I'll tell you one thing- we get very little credit for what we have done these past few years. Morgan Knowles alluded to it on the OOYL podcast where he said it frustrates him. In a salary capped sport, to win it 3 times in a row is an unbelievable effort (not to mention we also won the CC last year)

I guarantee that Wigan fans weren't saying it was a poor comp when Leeds won it 3 in a row from 07-09, suddenly Saints are the dominant team and the league is a poor standard.

What about when Wigan dominated all those years? They were the only full time team then so hardly a fair competition. Now that the playing field is level, they haven't dominated in the same way.

Saints win the Final last year and it's "they only just beat Catalan" sorry but are Grand Finals not meant to be closely fought? We won the LLS by a record margin in 2019- comments of "it's a poor league".

Our consistency over the past few years has been up there with any other. The amount of times we have won the LLS is testament to that.

My final point on injuries too, the way Wigan fans talk we get literally zero. Yes we may not get 7 at a time but we have had injuries. Lees has had two relatively long term ones, Knowles missed quite a few last year, Fages was gone for the season after the CC and we lost Bentley from August for the season. Percival has also missed a lot of games the past 3 seasons.

We played a full season without Walmsley in 2018 and were 80 mins away from the GF when only poor tactics from Holbrook saw us lose to Warrington.

We really don't get the credit we deserve. I don't know any Saints fan personally that says we are the greatest team in History but if we look at the SL era from 96, you'd have to say that this current team are up there as only Leeds have done what we have done in the 26 years since SL.

The salary cap makes it a relatively level playing field so any dominant team deserves full credit for that.

I don’t get the whole ‘we don’t get enough credit’ line from Saints (well I do but I don’t believe the players/coaches actually believe it deep down). I think it’s a mantra the inner circle at Saints are throwing out to keep themselves motivated but it’s absolute rubbish IMO. The main coverage of Rugby League is via Sky and my word, they absolutely love Saints and lord the club and most of it’s players to the hilt. You would think Welsby was the second coming of God, Grace the finest winger to have pulled on a pair of boots and Walmsley was made of titanium and so on and on.

Saints have always been a popular club across the game as a whole, certainly a far more appealing winner of a comp to the game in general than Wigan or Leeds and I’m not sure what it is the club wants? I get the players using this line as motivation and also that the fans will just go with that but you surely see why they’re saying it. There’s nothing more dangerous than a quality side thinking they’re badly thought of but nothing could be further from the truth.

Stu, you do realise that the Saints conditioning staff aren't privy to information or techniques that the rest of the league isn't, don't you? Of course there's luck involved!

Certain players are less injury prone than others and you could argue that you've been lucky on that score. You could argue that as a club it's a consideration when you sign players that their injury records are good. You could argue that you're conditioning staff apply their knowledge wisely. All would contribute to having a better than average injury record.

What you can't argue, however, is that an awful lot of luck doesn't come into it too. Unless, of course, having Walmsley missing at the moment through injury is due to a failure of the conditioning staff?

It is a poor league compared to those seasons you mention, you only have to watch it to see that. You may disagree, but IMO the 2006 Saints side would demolish this one.

Wigan weren't the only full-time team, and had won multiple league and cups in a row before we went full time but good try though.

On your second point, you're completely ignoring that it's been an uneven comp during 2 of the years you've won it. We credit Saints for being the best over this period but you can't expect to be lauded in the same way as if you'd done it over normal seasons. Moreso, when Woolf is more than happy to use the situation to his advantage. And please don't pretend that didn't happen.

Of course you've won it 3 times. That's in the record books and credit to Saints for that. But similarly it needs to be recognised by yourselves that it was done across a skewed competition. One where you didn't even need to play the same number of games as some of your opposition.

I'm not talking about Sky, I'm talking about fans of other clubs.

Players are bigger, faster and stronger than ever before and defences are harder to break down yet all of a sudden it's a poor comp. Suddenly when Saints are winning- its a poor comp. Funny that.

We've had luck in finals- so what, it won't say that in the history books will it. What about when Wellens got injured during the 2011 GF and Shenton had to go FB. We were beating Leeds up to that point and they scored to win it down the side where Shenton had been defending, was that not bad luck for Saints?

As I say it riles me that we don't get the credit we deserve. Now we are only a one man team with Walmsley, however if I'm honest I think losing Lomax would have a much bigger impact than losing Walmsely. We didn't lose to Toulouse because Walmsley was missing.

Just for clarity Stu, are you saying you would have still lost that game with Walmsley in the team?

Ok then. I'm a Utd fan for my sins. So by the same context do we say that Liverpool winning the league in 2020 for the first time in 30 years should be under valued too? Whether it's a skewed competition or not, the fact remains you have to finish high enough to qualify for the play offs, then win your play off games and a Final. There's no change there.

Yes. We were completely off, got hammered for pens (through our own ill discipline) and Hurrell/Simm in defence were awful. Roby only came on after 60 mins too, lots of variables. I don't think that Walmsley playing automatically says we win that game. Let's not forget also that he only plays approx 40 mins every game.

They played the same number of games as the rest of the league and the league wasn't based on "win percentage"

I don't follow football Stu so I simply don't know. Did they, for example, play less games than their opposition?

Doesn't matter. There was an enforced break during the season (unlike any other in the history of the Sport) players missing through Covid, no crowds. It was an extraordinary season.

As I said, we had to finish top 4 regardless and then win the knockout games. We did that. Last season we also won the CC so played more games than most due to that also.