Last year was as bad a team as I've ever seen wear our jersey.
From a personal point of view I don't think we have played any decent entertaining rugby since 2013 with any sort of regularity.

I hope we will improve but with so many changes on and off the field I think that it is difficult predict how we will actually play.
We have a difficult start and I think that after the first two games we will know how the season will pan out.

The player that I'm looking forward to watching is Farrell. He has been starved of decent ball for seasons and I'm hoping that Cust and Smith will give him some gaps and time to enable him to make some inroads with his great running game.

Big loss in Hastings, by far and away our best player last season. Hopefully Cust goes some way to replace him, don’t hold out much hope for Field, looks lightweight, lacking in confidence but bags of potential and lightning pace.
Hopefully we get a season out of French.
Gildart of old was a loss, but was a shadow of his former self last year, so in reality the loss of him was the season before last.
Looking forward to Bateman being somewhere near his Aussie form.
I think the one to watch is Ethan Havard, has the potential to be a real monster in SL, hopefully Waney brings that out of him.
I do hope the league becomes more competitive, I think Stains have lost a couple and the quality of replacements remains to be seen. They seem to have been relatively lucky with injuries in recent years and although they’ve won 3 in a row, but 2 of the 3 were by the narrowest of margins…..

One man's lucky with injuries is another man's strong squad, sensible approach to blooding of youngsters, highly professional players and conditioning team.

From what I’ve heard very few if any people within the club will miss Hastings.
A talented player but not always a team player.

It’s a combination of all of them IMO. There has to be more than luck to it but nobody can deny Saints have had some very good fortune with injury and illness these past few seasons (apart from the really bad luck of having some Covid cases for that spell just after the cup final).

You make your own luck as they say though. Clearly the conditioning team at Saints are doing a very good job, you only need to look at the shape Konrad Hurrell is in to see that.

Blooding youngsters is easy when you have a fully fit side and there is no pressure on them. Playing them when you're missing 7 or 8 and they need to take the lead isn't as easy.

I've said it before and will say it again.....Saints have played a weak team 3 times in the last 3 years and lost every time. Take 7 or 8 out their side for a long period and the change in results will be as dramatic as ours has been.

just take Walmsley out and they look very beatable...

Like in 2018 when he broke his neck and we finished top of the league and arguably should have won it if not for limit capacity for choking in big games under Holbrook? (Something people often forget in saying Woolf Saints look weaker than Holbrook Saints?)

Walmsley gets the flashy runs no doubt, but as others have said, it has always been built on previous momentum built by Makinson, Grace, Naiqama and Percival, who invariably make good yards and momentum flying into tackles 1 and 2.

Walsmley is very often the cherry on top rather than the whole pie. That’s not to say he isn’t an important player to us, but it doesn’t necessarily change us missing him.

Since I’m here, it’s also a mistake to suggest we were particularly lucky with injuries over the course of 2021. It’s something that’s banded about quite a bit but conveniently overlooks us missing Fages and Bentley to season ending injuries, and us having injuries to almost all of our important players throughout the year at one point or another. Welsby was our top attender last year playing in a multitude of positions to cover various injuries in the backs at any given time. It’s because he has really progressed, along with the likes of Dodd and Batchelor that it feels like we’re full strength so often.

Saints recruitment next year is also made us a bit deeper. Lussick backs up Roby, Bell backs up Knowles which were two pain points for us last year when they were injured. We don’t have Welsby covering the backline any more but Josh Simm is the forgotten man of Saints and Hurrell is a wildcard in cover. We have Norman whose supposed to be the next best thing at prop (at least according to the fans calling for him to get game time over Amor and LMS) and who knows where Sironen comes in since Mata’utia and Batchelor will be our starting back towers. And we have a plethora of experienced kids now (Wingfield, Foster and Davies have SL experience from last year either in our team or on duel ref/ loan with Leigh and Salford).

How is this a Saints thread all of a sudden?

We know they are a great team and still the team to beat

Nah, they're poop, it's just that everyone else is poopier

Speaking of which,what happened about the WCC in the end? Just fizzled out? I fear for the future of the fixture, the Aussies really don't give a damn about any of it.

shock/horror Stains fan (magic superbeetle) instills us with how great they and arguably they should have won the 2018 grand final as arguably Morgan Knowles is the best player in super league apart from Walmsley or is it another Stains player.

I honestly think Wigan will have a great season and will be up there to win a cup or 2.