Have I been watching the same player for the past decade?

Given the rhetorical nature of your question, I assume you beg to differ. Go on then I could do with a laugh, name me a better SL loose forward from the last decade.

Agree entirely. However, ask yourself this: if SOL had been coming through as a kid today, would he of had the time and opportunity to develop into the player he is at lock? I don't think so, coaches seem desperate to mitigate the risk of throwing a kid into the deep end in "strike" position for fear they'll mess up, as a result they never fully master the craft - it's why we are still struggling massively in certain areas for the England squad.

It's something Saints struggle with massively, all our young halves who come through play wing, centre, fullback etc and never have the chance to adopt the crucial 7 position for their own. Instead they become first choice in other areas that are less "risky".

On O'Loughlin you have to give Brian Noble credit as he persevered with him when he was a bit of a joke figure amongst most clubs fans: when Wigan were garbage in the mid 2000s SOL was seen as the most overrated young player in the game. Remember when Noble would include him in a GB squad, these forums went in to meltdown "if he played for any club other than Wigan.....???".

The game moves forward but the fans don't.

Hence a lot of coaches get criticised because they don't conform to the predictable old patterns that the fans grew up comfortable with.

The irony is, if any old school coach tried to come back in to the game now, Maurice Bamford, Alex Murphy etc the fans would probably reject them as they would say "the game has moved on"....

So you're saying you'd rather have a Harrison / LMS 13 than Sculthorpe and o'loughlin in today's game ??

Even Gallen who is probably the worlds best in the prop at 13 role can't offer what these 2 did in their pomp.

I agree with what you're saying about skilful ball handling props , but that is limited. I'm still yet to see a prop throw a 20 yard cut out pass or possess a kicking game the likes of the 13's I have mentioned can do

spot on this workrate was massive yesterday. If he is not the answer at 13 fair enough but his commitment yesterday was outstanding

My question to TS would be - Is the Warrington philosophy working.
Every time we are on TV the pundits applaud us for the way we play and try to balance our error / completion rate against our willingness to push passes to create opportunities.
Does it work against the big teams when they are in form?
Over the last couple of seasons has it lost us more big games than we have won against the big teams.
From 2008 to 2012 it was a bit of a shock to play against a Warrington team who threw the ball about but could also defend if they lost possession.
But can we defend against sustained pressure from a team that is prepared to play to a game plan based on building pressure and introducing fatigue into our team.
When that happens (Widnes did the same) our error rate increases as we are playing under fatigue.

It is great that we can sick 60 points on London but so can Wigan and Leeds when they choose to. But Leeds and Wigan can also play boring but effective rugby in the big games.

We didnt help ourselves from the first minute yesterday with Russell running straight into Ben Harrison and then Ratchford kicking out on the full but Leeds looked like they were not bothered about scoring for the first 20 mins. They just wanted to drain the juice from us and it worked, we could never catch up after that.

Do we persist with this way of playing, Ignoring knock ons the amount of ball we give back to the opposition by either obstruction penalties or simply passing the ball to them is frustrating, after 25 minutes you could see the enthusiasm drain from the players when we lost the ball, The high fives and 1 finger in the air had started to fade away as the thought of defending for another minute hit home.

Dont get me wrong I have enjoyed the way we play but I would prefer to play boring and beat Wigan in a final than go down having played a nice brand of rugby.

I completely agree.

There are so many differing and varying opinions on not only what the 17 should be and which position they should play, but no combination would have steered us to a win after that first half.

Possession, less so territory, is all-important in conditions like yesterday.

I fully expected Leeds to turn up with what I regard as their play-off tactics.
They try nothing, get to the sixth and, depending on where they are on the pitch, either kick high to the corner or distance.

They would be my exact same tactics if I was coaching a team against Warrington.
Play safe (even dull), get to the sixth and wait for Warrington to get impatient/commit unforced errors and capitalise on the opportunities presented.
The amount of defending we undertook in the first twenty made a victory unlikely, regardless of the score at that time.

That match was lost very, very early on.

The week before we did play safe against Catalans.

I'm not saying I prefer anything. Generally speaking it takes 3 players to get from the right 60 to the left 60. It used to be that lock provided the link in the middle with the halfbacks "split" on either side of the field. Now, the halfbacks are expected to get through a lot more work getting themselves in the right positions to work together, and the fullback acts as the final link. There would be no way to get the 13 involved as well, as it would slow the ball down. We even saw the start of that diminishing role with Sculthorpe moving to 6 to keep him involved in the play.

I've seen Graham throw a 20 yard pass, but as a skill it's a lot more common then it once was. Props are becoming less and less limited, just as big wingers are becoming more common.