Wellens has to go doesn't he. They were dreadful last night and they've been pretty poor throughout the season so far. I find them a boring watch. 

I think Wellens has tried to be proactive to sort their attack out but he dropped the wrong player. Sailor is a passenger and shouldn't be starting. Welsby is not a half, he should be at fullback. Pinning your hopes on an 18 year old kid to steer the side round is not going to work when the team isn't playing well, no matter how much of a prospect he is. I think a lot of the senior players are letting Wellens down but ultimately its his responsbility to get them playing.


Saints' record against the top 6 since he became head coach sums it up. He's not the man to take them forward. Hopefully they give him a new contract!

I was only thinking this morning that we have become so bad that Wigan fans now can't even be bothered to take the p**s. They are looking at us with pity as well as hilarity. 


A couple of seasons ago, had we lost like last night this forum would've been busy with Wigan fans logging on and commenting. It's now taken until the morning after for the first post. 


I'm not going to waste my time with a long and detailed post outlining my thoughts as there are a number of decent posters on Red Vee doing this on nearly every thread. It's unanimous that we all want him gone


However I was told in Perpignan by someone close to the club that regardless of results, he is here for the season. Not sure why that is whether it's financial or who they want to bring in isn't available but it's turning more and more toxic each week. Even the match going fans are losing patience. To lose to that Warrington side with the disruption they suffered last night and already without Williams is unforgiveable. 


I fully expect another loss at Magic next week and this situation will get even worse. Rush and McManus have gone AWOL and the only way is down at the moment. 

I don't think Wigan fans have been confident enough to take the pi*s too heavily on the back of that 4 on the spin and because Saints are always there or thereabouts, even at their lowest. It's probably the thing I respect about Saints the most. However bad things get, they're still in the play offs and still win enough games to give themselves a sniff in the one off games. Even now, you look at it and you're 2 points behind us (obviously with us still to play in this round) and things can turn quickly. 


In terms of Wellens, I genuinely feel sorry for him at the minute. Nobody cares more about Saints than him, he seems a really good and respectful bloke and it's obviously hurting him. I thought he looked in a bad place last night and you can almost see his brain ticking over. It's getting to the point where I think it may be a relief for him if it was taken away. I really hope Saints fans stay respectful towards him though. I think the younger generation especially can forgot what guys like that have done for a club and insults towards him and his family are just plain wrong. 

Thats an interesting comment and valid point. I'll never not enjoy seeing saints lose and there is zero sympathy from myself but ultimately Super League needs a competitive saints side that can go for a title and your miles off it at the moment. I haven't been that confident about a good friday derby for years like i was last week, even though it ended up fairly close. 

I think they will agree to part ways at some point through the season if it continues this way. Like you said, it will become so toxic over the next few weeks, they will ultimately just reach a point where it cant continue and Wellens will know that. 

I'm saying all this and you're only 2 points behind us!

I think us match going fans have been resolute on the whole. The away end at Wigan was superb even though I doubt anyone thought we would win that game. We've gone away in large numbers all season although last night was a bit of a tipping point. Whether it was the fact its a Thursday or that we've played them 3 times in 6 weeks but only 1250 is a poor number. 

The issue with Wellens is that he is a club legend. We did it with Cunningham and are now repeating the same mistake with Wellens. No doubt Lomax or Roby will be given a go at some point. Just stop it.


However despite the fact that he is out of his depth as a Head Coach he has also been given a bad hand. Woolf could see it coming and got out at the top after maximising every last ounce of effort and talent from the players. We now have an ageing team and the recruitment and retention has been a shambles for years


You can see that the likes of Whitby and Robertson have the potential to be great and Dagnall will show his class too but its not enough. I feel sorry for Stephens who has now played a grand total of 19 mins all season. His use of subs is absolutely criminal and yet again Stephens is suffering despite Paasi and Walmsley looking all but finished. 


The only two forwards of note have been Delaney who has carried strong all season and Knowles but even with Knowles he is showing lots of frustration and was even shouting at fans last night at the end of the game to come and have a straightener with him! 

Their key men from their 4 in a row are on their last legs but quite a few of them are contracted for at least next season which I assume has an awful lot of their cap space tied up.
Whether a new coach can get one last tune out of them is the question.
I doubt they'll be giving the HC job to another club legend anytime soon though.

You're right about him being dealt a bad hand. I'm doubtful he'd be the man even with a good hand but Saints period of dominance started with a number of players either in the latter stages of their careers (Roby, LMS, Coote etc) or coming towards that period (Walmsley, Makinson, Lomax) and it means it's then lead to the current period, which is having a squad with a lot of older players and a lot of young players and not enough quality in between. That isn't Wellens fault is it but he's the man who will take the flak. There are clearly things he should be doing better but it's not all on his shoulders. If Matty Peet left tomorrow, after about the same amount of games in charge as Woolf had at Saints and Wellens took over here and he then crashed and burned with this Wigan squad, then it really would be all on his head. This period of Wigan dominance has started with a much younger squad, which is possibly a scary thought. 

Some tougher decisions probably should've been made in the past couple of off seasons but you can understand why they kept players on who had brough unprecedented success. The tricky part is that it is now getting harder and harder to bring good players in. Saints will likely need to replace Hurrell, Paasi, Batchelor, Bell, Knowles, Mbye and a good few fringe players like Bennison, Davies, Sambou etc and while none of those bar Knowles are adding much, the quality of available talent here is pretty much none existent and it's hit and miss getting NRL players in (and in recent times Saints have missed more than they've hit). 

The challenge Saints have is very clear when you look at their squad and ask yourself how many players are currently in their prime. I would say four in Welsby, Lees, Percival and Knowles (and he's leaving). The rest are either young players early in development or older players past their best. Ask yourself the same question about the Wigan squad and you're looking at 15/16 players of our best 17 who are in their prime.

I wouldn't say Percival is in his prime. Still a very good player when fir, of course, but injuries and his style of play have definitely left their mark. 


Taking nothing away from him but I think a player in their prime can't, by definition, be injured as regularly as Percival is.