I assume your posting this with some irony given you havent won a league title in over half a century?

Losing Briers is massive for you and it will take time to get over it.

On the plus side your transition is being managed by a decent coach , we got Mick Plonker and he set us back years

No you're right, we played well and just got pipped to victory by Saints.

This is the most sensible post I've read. First five minutes all was rosy, even ten minutes - Bridge break down the right.... Then Atkins "knocked on" (really?) and St Helens got on a roll. We shouldn't have fallen apart like that but we did and the 40/20 was freakishly brilliant. Nine times out of ten that ball would not have ended up there. We did suffer when Hill and Asotasi went off (the latter was good with the ball, but I didn't see much intensity in defence) and Riley and Evans were on a hiding to nothing. But imagine if that was Wood and Harrison coming on.... Still, I thought Evans was ok. Second half we started to panic and then things started to compound each other (the Riley/Ratchford mix up; Westwood trying too hard). Still, when we scored our try, it was even in terms of the scoreboard in the second half. Then we went back a decade and let in two more tries at the end.

On individuals - Monaghan (M) was woeful but hey ho, he always was in the halves. Myler was invisible but we can all have off days - last year, he was player of the season in the first few weeks.

On comments from the fans - "too many penalties - that's the kids" at which point we'd conceded two penalties - Higham and Waterhouse. And many more random comments which give a whole new meaning to the word kneejerk.

Whoah whoah whoah, you can't go having an opinion........(whispers) you'll be accused of being a tossser.

You've got to tow the usual, "it's our year this year" line, don't you know!

The only reason i could see for Monas in at 6 is that he is bedding O'brien in and thought he would be better coming off the bench after 20 mins, no idea why but that is the only thing i could get from it.

Meh, can't see what the problem is, we've got 20+ practice games still to go, and so long as we win at least half, we'll be firing on all cylinders for when it counts.

See people are looking at this in the context of it's only one game, beginning of the season against a team who usually have the wood over us rather than actually looking at some real long term problems.

No one is leading the team, there is no one directing play, telling people where to stand and what runs to make, watch ANY game Briers plays in and he never shut up, he was always waving and pointing to someone.

Westwood isn't a captain, love the bloke to pieces but he's not a captain.

Mike Monaghan isn't a half back, never has been, never will be, Tony needs to put that to bed NOW. Not after a few games, GAME 1 DONE and DUSTED, get it out his system and forget it.

Riley and Evans are a season off being in a top 4 side, big guys but they don't have the strength that comes with maturity, not sure on England, we'll see.

Asotasi needs to step up, if anyone thought his performance was adequate last night, they need their bumps felt, i'll give him a bit more leeway though seeing as it's all new to him.

Ratchford, either play him at fullback or play him at standoff (preferable) but don't be shifting him about constantly so that he doesn't know his ar5e from his elbow. Keep him in the middle, give him chance to mature into a good 6 and to get an understanding of his halfback partner. If not, drop Russell, stick O'Brien in the middle and leave him at the back.
Halfbacks need understanding, an almost intuitive understanding of each others game.

Atkins..similar to Westwood needs composure especially on tackles 1 to 3, this has been apparent for a while so why isn't TS saying something?

Riley although not a scapegoat does seem to be in the fortunate position of having no competition because he has looked way short of what we need to sure up the left edge, granted Atkins doesn't help but he has to take some responsibilty.

Theses aren't problems that just appeared yesterday, TS needs to sort it out pretty sharpish for me.

Presumably I am a "", though not sure why. At the end of the day I am a paying customer and as such have a right to an opinion. You can kid yourself, but yesterday just wasn't good enough.

I've already said it, and I'll be quite happy to say it again; we won't get anywhere near the GF this year. I don't care if people say it's only one game, plenty to come and then when we do get there they bring my posts back up. Doesn't bother me. I just believe that we haven't got enough this year. It's a transision phase with a lot of senior players leaving and youth coming in.



Just goes to show, two captains yet no leadership.



There was no shouting or screaming from Westwood, nor from Monaghan either. Should have given it to Asotasi, he's been Captain of Souths for a few years so has had leadership experience.



Was having horrible flashbacks to the Michael Sullivan era last night. GOB, Rach and Myler in the halves, both Mickeys rotating at hooker. Monas has won a Lance Todd at hooker, that should say it all.



From what I've seen of England, he looks like a great prospect and if he's anything like what Hilly is, then we've got a good one on our hands. GRiley and Ben Evans are still young, not played that many games. More games will bring more maturity, they'll be more settled.



I didn't see him at Salford, but he must have only played about 10-15 minutes against Leigh so it wasn't enough to gauge an opinon of him. Last night, he made a couple of good hit ups but overall he wasn't as good as I'm sure he could have been. Will take him a few games to get with everything.



I'm sure Ratch was purchased with him being in mind for the long term replacement from Briers. Obviously with Russell still on the sidelines, he needs to fill in at FB but when Matt is back, Ratch should slot straight back in at 6. Him and Myler need to have the game time to gel. It's a kind of new era, a Briers-less era if you will.



There was certainly no understanding between Ratch and Monas last night. Only seemed to improve slightly when GOB replaced Higham and Monas went to HK.



Atkins is probably still down from not being picked in the World Cup. He's not been his best for a while now.



Penny is on the sidelines, and from what I saw of Gene Ormsby at Leigh a couple of weeks ago, he seems to have plenty of speed and a bit of skill, so it may not be long before he gets his chance to see what he can do. Regardless or not of how many players didn't perform last night, I always knew that Chris Riley's name would be right at the top.

He is the new Mike Wainwright.



Tony Smith is God, he always will be in the eyes of Warrington fans.

But even God can make *** up's now and again. The only thing is, in some people's eyes he can do no wrong. I'm sure it will be sorted, no question about that. Question is, when?

Ah, so he'll be bedding O'Brien in.

You didn't stop to think that maybe TS maybe dropped a boo boo?

Oh jesus, I've said it now. Get the pitchforks out. [iHeathen, heathen[/i, I hear people cry.

Could you imagine the slagging off if Dr Kookash had put this side together?

I don't know why I'm bothering but what the hell has this got to do with ANYTHING?

I think he realised fairly early that he had made a mistake.. But the damage was done by then. We were a beaten team on the backfoot.

I would like to see GOB given a good 6 or 7 games on the run in the team... We need a HB to lead us around.. Ratchford and Myler don't appear to fit the mold.. Give him the shirt, give him some confidence, lets see how he goes... if after a decent run in the team its not working, make a change and move him on... But lets at least give him a proper shot.

Im all for giving these younger lads a shot this year.. its probably going to be a transitional season for us, so lets make the most of it... the likes of Evans x 2, GOB, laithwaite, Riley, Bridge, Dwyer, Ormsby... lets give them some game time. I dont mind losing a few league games if it means we are seeing valuable game time for the younger lads.

The problem last night was these young lads were spectacularly let down by the older, more established first teamers.

then dont

The key thing for me was no one even spoke to the ref from what i saw really. Had Briers been on the pitch one of those high tackles would have been dealt with properly as he'd have been right over in Benthams face questioning things. Rightly or wrongly given he wasn't captain in the end, he WOULD have been over there. We can "lead by example" all we want, but don't underestimate the power of getting inside the ref's head. All it takes is the seed planting sometimes and LB was VERY good at making a cheeky throwaway comment make a difference.

EDIT

Furthermore, a few conversations here and there would have done wonders for our clearly flagging defence, allowing us to take a moment and reset our line and regain some composure.