It's do or die for Mick is this play off series. Minimum requirement is a grand final appearance.

The big problems we have is that the game has slowed down a lot, and our tactics no longer work. This has been compounded by missing vital players. You could also add that a lot our players are not as suited to a slower game. Having a bunch of well rounded second rowers, who do well in a fast game is great, but when it slows down you need pace and/or strength.

We have to change tactics.

Now in terms of the Potter issues, it is how he has been seen to reacting to the above issues. We have seen very little success in getting a Plan B, and little sign of things progressing.

This is compounded in some ways by his lack of charisma and authority in any interviews he has given. I am not saying this should happen, but if you aren't that good in the media then the world the way it is now, people will jump on you as soon as you start to wobble.

All that aside, he was coach of the year last year and that is something he worked up to over several years (not a flash in the pan). Also Saints have never faired that well in previous years to games were the PTB has slowed right down. Coming up with Plan B is not an easy task.

Potter deserves some time, but we need to start showing signs of progress.

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the fact that we cant even get the basics right atm shows a lack of coaching and when a player like Longy comes out in the press and admits he doesnt know if he's coming or going tactics wise thats a very poor state of affairs

caught my attention too that comment! if that's not clear enough for anybody to realise that some of the players are not "on board" with potters training methods then i dont know what will convince them?

An outgoing player.

And if you think all the players loved Millward and Anderson, you'd be way out.

Longy not getting kicks away on the 5th and passing to the deck have sod all to do with tactics, he'd do well to look at his own game for faults first.

Our players don't half come across as whiney little prima donna sometimes. Knuckle down and get on with it.

and a truthfull one also....

not at all.

I am firmly in the middle of the anti-Potter / pro-Potter debate. There are things that are down to him (tactics), but lack of basic ability (i.e. catching and passing) is down to the players themselves.

if we roll over in the next 2 games like we did on Friday, I would say he is on very thin ice.

was he truthful in 2006 when left and walked out on his country?

Relevance?

It is relevant. Long's been a great scrum-half for us, but I'm not sure I'd suggest that he's the guy I'd turn to for a cool-headed and rational assessment of what's going on at the club. He's got a track record of being impulsive, short-sighted, dumb and selfish off the pitch. Not all bad characteristics for mercurial scrum-halves, but chronically bad ones for pundits on management.

Players on their way out of a club (regardless of sport) are usually unsure of their 'role' within the team - mainly because some other bugger is often required to pick up the pieces and needs game time to help him do so.

And if I've heard one story about a St. Helens coach 'losing the dressing room' I've heard a hundred. Rugby players - like the rest of us - enjoy routine. Changes frighten them. If a new coach doesn't push a few of the established players' noses out of joint in his first year he's a good candidate for an early severance package.

That said, dressing rooms and coaches can and do part company. Not as often as the smoke-signallers on this site and RV like to claim, but it's a possibility. And when they do diverge it can be impossible to reunite them. Bad blood is spilt and in the heat of the moment things get said that - for some players - are impossible to forgive or forget.

Potter is in an onerous situation. Unlike Bomber, Hanley, Millward and Anderson he can't rely on a core group of exceptionally talented playmakers at the top of their game. Unlike Bomber, Hanley, Millward and Anderson he does not have a quick, creative or gamebreaking backline at his disposal. And I'll hazard his budget is a good bit lower than those of the four names mentioned, too. If it's a choice between spare cash being spent on the new stadium or the playing roster there is only one rational decision. I'm sure he'd love to have at his disposal some of the crazy money that was thrown at Newlove or Scully. But we all know there's no chance of that.

The truth is - given the resources available to us this season we have almost certainly exceeded rational expectation. And even irrational expectation couldn't drop below 'made target'.

I mean, seriously - with our backline (Gidley excepted) where did some of you figure we'd finish - ten points ahead of second place and the CC by sixty points to nil?

We were six points ahead of second place not that long ago this season, so that bit might have been possible given a few better performances and less experimentation with where players were playing (either side of the injury crisis, I mean).

I'm easily pleased.

I want to see the team play with 100% desire, and a decent amount of flair.

The result is, to a degree, secondary - although if we do the above, I can't help but feel the results will look after themselves.

What I can't tolerate is leaving my beloved Knowsley Road bored out of my skull - and that has happened far too many times this year.