Funny that since you agreed with some of what I said!

I've made up nothing, except the imaginary conversation which I did say was imaginary (that means made up, in case you aren't aware!).

All views are selective, all of the time.


And you know this how? You don't. As you said above, we can all be selective in the views we take. You have selected to choose not to believe a coaching collective exists; at present anyway, I choose to believe that it does.

People just interpret the evidence in their own way, as you said above.

I can assure you that I know that already. However, the context of all of this is not about players having a chat with the coach. It's about a coach and his assistant being sacked because some senior players were unhappy, then two totally inexperienced (at this level) people replacing that coaching staff (a situation no Saints fan would have tolerated if those replacements had not been who they are) and going on about playing the Saints way and players being happy in their rugby and all that stuff.

To properly appreciate a point, or indeed anything in life, you have to take it in its context. That is the context of this discussion which makes it different from, say, players having a chat with Daniel Anderson.

That's a joke isn't it?

And then winning 5 out of 6 games since they were put in charge after coming off the back of 5 games without a win!

Personally I think your making stuff up with the 'coaching collective' but I guess you're entitled to your opinion. Either way it appears we are better off with the way it's going now than the way it was, coaching collective or not.

Leeds recently lost three games in succession, but they then won a game. In fact, Leeds were terrible last season and everybody wrote them off. But hey, they still managed to beat us at OT. So unlike a lot of people I didn't put half as much importance in those losses, which were all extremely close, as many people did.


I'm either making stuff up or I'm expressing an opinion. Do you know the difference between the two?

Let me help you. I'm expressing an opinion. I've said that all along.

Let me ask you something.

If McManus had announced that Mike Unknown* who oversaw youth development at Crunulla Sharks plus Keiron Legend* who retired from playing there a year ago were going to coach Saints after the sacking of Royce Simmons, would you have been happy at that appointment?

PS: For those still unsure of the difference, the names with the asterisks marked beside them are made up. That is, they are imaginary.

No you haven't. In the first instance you stated that the reason Foster wasn't playing was because Meli wanted to play on the wing and there was a 'coaching collective' in charge of the club. You didn't express it as an opinion, you stated it as if it were fact.

No I didn't. I made up some ridiculous names to illustrate the situation we are in at present. Saints fans would have expressed outrage if two coaches with the combined experience of one season as an assistant at first grade had been appointed from outside the club. Do you disagree with that statement?

However. Because - and only because - the two replacement coaching staff comprise Mike Rush and Keiron Cunningham clearly they need no extra help at all.

Oh, I'd like to know what this 'Saints way' of playing is btw? Is it how we played under Millward or under Anderson or what? Coz we look no different to me than we did when Royce was in charge (except that we have cut down on the individual errors).

What? You mean I have to say 'in my opinion' every time I write anything for it to qualify as an opinion?

Exactly how do you think it could be anything other than an opinion? Do you think I am one of the coaching staff or something?

Have you been watching the same team as me? We've looked a lot better than the team that started the season so dismally. The stats showed that we made more metres, more offloads, more breaks since the change - a completely different team, and part of this has been the decision to leave gaskell and foster out and play a more experienced team.

With regards the hypothetical situation, of course it would be a concern however it is what it is, Mike Rush & KC know the club inside out, they know the players better than most and they know what it take to have a succesfull team having been involved in one for many years. Would you honestly rather we'd stuck with Simmons and expected to see the same turnaround from the team?

I think you are confusing style of play with level of performance. I was talking about style of play, responding to the point about playing 'the Saints way'. But we were as conservative against Widnes as we were against Bradford and Hull, for example. The big difference is that certain players have started making an effort going forward (attitude) and the individual errors have dropped. As you identified, the greatest sources of those indivdual errors were Gaskell and Foster and they have been dropped (something I too was suggesting over a month ago so as to get their confidence/form back).

I wonder if anyone ever considered that we actually need to play conservatively because the team is not capable of playing otherwise?


Well, as I've said before, I wasn't of the view that the team would have stayed the way it was with Royce in charge because we turned around last year and on that evidence there was no reason to believe we wouldn't have turned around this year, especially since our losses were so very close (and in the last two, with Robes and others out injured). However, what I would rather have is an experienced coach in charge and unlike some people I don't rate our current set up solely based upon the fact that they've been at the club for ages. That doesn't make them good first team coaches. I think though that McManus was banking on the fans being appeased in the way that many have been appeased because he would have known that he couldn't have pulled off what he did without choosing exactly those two people to be in charge.

However, I just view them in the same way I would any other coaching team and so far as I can see, bar the individual errors, we haven't changed as a team. We still have the same frailties, as last week showed. We still play to the same style.

Incidentally, we now have more inexperience in the team than we had when Royce was here because Josh Jones and Adam Swift are brand new to the first team. Nobody brand new came in this season under Royce. So I think that might undermine your suggestion that we needed more experience.

No i'm not confusing anything. We're doing lots of things differently now and players are given different direction under the current coaches, I know that for a fact too so it's unfortunately not something thats open for debate.

With regards to your experience issue, anybody who isn't so obsessed with Royce Simmons would be able to tell you that experience in the team has been key, the thing with Swift in particular is it's easier to bring youth into a team that isn't under the cosh in the same way we'd been. It needed some experience to steady the ship, that did the job and now we're in a far better position that we were under Simmons.