Hardaker and Hall are a shadow of their former selves. It's a shame Golding and Briscoe aren't fit enough to push them. Watkins poor again. Hoping he comes good when the grounds get firm.

On the plus side it was Galloway's best game. Mullally still played better than him though. The back row was fantastic. Handley was solid. Falloon looks decent, and Cuthbo was typical Cuthbo. Big minutes played by the big lads and Walters because of Delaney's knock.

All in all that was Saints first choice pack and we out muscled them. Kept them scoreless for 50 minutes, but we're still dropping too much ball. But 2 points is all that mattered tonight. Bring on the Tigers

Hardaker, Hall and Watkins not hit form....but all three with England last year and none of them started 2015 brilliantly. Give them time.

Improvements in attack but still a bit disjointed, and Sutcliffe and Burrow seemed to have clicked finally (even though that probably wont matter next week if Mags is back), kicking game definitely improved, Sutcliffe should run a bit less, I like that he challenges defenses and its not like he is blowing overlaps but he should try give watkins and moon and 2nd rowers more one on ones
Defence on the other hand was pretty shocking, dropping of tackles and allowing far too many clean breaks, Walters and Ablett were overworking and pushing off too much allowing them to split us
Who would have thought that out of our star backline it would be Ash Handly who kept us in the game, he is playing hall out of a starting place atm!
Falloon and Mullaly also played well and Gallway appears to have lost his concrete boots, so hopefully we can kick on next week to a Cas side who just got battered by Wire

SPOTY?
Kiwis?

Someone had a go at Ablett on the other thread, but I thought he was one of our best players. Falloon makes a big difference out of dummy-half, Galloway and Ferres good, Handley had an excellent game. Also a word for Josh Walters who I thought was absolutely everywhere on defence in the second half and made the game's key play when he forced the error when Saints were about to stroll in leading to Watkins long break.

William...,

Ar$ehole?
Lonely?
Not loved as a child?
Multiple accounts???

Nah, Floods

Don't forget the collective mindset of unconscious complacency

Ablett was at fault for all three tries, looking to solve something outside before stopping the immediate threat, basic stuff really
Walters pushes too far out of the defesive line for me, allows too many breaks, hes trying hard though, just needs a bit of coaching

Biggest plus is that e managed to use all our subs and spread the minutes among the forwards

, big reason we didnt fall away in the second half again, lets hope to god Mac takes the hint

That's not really true. Ablett had to pick 1 of 2 men who were options for a Walsh pass. I haven't seen the replay but judging by the big gap either side of Ablett I wouldn't be suprised if we were either outnumbered or had numbered up wrongly on the long side on those plays. The gaps between defenders was too big there and if we were out numbered then the biggest threat is the wide play pass out the back, not the short pass to the lead runner.

You solve the problem in front of you first, for the first try we were shot out wide anyway and Falloon was partly to blame but the second two were simply solved if Ablett tackled the man in front of him instead of pushing off as numbers were even, if you look at the replay you can see how easy we made it for walsh, all three were absolute no brainers, at least a wide pass would have required some skill from them
Lets hope its just a bit of rust

We were outnumbered. Wellens went through it with Jon Wells at the big screen. They were two well executed set plays that Saints worked on. Blaming Ablett is daft.

I thought Ablett was very good in the second half, a real handful at centre. Walters was everywhere, I agree. No lack of effort and helped tighten things up.
I'm a little surprised at the strength of criticism aimed at Hardaker. He missed tackles for sure, but it can be very difficult for a FB when there are so many missed tackles I front of him like there were in the first half. I also thought he ran well and looked dangerous. He's been criticised for not breaking tackles this season but he broke plenty last night and he was always trying. Sutcliffe on the other hand needs to tackle near his weight. For such a big guy he hits like a wet tissue.

Ditto on the Hardaker flack, made a couple of tackles, missed a couple but was far more potent bringing the ball back than in recent weeks.

Ablett went for the man in front of him. He had 2 men in front of him. One running an inside line, one an outside line. He didn't take a dummy. He had 2 men as pass options to choose from.
Also to suggest that try doesn't require skill is disingenuous to both Walsh and Saints as a whole. They had to identify that weakness in Leeds defence at that point and organise a play to exploit it all within a couple of seconds. And then of course run the play and Walsh to pick the right pass.

It looked that way to me just going off how big a space Ablett was left in. It looked too big. As you say blaming Ablett is silly because if he'd stepped in instead of pushing off he'd be blamed by some for not trusting his inside defenders and creating an overlap for Saints.

That was our best performance of the season against a top 4 contender off the back of an energy sapping defeat at Wigan. Really great effort from the lads.

Lots of positives to take:
Falloon looks like a great hooker - fantastic kick for ash.
Big big effort from the forwards combining brute force, offloads and great engines.
Sutty's conversions were great.

Just think when we have mags, ward and briscoe back and everyone is up to fitness.

Thought Handley was excellent.

Defence was poor again last night but luckily Saints coughed up a lot of ball , as for Ablett just watch the dummy he took at the end when there was no overlap .

Some of the offloading was almost there but still a long way to go before some these guys get to know each other. The concern for me is that there are lots of parts but no glue holding it all together at the moment, especially defensively. Our link players are not really linking.

Very entertaining to watch if you like your RL of the harem-scarem variety which is OK for this time of year but must have been frustrating for the coaches of both teams.

All fair points and there is a lot of work to do but credit where it's due, the lads upped a gear last night.

Re your link point, we do need to remember the amount of change since last year and mags being out. If last night was the start of the team gelling and not a flash in the pan the signs are very positive.

He shouldnt have pushed off to the next man until he was sure the man in front of him was covered on the inside, you learn that as a 13 year old
Like I said, you can excuse him on the first try but on the second 2 we had numbers to stop them if he hadn't pushed off
And if you watch them back the passes were so easy for walsh that walsmsly could have thrown them, you have a man stood right next to you with no one in front of him, similarly his try was made easy when Ablett pushed off
If he jammed in it would have force Turner to make a split second decision that he may have got wrong, and on the second 2 we could have relied on man on man tackling

You can't wait and look on your inside to see if your defence is there or not. You have to trust that they are. If you don't do that you will cause an overlap on virtually every set of 6.

He shouldnt push off unless he gets a call, for the first try you could say Falloon should have pushed, for the next 2 his man was the one who scored as it was even numbers outside, watch it back