Must admit, the silver lining part of me did think along those lines, i didn't see the kr game but all the reports were terrible, so the first half friday must have been an improvement of a zillion fold.


i don't know about best season ever, that may be going a bit far, theres a few things that need sorting out but fingers crossed.

The glass is half full i suppose after friday, for me.

I'm not particularly bothered about the table early on, if the necessary improvement is shown it will take care of itself. We have a run of games coming up that will give us a much better indicator of how we compare to last year than Friday's game, as disappointing as it was to lose it.

For example, starting Saturday night, can we show that the defence on Friday (for the first 60 minutes anyway) was no 'one off'.

That's not early on. That is the time you are telling us to wait til this season.

I know rumours isn't really for here, but I think King wasn't Cullen's signing, I think Cullen would have had a new full back instead.

Carvell was a Cullen signing.

Coming out of the ground on Friday I thought Wire played pretty well and dominated in every facet of the game for the first 50 minutes.

Despite the negativity on here I don't think they are that far off. They need to learn the mentality required to win games like that. Saints have been to the trenches many times so didn't panic. Wire did.

Some of you lot really are drama queens.

First 50 mins we were superb and then a couple of handling errors, poor positioning and a few god awful refereeing decisions meant we were on the backfoot for the final 30 minutes:

Johnson let his concentration slip when Gilmour went in unopposed, it was clear to me that he was expecting the ball to go open from the scrum. Criminal to let a player score unopposed from a scrum that far from the try line.

Did Briers play for the ball when he went in to tackle Long??
Was Morley off side when he picked up the loose ball after it had touched a Saints player?

In the first half was the ball reefed from Benny when he was over the line and therefore a penalty/penalty try and not a drop out?

One comment on here claims the Props won't score tries - who was it that got the second?

I'm not blaming the referee before anyone starts but without the ball you have to defend and anyone who plays/has played the game knows full well that having to defend continuosly drains the batteries. Lowes wanted an extra friendly so maybe we're not fully match fit yet?

Quite possibly our hardest game of the season is out of the way and in the eyes of some we came out of it with some credit based on our first half showing. Why not try seeing how we go over the next 3 or 4 weeks before getting on the teams back. I mean, it could be worse, we could support Wigan!!

As for player bashing - PMSL, one game in and it has started. I can't name a single player who was particularly poor, some unspectacular performances on show perhaps but could that be down to the tactics? The halves have been slatted but until Saints got their roll on did their halves have much influence? No.

One final point - the idiotic commentary on Sky. They talked for 10 minutes about the dodgy play the ball for Highams try but not once did they mention the fact that the whole of the Saints team were in fact off side at the time... Saints chuck the ball around and it's 'brilliant stuff', we do it and all you get is 'they got away with that'! When are we going to replace them with ex-players who know the game like they have in the NRL?

Fuck me I just give up. Do people comment on the game based on hearing the result on the radio news & not watching it.

Anyone else not spot the small flaw in the above ??

Obviously I did as it is referenced in my message (the one about the props scoring that is!)

Okay I wasn't clear enough. The forwards will not score the points required to win things. They didn't. You need backs to bring in the points, if you can get a few tries from forwards then they can be great bonus tries, but you can't rely on them to bring in the points. The forwards did an excellent job, Higham and Rah scoring, and Westwood and Anderson not getting the ball down over the line, but the fact is that is not enough. You need the backs to bring the points in.

You were 14-0 up after 50 minutes! How many teams were 14 points ahead of Saints last year. Mentally you were poor, after Saints pulled a try back, you didn't pick yourselves up again and when Saints got their second, there was only going to be one winner.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but hasn't Mike Setphenson played for GB in a World Cup winning team and coached a side to the Championship as well as playing with distinction in Australia. Stevo's bufoonary and fake-contraversialism is just an act. Who would you suggest replaces him, an ex-player who knows the game, like Johnathan Davies?

I'd go as far to say they are as damaging as Eddie Waring.