I take your point with Hill not being himself, but on form he’s playing at the same level as Cooper. Except Cooper seems to give away less penalties. Let’s face facts, we have 2 props, after Hill and Cooper it’s the best of the rest to plug the gap until they can come back on.

Westwood is too slow to play out wide and ineffective in the middle. There’s nowhere left for him to play. Sentimental selection.

Pattons issues are confidence yet Browns aren’t, yet Brown has proven he can deliver but Patton hasn’t? Brown was the figurehead of last seasons frustration, everyone got on his back and he copped a bit for the teams form.

Lineham, maybe through no fault of his own, has no game sense. Against Leeds the flop and the blatant 3 on 1 steal were absolutely stupid. Don’t get me wrong, he does score, but if that was the only grading criteria Penny would be considered a SL winger. People say he’s ‘raw’ but he’s been here for 2 years, and Hull for a period before that, he’s half way through his career, it’s not an excuse anymore. Drawing a big salary for a little return.

I sort of agree with you on everyone but lineham because IMO He isn't our problem, or at least if he is a problem he is a long way down our list of problems as he is one of the few who seem to be doing a decent job at the minute.

Trouble with your synopsis though is we can't drop everybody, so the question is which players should price drop that will shock the squad enough to give them a kick up the backside. For me it would be Hill for his petulance and ratchford for his poor start to the season. I would also drop Russell but I don't think dropping Russell would shock the squad enough for it to be considered a wake up call. To be fair you could just strip Hill of captaincy and it would probably wake him up and shock the squad a bit.

Maybe choose a new captain v widnes and drop ratchford to the bench? I am glad it's not me who has to make these decisions but I really hope he doesn't stick with the same team again they don't deserve it.

I’m not saying we drop anyone, just saying that there are players in comparable form to those you listed to be dropped.

What I would like to happen is for the whole club to pull together and really get behind the 13 out on the field, and release this tension. But if we couldn’t do that for Smith last year, I can’t see it being done for Price now. Realistically we need to win Friday, otherwise it’s going to be a toxic atmosphere at the Wigan game.

Wasn't me who listed players to be dropped earlier, you were responding to someone else. I agree with you to be honest, apologies i thought you were suggesting we should drop even more than were listed earlier. I was responding to my feelings on those players that you listed and probably wouldn't have responded had lineham been left out of it.

I do feel a little shake up is required. Price said last Thursday was unacceptable, if they perform the same again this Friday and he hasn't changed anything then he will probably have to act for the wigan game. Like you said the atmosphere wouldn't be great and I think the home crowd figures will fall rapidly too.

I’d love to know how we suddenly got to this state at the start of last year. There doesn’t seem to be any one reason, just that the grand final loss started a rut that we can’t get out of. Also that we haven’t replaced players appropriately, or the replacements haven’t realised the potential shown. We weren’t great in 2016 I know, we were just good in a poor league. However, there’s no reason we should end up as bad as we currently are. It’s bewildering...

I know it's puzzling. The Brisbane game we looked great then since then we have not played well again to this date.

2015 - W11 L12 D0
2016 - W16 L6 D1
2017 - W9 L12 D2

(23 regular season games)

Your spot on with the recruitment / decline in player quality, but I don't think we suddenly got to this state at the start of 2017. We're actually pretty consistent over the past few seasons. 2016 was a bump because we signed the Sandow/Gidley partnership, which was enough to give us those crucial extra wins (plus the quality of the league that season was not the best).

Overall, SL is that close (crap in quality), that a matter of a couple of wins difference can send you from relegation to pushing the playoff places.

Last season, Leeds were champions, from 2nd place. They lost A THIRD of their games. Imagine that. They lose 1 in every 3, yet still finish 2nd and get in the GF. That's cack. In RU, the top 2 teams in the league that contested the GF both lost just 4/22.

I still think we can get top 4, not because we're going to suddenly replicate our 2011 form, but because we don't need to.

You make a good point. In fact when you look at a typical 2016 match day 17 and the match day 17 from last week its only the half back positions where the playing quality differs greatly

i.e. 2016 was very much down to Sandow and Gidley

Price “hmmm I’m sure someone said I would have a honeymoon period”.

I see in todays paper Price is quoted saying Warrington are 'on track' despite losing your first two games.

Obviously he thinks it's going to be 'your year' as well.

I know it’s ifs and buts, but we really should have finished Catalan off in round 1 last year, and we had a great opportunity against Cas, if memory serves Savelio had a try disallowed which could have put us in the game. Win them two with a big game against Brisbane too and it could have been different.

But that’s pressure. We didn’t react to it, player or fans. We lost a couple, ever player is a donkey and “the coach has lost the dressing room” and tension mounts.

Big thing now in my opinion is just sneaking a win. Even if it’s kicking penalties and drop goals, we just need the W.

The first game of the season is so important - I remember when we narrowly beat Leeds in '16 in the first game of the year - it only takes a couple of defeats and you're into a rut. Leeds were still a good side and if they'd won that first game I'm pretty sure they'd have finished in the top 8. Same with us - if we'd beaten Leeds (which we were an Atkins brainfart away from doing) we'd all be more relaxed. Or beaten Cats first game up.

The stats about W/L/D since '15 is really interesting. Basically, '16 was all about Sandow - before and since it's been average.

I also disagree with this talk that because the league is open and most teams are competitive it means the quality is low. I think this year's SL is pretty strong with lots of good teams in it. The current Saints and Leeds sides stand up to those in the past. You have Cas and Wakefield looking very competitive. Hull and Wigan also. You used to have some teams that you knew if we played anything like we'd win. At which time everyone complained saying it was too easy, not enough competitive games etc. We then get a league with 12 competitive teams in which you can never be sure of the result and everyone complains that it's because the quality is poor etc.

Pricys first mistake was to allow Chris Hill to continue as team captain.
His game has imploded since the initial appointment.

Like I said in a previous post prior to the appointment, he ought to have been club captain but we should have a team field captain too.

See how Hill's performance improved at the world cup without that baggage.

Do we even need a captain?

This whole team needs time to get properly fit and time to gel. They’ve had a minimal pre-season as a squad together. Even though a number have had a full pre-season there are plenty who haven’t so they hadn’t had that time to gel with the coach’s philosophy and routines. Saints were fortunate to get their coach in part way through last season. They had the second half of the season to go through their transition and will hit the ground running this season. When a squad is already familiar with philosophy and routine, it’s easy to slot a few new cogs in here and there and the machine still runs. Whereas I always think the off-season is a difficult time for a coach to take over as he doesn’t get his clock working as a whole for a while as he’s only assembling all the cogs in one go.

Also he doesn’t get to see the team in a proper competitive game for months. You can suss out the deadwood and start planning for next season in terms of transfers during the transition period. Coming in in the Winter means Price won’t suss our who the deadwood are until around the Easter programme or even by Magic Weekend. I think the most important thing for a coach to get to know his squad is by seeing those ebbs and flows from week to week in competitive matches. We won’t be seeing the properly transitioned Price’s Wire until later in the season and we won’t be seeing the best of Price’s Wire until next year.

Just got to be patient.

In terms of what Price is thinking so far: I bet he’s surprised how poor the standard of the league is and bet he’s thinking with a good Winter next year if he can get rid of the deadwood (there’s a few in our squad) and bring in quality, we’ll have a great shout in 2019.

2018, just staying up is the priority.