The bloke is slowly morphing into Paleaaesina , and we are ok for props !

Said the same elsewhere. The game was totally absorbing and could have gone either way. I enjoyed the defensive efforts shown.

Amor and Griffin obviously thought so too and have moved on: they were both far too young to play first team prop for Leeds of course.

So did I, as I have done all the games I've seen on Sky so far this year (even Saints/Hudds, which wasn't close but very enjoyable to watch such a good Giants performance whilst intruging to see how poorly Saints played under Brown for the first time, especially considering a lot had them tipped for top spot after 27 Rounds) I've mentioned something on the VT along the lines of.....

- if teams don't score loads then it must be because the attack was rubbish (can't have been because of good defence)
- if teams do score plenty then it must be the opposition defence was terrible (can't be that the team performed well in attack)

Unfortunately this is the view that some take on SL games.

For me the only really problem with the game was how dead the Saints crowd was, even before kick-off.

Quote ="ThePrinter" intruging to see how poorly Saints played under Brown for the first time, especially considering =#0000BFa lot had them tipped for top spot after 27 Rounds) '" I wonder who would do such a crazy thing: viewtopic.php? ... 6&start=23

Quote ="ThePrinter" intruging to see how poorly Saints played under Brown for the first time, especially considering =#0000BFa lot had them tipped for top spot after 27 Rounds) '" I wonder who would do such a crazy thing: viewtopic.php? ... 6&start=23

Quote ="tvoc"I wonder who would do such a crazy thing: viewtopic.php?tsmp=1357816417&f=17&t=542167'" I admit I did (this is why I don't bet), I wasn't the only one, and if not first then quite a few had them 2nd. Don't believe many/if any saw them starting this poorly, infact a few thought a Huddersfield-like steaming start was on the cards after the first 10 Rounds. Of course they'll always be those who'll come out afterwards and try and say they knew Saints would be on only 5pts after 5 games and without a win at home in 3 matches and looking fairly poor so far .......and of course we'll all 'believe' them!

Quote ="tvoc"I wonder who would do such a crazy thing: viewtopic.php?tsmp=1357816417&f=17&t=542167'" I admit I did (this is why I don't bet), I wasn't the only one, and if not first then quite a few had them 2nd. Don't believe many/if any saw them starting this poorly, infact a few thought a Huddersfield-like steaming start was on the cards after the first 10 Rounds. Of course they'll always be those who'll come out afterwards and try and say they knew Saints would be on only 5pts after 5 games and without a win at home in 3 matches and looking fairly poor so far .......and of course we'll all 'believe' them!

12 out of 53 entries had St Helens finishing top and it's way too early at this stage to know for sure if they were wrong to do so either - albeit they have been pretty poor so far.

(For the record it's : Backwoodsman, lionarmour87, Gotcha, Sal Paradise, Clearwing, chesterwednesday, William Eve, TrinityIHC, Mr. Zucchini Head, Damo-Leeds and BullCharge : that agree with you.)

I seem to recall Saints getting off to a six points from six games start in 2007 - that didn't prevent them finishing P1 after the regular rounds that season.

I said Saints on another forum too. You can never right anyone off after just 1 month of the season. I mean, come on. They are 3 points off the lead, as poor as they have been.

I agree, I also don't think it was as boring or devoid of flair as some people have said it was. I thought it was 2 teams running hard and defending hard, and I thought there was some great, sharp short passing going on too.

They might turn it around. All I said was it was intriguing to see them so poor in the Hudds game (and it was), I was expecting a statement of intent start and thought Brown might go like Wane in 2012 and try storm through the regular season and target the LLS (that might still be his intentions, but hasn't happened so far). They'll pull their socks up eventually (Saints usually do), just a question of 'will they do it soon enough?' for a top 2. If not then 3rd place isn't a disaster for them (only some of us on the prediction comp.) it got them to a GF in 2011 and nearly again last year.

