A tremendous effort yesterday from the lads defensively, don't think we could have asked anymore from them. They put their bodies on the line in that game and anyone who was there can't question the desire, attitude and application that they showed. It was a complete contrast from the game against Wigan, however, Hull aren't the best side and with their continued insistence on driving it up the middle instead of getting it out wide did make it easier for us. But take nothing away from Saints' tackling yesterday, they did amazing to concede 3 tries.

Thought Josh Jones was outstanding. Turner didn't get a sniff all game because of the defensive work of Jones, he had him in his pocket. He has come into the side and done so well for someone so young and once he has another 2-3 years of first team experience we might have a very good centre on our hands.

Adam Swift was impressive too. He has very good footwork and for someone who isn't a winger by trade and won't play there for the rest of his career he has performed very well when asked to play. This will go on to give him confidence for his next apperance and the coaching staff now know that he can do a job in that position.

I can't really fault many players to be honest. The attacking game needs a complete over haul but it's easy to see why it suffered yesterday. Hohaia's try was tremendous and Swift's was a very good individual effort but to really improve attacking wise we need to repect the ball more than we do. There were occassions when we gave the ball up needlessly which caused more tackling to be done. Lessons need to be learned from that as on another day we could have conceded a lot more points had we not defended so well or come up against a better team than Hull.

I still wish they would have run that last penalty though!!

Cheers for the match report man of steel, always nice to get the point of view of someone at the game.

Radio and internet are ok, but they do not really match an eye witness account.

Interesting bit about the defensive work of Josh Jones. Thinking more to next year, could you see him switching sides with Shenton, to be on the more defensive side of the play and Turner to be on the more attacking side??

Isn't Turner on the right for Hull ? Turner and Jones at 3 & 4 sounds like an exciting combo to me , 2 centre's playing centre .. wow !

French seemed impressed with the Jones/Swift combo on the left and tbh I'd be tempted to persist with it for a few games rather than going back to Wheeler/Meli

Based on what I've read so far from Saints fans who went, plus what has been said in the trade press, Makinson was the star defensively (he actually got three points and MoM in League Express) with Shenton and Jones also having very good matches. I don't think there is anything wrong with Shenton that a bit of decent ball wouldn't fix.

I've been very impressed with josh jones, he's more than held his own. I'm not one for going OTT on youngsters as most on here know but I think josh jones looks quality.

Would jones missed them tackles last week that wheeler missed? I doubt it.

I agree , he is a natural centre and it shows in how comfortable his transition to 1st team has been so far. He is physically mature as well which is a massive advantage

At times Wheeler looks all over the place positionally

I'd give him a run at the expense of wheeler. Shenton has played well for two out the last three so might be getting some form back.

Spot on , at the end of the day Shenton is a proven player and of course an International centre who is a bit low on confidence.

I completely agree that effort alone doesn't win you games, which is why I get annoyed when people say that players need to play "with passion" and "play for the shirt". That's all well and good but you need the skill to match the emotional side, having the skill is the primary attribute in any sport in order to win games. I said in my earlier post that we need to respect the ball more than we do and not make it easy for the opposition to get the territorial advantage, otherwise we will continue to do an excessive amount of tackling. We have to make it as hard as possible for teams attacking our line which means keeping them as far away as possible.

I think that's why a lot of people get frustrated with Saints at the moment. It's like it's harder for them to do the basics right than it actually should be.

I understand why you question me on that. I felt we had them on the rack and even though attacking wise we weren't good we had six tackles to win the game from 10 yards out - anything could have happened. I personally wanted to see them believe that they could score and win the game. Wilkin went crazy at the decision to go for goal he wanted to run it. I suppose with the tackling they did maybe they didn't have enough left in the tank but now Hull could be 4 points clear of us (if they win their game in hand) and I thought for that reason it was a gamble worth taking.

But it would have been cruel for Saints not to have gotten some rewards out of the game so I suppose the right decision was taken.

I think you can use Jones on both sides of the ball. Defensively he is very good and although we have yet to really see much attacking play we have seen glimpses to suggest he has talent offensively too. I'd like to see him get more of the ball in the coming weeks to showcase his talents. I really didn't see much of Turner with the ball to make me think that we have to sign him, basically down to Jones shutting him down.

Same could be said of Shenton against Willie Manu. Shenton did very well yesterday and really nulified what attacking threat Hull have on their left hand side.

Personally I think Turner is overated, his improvements this year have been more down to better defensive structures with in the team, he looks very good against the poor and middle teams (did last year), but then looks average against the better teams.

Manu is an outstanding signing though, in the top 3 backrows forwards in the league (forget his age), hardly ever gets injured adnd regulary does 80 minutes.

Just seen the match report from Saints. It sounds like we could have won it if the ref had not blown early for a Hull FC knock on.

Even Rush says he wishes we could have run it but the gamble would not have been a very good pay off if it went wrong.