Quote NickyKiss="NickyKiss"We lost momentum and field position through ridiculous errors and penalties, not because of a fitness issue. I see one player in that squad who has an issue with fitness and that looks an injury issue rather than a lack of cardio fitness. The rest of the squad look in great shape. If there are fitter players and more mobile forwards then guys like Faz and Isa across the league I don’t see them. The young forwards look like great athletes and there aren’t any problems in the backs for me. Even Lebrons Saints side would admit to blowing more than usual towards the end of their first couple of fixtures I’m sure. The fact they’d played so well and dominated would’ve meant they’d not been tested quite as much as some other teams but even though guys like LeBron Curry would have you believe they’re superhuman (weirdly we didn’t hear much from him or other Saints fans before lockdown), they’re not.'"
On reflection we did have some disruption with TL going off and French moving to the wing which didn't help.
As you say stupid free kicks given away (I think we were penalised again whilst we had the ball?) tend to disrupt our flow of play.
I think where we need to improve the most is taking advantage of territorial dominance and turning it into points. We just lack that bit of class/patience when we are in the opposing 20 where hopefully SOL can help resolve when he is back. For me the majority of the 6th ball play should go via Smith who has the best kicking game in the squad by quite a distance.
Saints are far more effective with a full squad to pick from than us but it will be interesting to see how they perform when they get a few injuries. They are setting the bar its up to us to try and match it. We have I believe a stronger squad but Saints have the superior starting 17.