I think our forwards stood up and went toe to toe with the Giants. LMS was miles better than he's been for weeks. However:

1. Our dinosaur back three must have been a delightful sight for Brough. Every time he turned us by kicking early in the tackle count it took them hours to get back. Quite why Gardner was picked ahead of Makinson is beyond me.

2. Our last tackle plays were poor. There were one or two decent bombs from Wilkin towards the end, but most of our kicks failed to apply any pressure at all. Understandable given the change in personnel in the half backs, but, again, I'm not sure why Brown decided to try a new 6 at the same time as giving a young loanee with approximately 4 days at the club his debut in the 7 shirt. A pairing of Wilkin and O'Brien would have made much more sense.

3. Our attack looks like it is completely made up on the spot. There is absolutely no structure whatsoever. Our best moments came when we managed to get the ball to Manu and see what happens. An (unnecessarily) untried half back partnership goes some way to explaining that, but even bearing that in mind we just look completely un-coached with the ball in hand.

4. Our edge-defence is similarly amateurish. Percy made some poor decisions, but that's to be expected from an 18 year old. But it wasn't just him. We are far too easy to break down.

I'm not going to make any flip judgements on Brown at this stage, but I'm becoming increasingly concerned.

Then your expectations are way lower than any Saints fan has a right to hold.





You're usually a sensible poster, but this is simply wet excuses in my view. Of course it would be optimistic to expect Saints to challenge for the trophy without a recognised halfback. However, it would not be unreasonable to expect them to challenge to get in the top 8. At the moment, that seems vanishingly unlikely.

I'm fed up of the "no halves isn't Brown's fault" excuse. We started this season with Lomax, Gaskell, Hohaia and Wheeler as first team halves, and with cover from Ashe and Swift. Brown couldn't get a decent performance out of Lomax at half, so moved him to FB before he got injured. Brown couldn't get Gaskell's form back, so shipped him to Salford. Brown can't get Hohaia to perform in the halves, so plays him at centre, and plays a centre in the halves in Turner. Brown put Ashe in the team despite his being gash, and played Swift on the wing. I won't blame Brown for Wheeler's bones being made of polystyrene.

Brown has to take some responsibility. He's the coach, for Christ's sake, and he must have been involved in all recruitment decisions since the middle of 2012. If we don't have cover, and he can't get decent form out of the people he expected to play in the halves, then he has to accept some responsibility for that.

I don't understand why you're making excuses for him. If there's nothing the poor dear can do until we have a top-notch halfback from the NRL ride to the rescue, then what's the point of having a coach at all ? Tell you what, give me a quarter of his salary and I'll sit there frowning as we get smashed in game after game, and then go along to the press conference and explain it's nothing to do with me, we just don't have a halfback.

Great post.

A 25-16 defeat away to one of the two best teams in the competition, is not a reason to get Madam Guillotine out.
It actually gives us something to work on.

The problem is that due to our earlier injury situation we have found ourselves in a big hole which we need to climb out of. Time and games are running out.

With regard to the halfback situation. Clearly things have gone wrong, and I do think the coaching staff could have handled things in this department a lot better.
I think one of the reasons for this was to see if Wello could adapt to playing anywhere other than fullback. The fact he has now resorted back to his old position answers that question. It may also seal Pauls fate at the end of this season.

I see the WUM's are out in force tonight. It's to be expected after we have given so much for years. But in fairness to most, they have managed to just ignore them.

Hammerings with a 9 point difference.
Bullied off the park, yet we are making more meters.
There are glaring problems at Saints, but tonight we held up against the 2nd best side in the competition, after giving another massive head start. 3rd head start in 3 games.

It;s becoming expected.

We crippled ourselves by moving Wilkin to loose forward. I hope Ade's ok, but no way should Makinson have been dropped. I think the coach has to take his eyes off the future for a while now and concentrate on the current team.

It's not too hard, you get a new player in, so you keep it as stable as possible.

Lance needs to be dropped for ever. He offers nothing at all.
When Lomax is back, Wellens needs to be utility on the bench, no more.

It should be

Lomax Makinson Percival Turner Meli GOB Wilkin
TP Roby LMS Manu Sia Laffranchi

Walmsley Clough Wellens (Thompson/Walker)

no need to keep rotating the halves.

