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.

Some positives...

Ratchford had a good game including his kicking game; 2 try assists with kicks to the corner, very nearly created a try for himself and came up wuth some good positional kicking too.

The front row made great yards against a big Saints pack and put in some strong tackles.

Westerman looked effective in attack, Atkins good form and desire continued and Currie did what he needed to.

Starting front row did, the bench wasn't very good, and we were undersized and struggling against their big props for the most part in defence.


As mentioned, the bench wasn't great however have we realized we've run out of props? King being the only one who plays there thoughis more of a back rower currently.

We really need Bailey and bevans to be in contention to play as this could be come a problem

Can Gidley, Ratchford and Westerman all have had injuries that stopped them from kicking and led us to have Westwood with the tee instead? Bizarre if so. Also, anyone know where Cox was?

A positive....... our worst performance of the season and we only lose by 3 points.

A fit goal kicker and we'd have won the game despite being terrible.

Wire lost this games for two reasons, firstly the huge number of mistakes, secondly goal kicking. I suspect the mistakes were a price to be paid from the tough Easter schedule at least I hope so as it looked like a comedy act at times, particularly when the ball was in the air and getting volley-balled to the next man (a Saints player). On the goal kicking front we managed only 1 from 5, when even 3 from 5 would have won us the match. We knew Gidley couldn't kick , so somebody should have been spending long hours last week practicing goal kicks - we get another 50% of the points from the goal but I suspect that it was a case of " yeh, well, we will see which player puts his hand up on the day".

We lost this match rather than Saints winning it.

(Cox had a niggly shoulder I believe)

We looked short/light in the forwards with no Dodds and no Cox.

When Clark was off Ratchford went to dummy half (where his passing was erratic at best) which left us with one half back on and we lacked ideas.

But our two defeats have mainly been down to missing goals! We could still be 100% if it weren't for that.

As said losing at home to Sts no surprise it was the manner in which we lost, a penalty immediately after Gidley drops the ball kick off out on the full, knock ons and misreadings Russell fumbles for another try, woeful goal kicking Gidley by his own admission was off, ever the optimist so hoping that was all or most of our off days out of the way, five tries at home and lose says it all.

I feel Smith got it wrong tonight, Westwood who can no longer give us the old intensity and not have the legs to do what Currie does and he's not a goal kicker would have been better off the bench, Currie at centre goes back to the pack then Hughes goes off, Ratchford for all his glitz just doesn't create enough at half Gidley reckons they have a lot of work to do on the training park to get an understanding at times he was having to tell Ratchford what the next play was, if Gidley was playing on one leg he should have taken some of the load off him, both players are better than this but when our intensity dropped off at times they seemed like a luxury.

Fages even when at times we had his measure he kept Sts going forward with hands and some deft kicks deserved his MoM.