Not really. Most of the Saints fans I was watching the game were miffed that the Grand Final was a one-sided romp for Leeds so I don't know how you got that impression.

As for Cas' drop in form. I'd suggest that's more to do with other teams improving their efforts e.g. Saints and Warrington. Take those two, with their NRL experienced coaches, out of the equation and Cas would be comfortably top 4. What Holbrook is doing is raising the standard of the game over here, which in turn is exposing the lack of quality coaching within this competition. The success last year was great but it was tied in with a competition which has been stagnating since Maguire left Wigan at the end of 2011. Now that coaching quality is rising again, so it becomes harder to compete.

The majority of the fans from the "big" clubs had a lot of respect for the way Cas played the game and I don't think they would have complained at all if they joined the party and became superleague champions.

Come grand final day i reckon the question was Daryl Powell a good enough coach to get them over the final hurdle, it appeared not then the question later was Cas going to be one season wonders. It appeared so early in the season but Powell has got them firing a bit better despite the injuries to key players. There have been a lot of ups and downs with teams having the odd injury crisis to disrupt winning momentum.

Wigan and Saints have not had a lot of injuries to key players and there defence is a pretty hight standard, obviously thats why they are currently 1 and 2 in the league.

Warrington and Castleford look as though they can go up a level but there defence is currently not where it should be, still lots of games to play yet but I think there is more pressure on Warrington and Cas to be more consistent if they are to make a serious challenge.

Almost every part of that post validates my opinion that top sides are snobs - Holbrook has done sod all as yet and neither have Saints, nothing or nobody has be ‘exposed’ yet, your post is a crock.

Let’s see if your still boasting when McDermott or Wane come good at the end of the seaon as per (which incidentally is what happened to Cas last year) - learn from history is my advise.

Raising the standards of the game over here?? Good lord. Holbrook is doing well but christ he had a decent squad vastly underperforming and was handed SLs best player on a plate....an absolute gimme for a coach so far and as stated he's won nothing yet. Wigan arent exactly on fire, wires recovering from a horror season (a much bigger rebuilding job), Leeds are gone (for now), cas struggling and hull decimated with injuries yet saints are still nowhere near as dominant as Wire 2011 or Cas 2017. Holbrook looks a good coach so far but typical scouse hyperbole to have him down as some sort of coaching god and revolutionary here to save the British game.

Agreed. Sts aren't playing some revolutionary style, but they are playing with confidence and getting the best out of Ben Barba, who has genuine class.

I'd say Cas at their best last year were a better side than Sts this year. Some of their ball movement as a team was really top class, which a couple of NRL coaches commented on. The Eden no try was about the only time they showed similar flair in the GF, and showed what they could do if they could execute their plays. Luckily for Leeds Cas' ball control was U9s level whilst we managed something like U12s.

Cas in 2017 won the league by 10 clear points so can see how you can say Saints aren’t quite at that level of domination yet...

Wire in 2011 however finished top of the league 1 point in front of Wigan and 7 in front of Saints in 3rd. Currently Saints sit 4 points clear of Wigan in 2nd and 6 clear of Wire in 3rd.

Not sure how you can make the statement saints aren’t as dominant as Wire 2011 (who didn’t even make GF that year), or more importantly bou can say Wire dominated the league in 2011 finishing a point clear

He's clearly referring to the amount of points we were putting on teams during matches. where we were racking up big scorelines, saints haven't been doing that this season.

1 Wolvescolours.svg Warrington Wolves 27 22 0 5 1072 401 671 44
2 Wigancolours.svg Wigan Warriors 27 20 3 4 852 432 420 43
3 Saintscolours.svg St Helens R.F.C. 27 17 3 7 782 515 267 37

Despite not "racking up big scorelines" Saints have averaged 33 points a game, compared to the 39 points a game you highlight here. When you consider Warrington 2011 is averaging conceding 2 points a game more than Saints 2018, is 4 points really the difference between dominating and not?

Only two teams have dominated a year, Saints 2006 and Leeds 2015. The better question is will the Saints 2018 team follow in their footsteps, or fall away like a Warrington 2011 or Cas 2017.

The game in 2018 is a bit different to the game in 2011 also, much slower these days with time wasting, wrestling mauls, ambiguous ref calls etc. I don't recall any of Saints games this season when they have been in top gear for 80 mins, they have a decent attack but its there defence which has got them where they are at the moment, I think they have hit 60+ points this season on 2 occasions this season but its getting a rare occurrence in super league these days as no other team has come up with big scores as mentioned.

Give over. All the table is showing, pretty similar to previous years is that things are based on how healthy your squad remains. Saints have stayed pretty good injury wise barring Walmsley but you should be able to cope with a single long term injury. Let's see how Holbrook does if he has to go a sustained period withoit 6/7/8 starters like some others are doing.

That’s the best & most honest assessment of last years Grand Final I’ve read!!