I still feel we could do with Briggs for his kicking alone. Not taking anything away from the win last week, the kicking game was pretty average, in fact at times poor.

I thought you looked decent on Friday night, certainly the best I've seen you for a few years and that includes a winning performance and Knowsley Road two years ago.

That was easily the best we've played at our temporary home too and it was a pretty even game.

Definitely moving in the right direction as a club from what I can see.

I've heard that from other saints fans that aside from the Leeds match, that was their best performance so far

The people I have the highest regard for are those of us that, for want of another phrase, give an honest appraisal of where we are without gloss or tarnish.

Because I have to say that as much as endless negativity is tiresome, I find the flipside really sodding annoying. People scampering on moonbeams telling us we would beat Saints weren't dealing with reality. A narrow loss and encouraging performance is as much as we could have hoped for and I'm pleased by the result.

Maybe, but we're still not sufficiently drilled yet to take advantage are we? It's going to take time. The fact that we didn't get stuffed is already an improvement on last year. I can see we're going in the right direction broadly speaking and that's enough for me.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

It was our best performance at Widnes, yes, and by a considerable distance too. But we performed well at Salford, which was fairly easy as Salford were crap at that time, and apparently we performed well in France also. We performed well in the second half against Wigan at Magic and came within a goal kick of beating them. Snatching a draw was a good result for us, especially with our halfback problems. However, we have been dire at Widnes. So although our performance wasn't brilliant, it was an improvement on what had gone before at Widnes and that is what everyone was hoping for. The Leeds match stands out as being an example of what we can look like when things go very well. Of course Saints fans are all hoping that we will look a lot better than we did at Leeds later in the season!