I didn't understand this, although to be fair it is very late now.



I don't think anyone claimed that we were hammered tonight, although we've certainly had some hammerings this season. But this is dangerously complacent, in my view. Huddersfield may be second in the league, but that was not a particularly convincing performance from them. Their discipline was worse than ours in penalties, and they made plenty of errors. The team Saints had out was quite capable of beating them. Yet we never looked remotely like doing so, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that - like Leeds - after going into an 18-point lead, they took the foot off the gas and struggled to get back up to full speed later in the game.

But what has firmed up my view on this issue is not one game; only a fool would seek to blame the coach for a single bad game. Teams have off days, or come up against oppositions on good days. But we are talking about Saints's worst ever season in SL. Certainly the worst season I've witnessed since I started watching them 30 years ago. When you have a run of 8 losses in 10 games, then actually you can reasonably deduce that there is something very wrong at the club that goes way beyond having a bad day at the office.

I worry, because these sorts of comments : "We held the second best team to a 9 point winning margin", or "if we had our full team out we'd be more than a match" or "We're just one or two players away from being competitive", are the quotes of losers. It's the sort of thing you'd expect to hear from a London or Salford coach after yet another predictable defeat. This is Saints, for Pete's sake, and we have far too many good players to be talking as if we're bloody Wakefield.

Just to give food for thought, let's turn it around and think of it this way : the coach's job is to get the best out of his players. Ideally, both as individuals, and as a team. Clearly, as a team, we currently are not doing well. But if that's just about missing a key individual, then we should still be able to point to plenty of other individuals who are playing on top form, despite the defeats.

So who, in our current roster, is playing at the top of their game ? Because if we can't think of many, then we have to ask ourselves whether Brown is not only failing to deliver the team's potential, but also the individuals' potential.

I'll give you two :

Walmsley has been playing very well. Although tonight he was not as effective.
Soliola has played consistently well in his last few games, although again, tonight he was less effective.

After them ? Who ?

What about the other 8 defeats or getting knocked out of the Challenge Cup at the 1st hurdle, is that not a reason?

By the way, didn't Huddersfield lose 8 of the last 9 games that Brown was in charge? Yet this season they're the 2nd best team in the competition.

Yes he's been dealt a crap hand, but he's managed to take a side that was 1 game off the Grand Final to 9th in the table.

I want us to be competitive. Instead we're 3 scores down before we even get going. And we only seem to get a few points on the board when the other team starts showing complacency. That team is not 9th best in the competition, it is capable of so much more. And I'm surprised by how many people are ok with saying it's not that bad because we were beaten by the 2nd best side in the competition...when did this thought process become ok? I've never known a mentality like this associated with Saints.

1. Huddersfield are not a great team, yet what they do as a team is excellent. They slow the play down so much its unreal and it works a treat for them.

2. Josh Jones is a decent kid but he is a shocking Centre, 2 passes all night and both forward a mile, awfull!

3. Wilkin same old tricks, 5th tackle penalties. Just not good enough that Jon and for me along with Perry and Hohiah the three players on massive money that we must get shut of!

Only one team spoiling and slowing down last night and it weren't us !!!! Saints look like us of last season typical Nathan Brown team our problem was over playing at 25-6 and giving you the ball back in our half !!!!

Surely that makes them a great team as what they do together as a team is excellent.

As for the holding down you are just regurgitating a three year old Brian Noble comment. Saints were far more guilty of that last night.

in the cold light of day Huddersfield destroyed Saints in the first half then started to force passes rather than sticking to the game plan. If even one or two of those had come off it would have been a cricket score.

Even after being gifted great field position Saints offered nothing. No shape in attack, no dummy runners, poor kicks. Undoubtedly this wasn't helped by the tinkerman changing various players positions to accomodate one man (O'Brien).

In summary Saints were lucky boys last night and need to improve dramatically to even hit the top 8. No-one is scared of them anymore and why would they be.

I think you missed the point. I wasn't suggesting that we had some right to win simply because we are Saints. I was pointing out that on paper, our team is stronger - significantly so - than most others in SL, yet we are achieving worse results and making the excuses of much weaker teams.

Agreed. Lots of our forwards gave Hudds problems and made good yards. We had plenty of territory and possession despite a poor kicking game, which is a sign the forwards were doing their jobs.