Good physical game so far. Wish we could clone Gaz Ellis

PS


A passive defence is ridiculous

You're wrong. saints do it plenty of the time. A passive defence puts you on the back foot. saints win games because of strong defence giving them the upper hand and good field position

It’s the 2000 WCC at Bolton
You tube that fooker and then see what you think

The problem we have is you have interchange your forwards, LR seems to have little idea how to use his bench. Two players never entered the fray till 20 minutes left of the game. The week before he had Fonua on the bench and played him for seven minutes.
If you want to keep them big men playing with intensity they need to be spelled. Playing Gareth Ellis at 39 for a full half when you have young lads on the bench seems silly. When some of them forwards walked off at halftime they looked done and it showed in the second half.

Agreed. Saints tactic of a rush defence would tire the opposition quicker than it would Saints. When they defend, the players who were making the most tackles in that set, be it Knowles, or Walmsley, then don't take a drive the next set, typically. This allows them to recover. As an attacking side, if you get hit hard by one of Saints players rushing out, and then you have players like Grace, Percival, Makinson etc. running at you, there is no wonder you don't get a dominant contact in defence, and they play on the back of that