I think they are playing a bit smarter, the team spirit also looks good. Turner and Owens who have received the most criticism seem to have a lot more confidence. For me LMS and Greenwood have a lot of influence and are working well out wide with the centres.


Foot Note: Greenwood made 55 tackles and 100 metres yesterday.

For me, the main change seems to be much better defensive structure. We're still not scoring many tries, we still look unlikely to score from our half. We still haven't got quite the forward yard-making I'd like. But because our defence has tightened so much - particularly on the flanks - we can now win games we would have lost previously just by conceding more tries than the opposition.

Confidence is building, and that's obviously very important for attacking and support play. But it's defence where the notable improvement is.

Cunningham reminds of Radford, in reverse. Cunningham overly praises performances when he shouldnt, whereas Radford was openly critical of the team and individuals after defeats. Both seem to be learning this side of things, and starting to turn things around

6-7 weeks ago I wanted Cunningham out. I couldn't see things getting better. Stats backed up opinion in that it was our worst attack since the early 90's and worst defence since long before that.
Something has happened though...they're defending their hearts out, working hard for each other, this is turn as instilled confidence in other aspects of their game. Having Lomax back as given us a new dimension and again, I was one of the people who thought we should probably release him due to all the injuries. I also wonder if us sending a couple of dissenting (albeit quality) players out the door as maybe lifted the mood in the camp.

I don't for one minute think everything is fixed and we're back to our best, but I'm enjoying our performances and effort. I'm realistic in knowing that we'll lose a few more games before the seasons out but I'm starting to believe that the future still involves us being in the mix for winning trophies instead of declining into a middle 8's side.

Come on you Saints!!!

I noticed a change of attitude during the home game against Hull KR. Hull KR was Making us look like amateurs for large part of the first half and the crowd was booing the players. I think it's the first time I've seen saints booed so early in a game (20 mins).

We then put few tries on the board and the fans picked it up and was chanting and cheering, you could see the players notice this and they upped their game.

I think until that point, the relationship between players and fans was worst I've ever seen but all on the same script now.

Obviously any team will be much stronger with lomax back in and then Walsh coming back. Having them two adds more dimension in attack. We've gone from having likes SMD, Matty Dawson, the Young lads like ash and Wellington to having lomax, percy, Walsh all back from injury so our attack had to get better with those players back.

It was good to see Owens have his best game in saints shirt. Few good runs and took few kicks so let's hope he kicks on now.

You can add Peyroux to the awful / pointless list.

Everyone else did OK.
I thought Greenwood, Thompson, Robes, LMS, Percy, Walsh & Swift were the stand outs.
Loved the Walsh tackle on Currie !!

Owens is playing much better as indeed is Turner, but he also had a few brain explosions.

I wonder if Lomax has contributed to our defence.
When SMD and the other chap stood in for Lomax last year, it was noticeable how they could not get the numbers right in the defencive line.
It could be with Lomax at the back he is getting the numbers right and this is giving us a more solid structure.

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I think it's more a case of them being confident in Lomax's fitness now,when he came back players were switching around to keep him out of harms way. Now he has had a run of games and they don't have to cover for him anymore there is a lot more confidence in defence.

He shut down just about everything that moved in a wire shirt down that side, especially in the first half. He had quite a few good carries driving it in. Didn't do much attacking wise though and did bomb a decent chance with a poor pass.

I'm still not sure what to make of him, but all told I thought it was a positive performance on Friday and justified his selection

I think he reads the game quite well but doesn't do anything spectacular like Percival, a lot of our attack is down our left hand side so Peyroux and Owens get less ball in attack. The wire game was a bit of pressure for him to hit the ground running after his absence from a few matches.
The team just looks a lot more solid in defence, no one sprinting out of the line or mis reading plays, Turner and Owens are not showing up as weak spots in the back line at the moment.

I think he's pretty poor at making defensive reads and that was his big criticism in the NRL. He's like Turner in defence.

Peyroux imo is just your average run of the mill player. Offers nothing in attack at all and dodgy in defence. I'm not sure if he's even better than Matty Dawson tbh.

I'd like to see us bring a good centre in, I know we being linked with Jack Reed who is good player but very injury prone. We also linked to a kiwi centre but can't think of his name so it's pretty clear we in the market for a centre.

I think that's harsh, he's better than Dawson. If nothing else he's a lot stronger than Dawson, and it's makes an impact.

I'm no big fan of Greenwood on the right (he's so much better in attack down the left) but the combination of him and Peyroux completely nullified Sandow (top assists in SL) and Atkins (player of the month ... Somehow.) As such I think it's worth sticking with him at centre for now - if he slips into old habits of shooting out the line and Warrington was a one off, I'd start to think he's a write off. Most of the team would be considered terrible if we only considered them during the last period Peyroux played!

Justin Hoffman is the other centre we have been linked to, as well as Joel Moon.

I wasn't bagging peyroux performance last Thursday. He was great In defence stopping Atkins on that side and was very disaplined in not jumping out the line but I'm not sure he can do this every week tbh.

He's poor in attack and Matty made much more breaks than peyroux.

The only player I can really be critical of last Thursday was Richards. He went missing all match until he missed thst tackle that put wolves back in the game. I can't beleive how poor Richards has gone. I know he's young but he's miles off being a good super league prop.

We really do need to sign one or two props for next year. We really only have Walmsley (not having great season) , lms and amor that are really at super league level. Thompson is still hit and miss due to his age but got potential to be good prop. Tasi is just outright awful. Sav is out the picture.