Watkins, Hall, Gibson, Smith, Allen to name but a few.

The harsh reality is that when Cunningham, Gidley and Long retire I think you'll find yourselves drifting behind Leeds.

Not that I think that's anyone's fault as such as St Helens is a small town with a relatively small catchment area where as Leeds is a city of some 700,000 people and as the coming seasons go by, club's success will depend on bring quality youngsters and the big city clubs such as Leeds, Hull FC & Hull KR have far bigger player pools to tap into and will therefore be more successful in the long term.

Being a Hull KR fan it makes no odds to me, just calling it as I see it and I see your squad running into problems (in terms of continuing to win silverware) in the coming seasons for the reasons I have stated above.

Smith was not [ithat[/i bad. He can only call what he sees, he doesn't make things up.

We were terrible for the most part. Smith gave a few contentious decisions to Hull KR, as happens every game. Hull KR did enough to win, and fully deserved to.

What cost us was not Smith, it was Longy runnung around like a headless chicken on the last tackle when he should have set-us up for a drop goal.


Congratulations to Hull, they fully deserved it.

On our second half performance with a LOT of tough calls against us including the disallowed try, I would say that we deserved a draw and should have had it.

WTF were we thinking in the penultimate set that we had. It was a cert drop goal from 10 yards out and we went for glory.

Bad decision not to take the draw and be content. Even the HKR fans must have thought WTF have they done in just throwing the game away.

A draw would have kept the unbeaten home run going and was the least we deserved.

It wasn't great rugby but we showed a lot of heart and the kids played very well indeed.

Disappointed as it could have still been 23 years or whatever since they beat us at home.

A referee can quite easily make things up, especially when it is not on TV. He can claim to have seen something that never happened, which Smith seemed to do a few times.

Sometimes it goes for you, sometimes it doesn't. If we'd have scored then everyone would have been saying it was a great decision, it just needed a good kick and we would have won the game. Theres no saying that the drop goal would have gone over, like i say, sometimes they go for you, other times they don't.

Which says Rovers were disciplined. End of.

10 yards out. Bang in front. Dead cert.

Bad decision.

So your actually suggesting that Smith is cheating? For what benefit?

If he made things up he wouldn't be a ref. Everybody would complain.

Face it, we got beat. The ref, doesn't make you knock on. The ref doesn't make you take stupid options. The ref doesn' t miss any tackles. The ref doesn't go for it when you should be taking one point.

A referee could cheat for several reasons, such as he dislikes a certain club, he dislikes a certain person involved with that club. It is easy for a referee to make things up, he can claim to see things that no-body else has.

It does my head in when people say things such as the referee doesn't knock on and the referee doesn't miss tackle. The fact is, if a referee constantly hammers a side with penalty's the other side will score eventually as the pressure will get to the other team and they will tire.

I agree, it must have all been Longs fault. Not Wheelers for taking it on his own, not Gardner's for dropping it earlier on when he could have scored, not Grahams for giving away the penalty at the end that lead to them kicking the penalty, not Gidley's for making two breaks and failing to look for his wing man. Just Longs because he was the only one that made an incorrect decision. All because hes better than Matty Smith.

The disallowed try was for a pass that was a mile forward - you can't expect to get away with those types of passes forever.

And as for deserving a draw; the fact is you opted to go for a drop goal with 10mins to go instead of going for the kill which shows your side lacked bottle in the face of a defence who fronted up.

Saints can play some skillful RL at times but in any game were the going gets tough (Wire aside), your team goes into it's shell resulting in weak options like dropping a goal with 10mins to go - in harsh terms this is the choice of a team full of "flat-track bullies".

The return fixture promises to be another great match but whether both teams have their respective players missing from last night or both suffer further injuries, I fully expect another hard fought Rovers victory whilst you have as poor a back 3 as Wellens, Gardner and Armstrong.

smith hasn't officiated at that many of saints' games though has he,since anderson banished him elsewhere on gameday?

What about the knock on that he let go that your team scored from.
Head high by Maurie, lucky to be on the field in my opinion.
You played poor get over it.

I think smith was as bad to both teams, and i really dont rate him at all, but the match was awesome and he didn't ruin it

So you are [ireally[/i suggesting Ian Smith is a bent ref. Nothing to do with giving what he saw?

I'm not saying every decision he made was correct.

I look forward to reading about Smith not being a ref in the next few weeks. If he is cheating then surely the club will complain? other team? the fans? and he will be remove from being a ref.



But it is true.



Where have I said that?



I figured all of those could be encompassed in the phrase "taking the wrong option".