I didn't/don't expect to be one of the front runners in the prediction comp. BTW (as i said, never been a betting man) but after 27 rounds I'll gladly hold my hand up to the ones I've gotten wrong (thought Cas would be 8th last year!) I put my guess in with a few weeks to spare IIRC, if I did it again the night before the first game it would've probably seen a few changes (Widnes might've got bumped up a spot on getting Hock)

Regarding the 2007 start though, must be noted that Saints & Leeds were way ahead of the rest of the league around that period. They managed to finish top even with 8 losses, Wigan (1st) and Wire (2nd) last year only defeated 6 times. They've got to go away to Wire this week and that could see them with 3 losses with 21 still to play, including (AWAY - WIGAN, LEEDS, CATALANS, HUDDS, HULL) (HOME - WIGAN, CATALANS, WIRE) (MAGIC - WIRE)

Although its early days my saints prediction is not looking good, granted they have injuries but the team structure over at saints does not look adequate . Similar at hull,they looked clueless at widnes apart from the winger lineham he looks like he could be a superb winger. Amusingly some of their fans are calling for gentle to go, I thought he was the one who was going to bring about a new dawn . Anyway it's early days and its all good fun.

Indeed it is.

The season is usually tricky to call this early as teams are generally able to field their strongest line-ups (helping to create upsets) but as the injuries start to bite the cream will rise to the top and the natural order will likely as not be re-established.

Leeds appear focussed at this point but their post WCC slump didn't kick in till round eight last year. Then they lost to St Helens (A), Huddersfield (H) and Bradford (A) in rounds eight, nine and ten. This season they have Wakefield (A), Bradford (H) and Catalans (A) and it's the Easter period.

Let's see if coach McDermott has made the neccesary adjustments to take something more from those rounds then they managed last year.

You always know it's too early to make any judgments whenever Huddersfield are enjoying their brief early visit to the top of the table.

I find myself part of an eclectic bunch tipping Saints to win the hubcap


FWIW my track record at this sort of thing has been utter crap in the past and will no doubt continue to be so.

WRT to Friday's game, I was more than pleased with our performance. The game plan, desire, concentration, fitness and application were pretty much spot on, particularly given the context of the previous week's bruising and potentially demoralising encounter.

I was torn between Leeds' overall decent record post WCC fixtures and Leeds' recent surrender record when opposing St Helens away.

I thought St Helens under-performed those results and their previous week at Odsal.

The game was close but dire, reminded me of Rugby Union. Glad I weren't witnessing it as a neutral.

This year they get the pleasure of sitting on top of the pile whilst looking back in misery at defeat in a none performance.

Nice.

Just seen the stats and remarkable ones for Delaney who topped our tackle count with 39 backed up with 142 metres and 18 carries... some effort. JJB with 34 tackles, Sinfield with 31 were good but special mention to Ward who put in 30 tackles despite being on for a little over half the game. Burrow was our top tackle buster with 6 and a healthy 149 metres

Peacock's 190 metres from 21 carries is worth a mention too.

And who in today's YEP describes his own performance as "disappointing".

Certainly didn't cover himself in glory in the opening minutes, one dropped ball and a penalty from memory(?), but seemed to go ok after that.

As an aside on the comments about Ablett getting no change out of Percival, the field position for Leuluai's try comes off the back of Ablett fending the youngster and making a 30 yard break into Saints territory

Did they all come in that little run that lead to Hall's 2nd half try?

Stop that. You know that because Ablett was in our right centre and percival made a few late breaks in their left centre that equates to him dominating Ablett notwithstanding that centres rarely defend in the centre anyway.

That's a high count for the starting stand-off to have to make - it's almost as if that in addition to running the offensive game he's having to make up for a defensive deficiency elewhere.

Just as well he's got some broad shoulders.

Roby made 51 tackles, if that's what you mean, the same nunber Clark made for Cad the week before.

Not sure I entirely trust the stats, but they have Vickery making 7 tackles, with 4 misses and 2 errors. Find myself willing him to do well at least in the basics, in the way I would an in-at-the-deep-end union convert in the 80s. Currently looking more Rombo than Offiah.

There was also the knock on in the 12th minute when he got smashed by Manu.



Probably owed Leeds that one after his poor defensive read contributed to Saints opening try, although in fairness Lomax should still have been stopped. Vickery backed off then turned his back on the ball carrier but he was covering centre and wing, Watkins also anticipating a ball to the left got bumped off and the over-stretched Sinfield was too late/got carried over. Leeds were always a man short on the right as once again McGuire and Burrow were holding hands together wide on the left.

Perhaps even more disappointing from a preparation point of view that try mirrored Lomax's opener of three at Odsal last week so Leeds should have been able to anticipate the dummy and straightening line that had undone Bradford just the week before.

__________



I'm waiting to see his try celebration shuffle before I'm willing to make those type of comparisons.

Ah, that takes me back to the days when Jamie Lyon was the greatest player in the whole world ever based on 10 minutes of play in a losing team....