if you dont do the basics right you wont win many games...we were awful against a team that wont figure in the top 4..and one last gripe why wasnt ratchford or gidley booting over the conversions....

We played with no intensity. Deserved to lose because of that despite possibly winning if we'd kicked our goals (again, same at Hull).

I saw more than enough at Hull to know Lineham can play extremely well. He's big, strong, and fast and I was quite happy when we signed him. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt right now because he's still settling into a new team and he's not got the best distribution so far if we're being fair. It's all well and good for Penny outside of someone like Currie but Tom is taking balls from Evans and Hughes, who aren't in the same league.

He needs to switch on his brain, for instance when he scored the try with less than 2 to go, he threw the bloody ball away, which wasted more time because we were trying to get a new one on the field. He nearly took the ball out from the Fages kick because he wasn't paying attention to where his legs were. Like I say, can be very good, but he doesn't think enough.

Genuine question: is Ratch really a preferable conversation kicker over anyone who can put boot to ball? That first game where we used him exclusively at Magic and he nailed 100% of his kicks was his only stand out kicking performance (that I can remember). Does anyone know his overall %? I would guess it's below 50%.

Hold on a minute...Lineham scapegoat? You have a gold fish memory. Slating me, barring me and scapegoat thrashing me for just questioning over his fitness!

I don't get it. Gidley who's kicked just shy of 500 goals over 200-and-something top grade games doesn't kick for a couple of weeks and is considered so rusty he's therefore below Westwood in the pecking order???

Also already been mentioned, but if you're fit enough to play 80 mins against walmsley, LMS, Amor and co, you should be able to boot a few balls 20 meters.

i never slagged you off over lineham... it was the gidley thing i had an issue with.

ive been very careful over lineham, as he is a new signing.... but i do think he is rubbish

Our back 3 cost us that game, did they field anything?? Our completion rate was nowhere near good enough. Saints were definitely the better side and good for the win they got the basics pretty much spot on. To anyone saying penny had a blinder he didn't (I'm a fan but got to be realistic) the back 3 were shocking they gave saints a try and about 6 repeat sets when under little pressure and constantly let saints off the hook after good defensive sets. The fielding for their goal line drop out was a particularly low point. I'll accept penny was the best of the 3 (easily) but his kick off was criminal after we had been well on top. How have we gone from confident and good to scared of fielding a bomb??

It's saints and it was at our place, why should we expect anything else, it was a great game to watch and I still believes right until the end but we were off our game and didn't respect possession enough. Russell, penny and lineham as a 3 will probably want to forget that game as quickly as possible. Shout out to fages, I called him for MOM at half time he was excellent tonight.

We had a bit of a shocker fielding kicks today... I just think we are a little lightweight in the forwards and have been a bit fortunate at times this season to nick wins, and when Wigan get their full compliment of players back will be comfortably the strongest.

Hopefully I am wrong.

Oh and Fages was excellent, compared to Gidley having a poor game, was the difference between the two teams.

MD Yes you didn't. Apologies...it was that muppet BBW.
I don't think Lineham is pants, I think he is overweight and a bit young. Celebrating with about 2 mins or so was madness, and I'm including Evens in that too.

I almost ran down and took the ball to the centre spot myself before they could finish that stupid celebrating and a likely setting up for a useless conversion.

It was in utter despair and urgency Clark ran on to wake the youth brains up.

Useless catching and useless kicking cost Wire a win.
Inept.
Saints made fewer mistakes.
They weren't any better a side.

I didn't think there was much between the sides. Saints played the basics better and they cashed in on our silly mistakes. Just like they have done for much of the last 20 years.

It could still be your year!

If we had kicked all the conversions the adulation for our players would have been orgasmic for beating Saints.

Unfortunately,we also missed Sandow tonight & his loss was also noticeable after he went off against Wigan. We will struggle this next few weeks.

Completely agree with everything here. However while the Sandow loss is massive and it goes without saying what he gives us, we still scored 5 tries against Saints. We are extremely lucky have a replacement HB that would walk into probably any other SL side.

As individual errors cost us last night (prime example Hughes and Lyneham arguing over who should have collected the dropout) the key will be the coaching staff rebooting the players for next week. If the team can draw a line and start next week with the same confidence as this and the previous weeks, we'll be fine. If not, see Widnes.