I think that's becoming obvious the more we get into the season. Any pressure on us causes problems. I wonder what would have happened if Cats had scored first (same thing in the Hudds game)?

I do believe we are significantly weaker though with Burgess defending compared to Scruton and Kirke compared to Ellis (and I know Kirke has a high tackle completion ratio - but he doesn't read the game like Ellis who was a World class defender in that respect). Burgess looks like he's running on tracks - he can go forwards and backwards but not sideways.
The squad has declined in personel quality, it's not by much but it's there. Made worse by players like JJB, Donald, Kylie etc. looking well down on last year form wise. When you add up a lot of small things you can get a big problem. Some of that is coaching and some is squad personel.

Your bang on there. I said the same thing about Burgess at the weekend. He's got no lateral movement. BUT it can be worked on the lad is still learning and has a heck of a lot of potential.

I'd persevere with Matt Gidley there if I were them. Their overall squad strength is down though and it's yet to be seen whether their juniors will see them through their heavy schedule this season. The juniors are at least making the step into the first team.



No disgrace in losing to a Wigan side who are clearly on the rise following their recent team strengthening at right centre.

Graham and Cunningham's comments in the build up to the weekend would be a concern if I were the St Helens coach this week. The performance appeared to back up the view that certain players didn't want to be there.

Having centres who provide key structure to a teams attacking and defensive patterns plays no part in the famous "all a team needs is a good 1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20"

i followed the sleeve and his family up the steps to the castle. his ageing mum in law slipped and i managed to catch her.
she did it on purpose mind, she obviously fancied me