Defence

Superb today, Wire. Well done.

Hope we can kick-on from here

If I were you, I'd be concerned about my spelling! Typical Saddened reaction to a Saints defeat by the Wire. From the post-match interviews it would appear that there are a few problems behind the scenes at Saints.

Well I certainly can't put my finger on the dip in form at Saints. But in the end we are paying top dollar for the coach he got a free ride last year and was allowed to experiment. This year he has to produce.

I think we should have expected to ship a few points against one of the leagues free scoring teams ,but that seems to have been helped by the usual 15 minute eye off the ball lapse that is par for the course in most Wire games.

There was mention on the radio commentary that Nathan Brown is homesick again & looking for an Aussie club for next season.

Forget the spelling, the sun has gone to my head. Saints are a mess, as mentioned by Wello we're in a totally false position through scraping a few wins early doors. Our performances have been worsening with every passing week and we were well and truly shown up for the also-rans we will be this season by both Wigan and Leeds in the big games we've had this year. We've got better players this year, but we're still not in contention, no aggression, no commitment and no structure or gameplan. Brown will surely be out soon, McManus made some very strong comments in his programme notes after the cup exit and he's got to see those through now. Either some of the players or the coach must now be shown the door.

Did your defending not concern you though? Goal line defence wasn't bad, but we were making a lot of breaks in the second half and the better sides would have run in a fair few points.

Well we've played Leeds and Wigan in the midst of our "all over the place" phase of the season and didn't concede bucket loads.

Plus it was almost the same score line as last year's Magic.

I must say Saddened that i have been concerned on more than one occasion this year at how the defence has opened up at times. May be if we can get the attack in order then the defence can be worked on ,but didn't Saints have an ethic of ignoring defence at one time, being confident of outscoring any opposition.

Your missed calling as a politician is much to the country's detriment, Saddened.

"Our unemployment figures/NHS spending/financial growth figures aren't where they should be, but they're so much better than the previous government's were".

Just give us our deserved credit, mop your tears, and move on. Don't be bitter.

Although still backing in the glow of a great win there is some merit in what Saddo says regarding our defense. We leaked some soft tries and I have to confess to be briefly being a little apprehensive in the second half having visions of yet another 'entertaining' defeat.

Still, great win as it was we need to back it up now against Wakey and Leeds

Welcome back Benny !!

Saddened is right, we still have not beaten any of the big teams this season, it shows how far our expectations have fallen celebrating a result like this against a team we would have expected to put away with ease in the past few years!

I reserve full judgement until I see the game back on TV, but my initial thoughts are that we were much improved both offensively and defensively; 20m to goal line defence great and no penalties in possession!

But, I agree with Saddo to an extent: we opened up in the middle of the park very easily at times and allowed a few breaks. Luckily, nothing was coming up for Saints and we got away with it.

Well, it's nice to get the win, particularly as it was Saints. And the level of effort was very good, combined with an unusually low error count. We should take a fair bit of confidence from that. But we still have weaknesses in the pack - England and (benchman) Asotasi were just 'ok' for me but I was very impressed with Westwood considering his long holiday, and even more with Harrison who seemed to get through a huge amount of work. Waterhouse too, was good. But we still need to fix the pack to be top 4 again.
The defending was criticised, but we have some young kids that are still learning, plus Saints were very good at moving the ball wide to open up the gaps, so I am not too worried about that atm. Ormsby oozes arrogance, even when he makes cock ups so I hope TS perseveres with him. His catching is now looking very solid, defending is improving, but we still get the odd daft error.

I think Ratch would be my MOM

Why can't we have that level of enthusiasm shown at the start game in game out?
Bennie coming back was the real lift we needed but Michael Monas had his best match for a very long time and I was surprised he didn't get MoM.

We're a long way behind Leeds and Wigan - who are the 2 form teams.

We should have won more easily but did the usual thing of giving Saints the possibility of coming back. The first 30 minute was almost vintage Wire. Just got to turn that into 80 - just !