No it’s not.
It’s based on which team can play better overall than their opponents.
So for quick play the balls and no finesse he gets a multi hundred thousand pound contract. Overrated and passed on by Huddersfield and Wire. That’s how much they appreciated him.
I assume when the nrl increase their teams in their competition that they will be knocking King’s door down to sign him up. Behave.
King can’t even be mentioned in the same sentence as Wardle.
He’s an average athlete that can’t be described as a centre.

No one is mentioning King in the same sentence as Wardle... Now Keighran is another matter.....King played far better for us than what's being served up now. He was alot more dangerous in attack and made plenty meters etc

We monitor our players scientifically so we know how fatigued they are. Sooner or later our schedule was bound to catch up with us, it did today. In my view, and I know it is easy to be clever after the event, we should have rested the likes of Thompson, Havard, Farrell and Ellis. We need those four firing on all cylinders when it matters. Dupree, Eseh, Chan and Hill should have been in our 17 along with Byrne and Mago who have both played limited minutes.

Wigan were pretty good in TL and Lockers early days here, but we've lost good players (French, O'Neil etc) and are struggling. Your point is?

So Phuzzy…about our attacks. It’s amazing what happens when a team defends properly against you

Sorry couldn’t resist- was an open goal after what we have been discussing. I was at Wembley yesterday so couldn’t believe it when I saw the result.

Smith should cop a ban now which makes next week more interesting. The MRP on Monday is going to be very interesting for both sides. If it goes as expected there’ll be 0/4 first choice halfbacks for both sides and only 2/8 spine players. Saw that on Twitter and it’s a mad stat.

Wardle is a centre and King isn’t.
Wardle has pace, good footwork, calmness under pressure and a great passing game. King can trundle it in. I mention Wardle because he is what I consider a centre, a top centre.
If we had signed King which player(s) would we have not signed(over and above Keighran) or been unable to improve their terms?

Some might say (with hindsight) that Chan and Hampshire have not exactly been money well spent this year but it's irrelevant anyway as King was under contract with Warrington.

Peet obviously doesn’t think that Eseh and Chan are ready and possibly may never be ready. Hill looks really slow this season and maybe it’s just a case of a second year performance after a very encouraging first season. Mago is just Mago. Seemingly incapable of playing for periods longer than 15 minutes and doesn’t appear to be any fitter nearly 3 years after joining us. His main attribute of off loading has almost disappeared and his deficiencies in defence are still there. Byrne is an enigma. Giant of a man but his main attribute is his defensive work with very little impact with ball in hand.
Depth of the squad was our mantra from the very outset this season with a few already saying that we don’t need any new blood in the squad for next season. The last few weeks would suggest that maybe the strength in depth from a qualitative perspective is just a fallacy. Of the new signings for 2024 only Thompson has looked like a really good acquisition. I still have high hopes for Walters, Eseh and Hill but maybe for the longer term rather than here and now.
I hope that Peet can steady the ship and get the season back on track. He gets the vast majority of calls correct so for me we have to accept that occasionally he will get it wrong but hopefully he and the team will learn from it.
Smith will probably gain from the rest that his suspension will bring and it will be interesting to see how young Farrimond will cope with the additional responsibilities.
Will be interesting to see how we react next weekend.

I will wade in here. I was gutted when King left and since watching Keighran i am even more gutted. Hope we can get him back somehow. Miski was 100 times better with King too.

The reason I think that is not because of who the respective teams have out (which is similar anyway) but because Wigan are gassed and Saints aren't. Think back to your post WCC victory form. The bookies had Saints favourites for most of those games but anyone with a pair of eyes could see you were gassed. It's been remarkable that we've not had a dip before now but it had to come sooner or later. This latest run has pretty much finished the job.

French is important to us. Of course he is. It would be daft to suggest otherwise. But to say this latest run proves anything more is just more conflating. We've won plenty without him too. Did that prove he was irrelevant? The truth, as ever, lies somewhere between. We miss him when he's not there as any team would but to somehow conflate that into being a one man team is nonsense. We're better with him as any team is better with their best players playing. It's a team sport though, and no player is a team. Not French, not Welsby, not Mikey Lewis. However, they do of course make a difference.

You're right on squad rotation and I think Matty Peet needs to hold his hand up here. We've flogged Thompson, Harvard (since his return), Farrell, Nsemba (taking his age into account), Ellis, Smith, Wardle, Marshall and Miski. I could show you a text to my mate complaining of this from several weeks ago. We're reaping the effects of this now. So much so I would advocate wholesale changes for a couple of weeks even if it means losses. Put the LLS to bed, otherwise we risk having a proper crack at the big one.

I'll be interested to see how Leigh go later because the energy levels yesterday just weren't there for us.

Fully appreciate the games you’ve played and yes I expected a drop post WCC which to give you credit didn’t really happen. Maybe this is the dip

However in mitigation to the points you make about next week, our pack has been flogged. Due to the number of injuries we’ve had Clark, Lees and Sironen have been playing 80 mins every week more or less so there’s some fatigue to consider there too.

Delaney played busted which resulted in a reoccurrence of his knee and Stephens has played way more games than envisaged at just 19

It’s hardly like we are fresh as daisies going into next week and I’m also not sure you’re missing 6 of your first choice 17. That’s 7 if Matautia doesn’t make it and that’s not including Wingfield and Delaney who would be first replacements

I accept that Stu and, if you'd also just played 3 games in 10 days I'd put us back as favourites. Wellens has definitely flogged players too. Both coaches need to be better at rotating players and trusting their squads.

We'd argue all day about what constitutes a first team player for Saints Stu as I don't actually think anyone knows what your first choice is! Lomax and Dodd have both been awful this year. Hurrell is an unfit liability and you have a tendency to count several back towers, who can't all play at the same time, as first choice players. Then we have the perennial Ritson/Bennison argument and whether Mbye is better at 9 (he isn't) or in the halves (he is) anyway. Also should he play there before either of Dodd or Lomax (he should).

I don't think Hurrell, Lomax and Dodd are big misses for you currently and their replacements are doing better for you. Yes, technically they're absentees, but not in the same way as a French, O'Neil or Smith is for us.

Matautia, Knowles (if banned) and Welsby are big misses. Everyone else is a Cooper for us. It would be nice to have him back and would be in and around the 17 but that's all. In fact, given what we've just been saying about prop rotation I would argue that Cooper and Isa would probably make this week's starting team if they were available and would make us better. Could you honestly say the same about Dodd, Hurrell or Lomax?