It's funny how you say on one post that people are reading what they want....

You do realise that both teams make yards right?

Your pack, if you had those missing players would have made EVEN more yards. No one is denying that.

What I'm saying is that, if we had our big yardage guys, it wouldn't have been as easy for your defence as what it was.

I don't see what's so difficult to understand about that point?

French shushing Welsby and then losing the game was just so beautiful.

He really needs to let 2020 go

I think it was in retaliation when Welsby got up and looked at French who was still on the floor and chucked the ball at his head.

Why do you disappear when you lose is it because you are a idiot and love to have a go when you win but when you lose you sulk like a little baby whilst sucking on your mothers teat crying its not fair.

He didn’t chuck the ball at his head, he placed the ball on it. However that’s a side I don’t like about Welsby and I’m hoping he reins it in. He’s had a couple of sin bins for petulant actions this season already. Powell took exception to it and I can see why.

I’ve no issues with French giving it to him back and he very nearly had the last laugh.

There’s also different grades/types of tears.

He can’t rein it in, he was a bully at school and he thinks he can continue in his rugby league career. The only way to solve it is to put him on his back, which is interestingly what happened at school.

I may have missed that but am sure it left his hand,but I agree to the rest of your comment,fantastic player very petulant could he be ratboy part 2.

That was a cracking game and the two sides played at a Grand Final style intensity. If Saints brought that first 20 minutes to any team apart from us or maybe Catalans the game would have been over already. We also showed tremendous character to score again after going a man down. I had no problems with the red card as such, though if it had been a sin bin that would have been fine too, but I agree with other posters that it shows very clearly the disparity between televised and non-televised games, which is something we need to fix. There is no doubt in my mind that we saw the best two sides in the competition and, while I still think Saints are the top side and favourites to win the Grand Final, the gap is not that huge. Paasi is a wrecking ball and really hard to deal with. I think he has been Saints' best forward across the derby matches, regardless of whether Walmsley has played or not.
For me, anyone still saying Field is just a speed merchant is clearly in denial of reality. Saints watched him really closely and he still came up with two terrific try assists - the pass out to French for the first try was superb. Similarly, I think Welsby once again put to bed any notion that he is overrated. He was so influential at the end of the game, plus he hits like a truck in defence.
I am really looking forward to the next derby, which is not something I would have been saying last season! Just need French to sign on for next season and I will be ecstatic.

Paasi has been a huge difference between the sides for sure. I thought Mago had his best Derby so far but we still need more and we are still short in that battle around the middle. Singleton is having a really good season but against Saints rushing defence he’s too slow to make ground. Mago looks too laid back as well and then that left Byrne and Havard trying to get us on the front foot. Havard did a great job but I thought we missed Ellis. Add him and Mike Cooper (next season) and suddenly it’s a lot stronger.

That then leaves me with 2 positions we need more from. One area is the centres. We need to place more value on it. It must be the area we’re spending the least on, with Bibby and Thornley unlikely to be high earners and then we’re throwing in second rowers. Isa did ok but I watch somebody like Wardle yesterday for Wire and it’s just chalk and cheese. Isa is just not a centre and whilst KPP isn’t either, he’s far better in there.

The last position is hooker. I like Sam Powell, I get that he’s a leader and a big influence about the place and I’m absolutely fine with him being our starting hooker but we need a point of difference to bring from the bench. It’s too easy for Saints to get up on our props or whoever else is trying to make ground because they know Powell won’t run the ball. I’d have played Cust from the bench (looked to backfire throwing him in to this one for 80 mins given how shattered he looked trying to get to Batchelor for the match winner) but Brad O’Neill has shown he can take the ball to the line as well.

We’ve closed the gap but there still a fair gap there IMO and we have some glaringly obvious areas we can improve in.

I thought Welsby/Lomax was quite a complimentary pairing. England maybe?

Monday morning might be a bit early to say this but I suspect that, given Catalans losing, that loss on Saturday, might do us more good than harm. The biggest area we need to tidy up is discipline and, in particular, unforced errors.

We almost won that despite being down to 12 men and coughing up way too much ball and the 'almost' is the important word. We showed that we have enough to win those games but you don't get second chances in knockout football. Too much lost possession and the sending off was the difference. Lesson learned? I certainly hope so.

It’s the same guys making these daft errors in our 20/30m zone. I’m looking at Marshall, Smith and Bateman and all 3 need to fix it up quickly. You can forgive forced errors in contact but it’s been clean drop after clean drop or in Batemans case stupid offloads (very little has been said about LMS touching that offload forward mind).

Saturday was a perfect illustration of how you can play against Saints, even under immense pressure. You have to be patient and brave and don’t lose concentration. They don’t score loads of points and they can pin you in your half for long spells. They pray on your mistakes and we’re making far too many. There’s no shame in admitting they’ll probably always dominate us in the middle and in terms of territory but if we clean up the errors, we’ll always be a chance due to the strike we have. They’re big big favourites to make it four titles on the spin but we’ve a chance of stopping them (as have Huddersfield IMO and maybe Catalans). We were no hopers last season, so it’s progress and we just need to keep making more.

After a couple of days to reflect and recover from the trek there and back, I'm not too downhearted about it. I was puzzled at a couple of the selections, Shorrocks starting and not for the first time recently in Partington picking a sub that they seemed reluctant to put on the field. O'Neill there for a bit of a change in pace as the game opens up would have had more value if we are only using a sub for >20 mins. KPP was a massive loss pre-match to the extent I'd say if he plays at least one of the later Sts tries doesn't happen.

The biggest cause of frustration coming off the ground was the Red. Our last try being scored or not, it influenced the result. It was a yellow at best simply because the incident was caused directly by the tackled player already going to ground and rotating without the committed defender having sufficient reaction time.

On the whole, it's just 2 league points and really emphasised 1) regardless of who could have and didn't play for either team, any derby now is there for the taking. Not one of the gloaters who has appeared since would put a ton on the result of the next one. 2) Field has adapted his role. I didn't realise quite how good his assists were until re-watching the highlights. I don't really care if opposition fans point blank refuse to see it but the ongoing development of a creative game adds some real variety to our attacking threat. And after the sheer misery of the Lam years, the joy of watching a sparking attack can override any short term disappointment of a defeat. Onto the next one.

Me and a couple of mates sat over breakfast yesterday talking about the selections and discussed how Peet has got so much right so far but I felt he got a couple wrong on Saturday. I didn’t get Shorrocks starting at all and I also didn’t agree with Cust coming straight back in. It was such an intense game and he was knackered at the end. His defence isn’t great anyway but he looked physically incapable of getting over to Batchelor for the winner. I don’t think he has any issues with his fitness but 6 weeks out clearly hurt him (and us) there. I also can’t agree with Powell seemingly being an 80 minute hooker and us having no option on the bench to mix things up there.