things that can't be discussed on a forum that where also issues that will never be discussed. Player power is also at fault, because players where playing to a game plan that was not good enough, playing people out of position, rotating players in form, yes they should man up and play what ever the coach says, but also the coach should not be dogmatic in his approach and be flexible to new ideas. (or even old ones).

Baring injury those players will play again next week and then we can see was it a poor leeds or an awesome saints.

Thought you were very good indeed in all aspects of the game. We were woeful but if we'd been merely good we'd still have lost. Really looking forward to seeing how you get on against Wire this week.

Who knows how that will go. Can we play that well again? We worked hard, but some days more things do go right for you than others.... .... ....

i would just like to say well done saints.. top rugby there.. .well come back...see you good friday..

I don't think we can play at their intensity if they play well. I also doubt we can keep them out near our line or do enough to threaten close to their's. Most of the key points against Leeds were breaks around the ruck with very little width involved. We could certainly do with Mr Westwood being banned.