Our form isn't the main problem. The main problem is that we know without any doubt whatsoever that we'll get absolutely mullered in the middle of the field. When you know that it's very hard as a fan to get up for the game. It's not impossible that we up our game for a derby but we can't defy the law of physics.

I said before the Hull KR game that I'd be trying to work towards Jai Field taking the fullback role as he improves his fitness - this game might be too early for him though.

I don't think we can win and don't know what we can do to win given our limitations with squad and coach but I just hope we can be more solid with less errors/penalties. Lams not popular with the fans atm to say the least but he's absolutely right in saying we're our own worst enemy atm.

We’ll train well this week and then Lam won’t know what went wrong out there come the full time whistle. It certainly won’t be a Wigan performance.

And repeat

They struggle when your fast off the line and aggressive when they cannot make way ground. Heads go down if you can keep them out for the first 20/30min.

If they gain momentum and get Inna roll I don't think you will be able to get it back. They're not invincible and it could be as good a chance you will get at them with their dip in form

I’ve no idea but..,
Make our up and unders real steeplers so they are difficult to catch.
Play a hooker who runs the ball.
Keep your discipline.
Move up fast on defence (that’s what Saints do)
Start like a house on fire to get the crowd behind you.

All (any!) of the above would be a massive change on current form.

Turn up and play!

We don’t. It’s as simple as that.

Kick deep, chase hard, tackle well and most of all keep the discipline with and without the ball i.e no soft penalties and late six agains.

Make Walmsley work in defence. He doesn't take a lot of carries in his own twenty, that's left to the likes of Makinson and Percival

Saints don't score a lot of tries from deep, make them work for what they get..

play the covid-19 card

Saints are as god awful in attack as we are, difference between the two sides is their forward pack can bully most teams into submission.
Look at the last time we played them, first try Bibby dropped a kick, second they threw the ball on the floor and we all stopped, Coote picked it up and scored and their third try Percival barely grounded it when we were down to eleven men.
Stand up to their pack and they're very beatable, problem there is we've only two props who could dent their line, Bullock and Clark and neither will play on Friday, you can bet everybody on this sites mortgage that Bullock gets dropped for Partington and Clark's no chance of a run.
Clubb will "play" which leaves Havard, Byrne and Shorrocks picking up the slack, with all three of those unsurprisingly looking less and less effective by the week.
Powell may miss due to his head knock which should open the door for O'Neil/Bourouh and if Field can't do 80mins then he misses out, we can't afford to waste a bench spot on a back trying to get match fit.
Probably going to get beat but I'm expecting another dull close affair rather than a massacre, if it was Catalans or Warrington this week then a 50+ pummelling would definitely be on the cards.

Fake head injuries

1. Too many dropped ball, too many penalties given away at crucial times.

2. Our props get mullered every week. Clubb is just embarrassing now.

3. No right side threat at all.

4. Powell offers no threat from acting half back, which makes targeting out already average props even easier.

5. We seem to get an adrenaline rush and throw the ball around, that usually asts 5 minutes, then we are back to the repeated and predictable plays.

Do something about the above and we may keep the loss to a respectable score. Forget winning, saints are used to winning big games, we aren't.

It’s actually fairly simple from our point of view and the Hull KR game was the epitome of everything we repeatedly are doing wrong.

1). Keep hold of the bloody ball. It was the early lost possession that invited them to get on top.

2). Cut out the penalties/6 again. Ok, we’ll never get rid off all of them but we are still giving away too many.

3). Show some intensity in defence. We do this at time but not constantly and regularly hold back and invite teams to run at us. Get that line speed sorted.

If we do the above we’ll do ok.

All about intensity from the start of the game. It was embarrassing how much harder, faster and how much more intent the HKR players showed in that first 20 mins in everything they did. The vast majority of the 80 minutes has been poor throughout this season but jeez we’re dire in the early stages. I was hoping we’d put in a good performance against KR and then go in to Friday and really see it as the starting point of a good run to end the season, a bit like the victory at their place last year but we’ve just not got it in us this time.

I can’t see anything other than a comfortable Saints win by 16+ points.

We have played four more games than Saints and if we try to win the energy battle we'll lose.
Our lads are fit but so are Saints players too. The HKR game showed us that if we try to play our usual game against a team who've played far fewer games we'll come up with mistakes and miss one on one tackles. I do think that those errors were made due to tiredness and fatigue.

We therefore have to slow Saints down and doing that in the tackle with the wrestle runs the massive risk of penalties and set restarts. The way to slow them down is the very old tactic of at the end of sets kicking the ball into touch. Rather than kicking downfield with poor kicks going into the waiting arms of the Saints full back and wingers who start their set on the front foot with quick ptb.

By kicking into touch Saints will begin their sets from a standing start, Their first three hit ups won't be done by their outside backs but by the forwards who will be hit with some of the biggest tackles they will ever face. That will slow down their sets and give them tactics they won't be used to facing. To do that we'll need a good kicking game and all our senior props in the seventeen.

Whether Lam has the where with all to change tactics to cope with the new reality of us playing games against opposition who've played far fewer games remains to be seen. I can give him the benefit of the doubt with that new reality for the HKR game but the difference with HKR and their speed and our errors which was the difference between the two teams. Let's hope he can improve our fortunes and nothing less than a complete change of tactics against teams who've played four or five game less than ourselves is an imperative. Let's hope that he can do that and we come away with a win.