We’re making progress (too slowly) because GH brought in some better players, not because of some revolutionary game plan from the coaching team. We’re failing to do the basics, and being coached that way if you listen to the Head Coach, so it all sits squarely on his shoulders. His team, his tactics, his failings.

I suspect what he says in public and in private are completely different things. At least I'd hope so.

Where would you definitely get the pacey athletics from exactly?

Watching the game again we weren’t actually far off them in the first half but that Clark try just on half time killed us. Several unlucky/harsh refereeing decisions too I have to say.

Very similar template to the first game in some ways. We should have done better but we didn’t play quite as badly as I thought we did live. Still think we need a real high quality addition to that pack and we need the right wing position sorting out.

Saints are a good defensive side as we know.

Watching the game again? I strongly suggest you have another look at Fridays abject display. We were soundly beaten in every aspect of the game. We spent most of the first 15 minutes camped on our 25 yard line. When we did venture into the Saints half we weren’t exactly hammering away at the Saints line. Sure we had a couple of bad refereeing calls, certainly had no major bearing on the result. The Saints pack made easy yards all night.
I have praised our commitment this season, unfortunately that was lacking on Friday, Clark strolling past some powder puff tackling to score for one example. At the moment we are a deeply flawed side, we had a for which we paid serious money playing on the wing. A forward playing in the . No back up winger to fill in for an injury prone winger ,which for whatever reason we retained his services. Surprise Surprise he is once again injured. Since super league was formed the top 4 clubs for league matches won are Saints, Wigan us and and Warrington in that order. I shudder to think what our standing is over the last 5 seasons. I haven’t given up hope with Smith , he may turn it around. If he does and finish in the top four I will be the first to praise him. It’s not asking too much this season for a top four finish, I am not even contemplating a grand final appearance. I certainly don’t come on here to play devils advocate or wind people up (hate that expression) but along with my wife we are both Leeds supporters from before super league was formed. As a club 5th or 6th place isn’t good enough for a club of our stature. Finally big praise for the Saints fans who stood on the western terrace in that god awful weather.

Just watched the highlights. Maybe Sezer is now playing with a team that has more structure in attack and actually works on set plays.

Sezer was superb for wests at the weekend.

RS just needs to make peace with the fact that sl refs won't police the ruck / PTB effectively and to play to it like Saints do and virtually every other side.

It's why having Plan A B and C being " play fast abd off the cuff" isn't a great idea.
Having support runners, off loads and trying yo get quick ptb is good, but so is having a good kicking game on T5, doing direct hard runs from the forwards and set plays when in an attacking position.
So is applying pressure and turning the screw.

The less said about wasting a bench spot the better.
It's stupid and pointless and contributes to players making mistakes / errors

Again, the main reason we lost to Saints two times in my view is our errors. Penalties and really poor kicks/passes at crucial times. That's not structure it's player quality/form. The errors have robbed us of field possession and pressure at crucial moments.

Miller, Frawley again culprits this week. Miller is great running forward but we need to learn how to integrate him better into the team.

We weren't that far away - in fact we were the better side for half of the first game against Saints.

Totally agree we aren't incisive enough in good ball and we aren't making enough metres. Said it before but compared to how Leigh attack we look very individualistic.

We are playing poorer quality opposition at times over the next few weeks and we need to show what we're capable of. I think we will but... we'll find out.

we were rubbish last week. were nowhere near them for 80 minutes. errors came because we were on the back foot all the time. same the second half the week before

Let me give you some reason Tad…

Bentley, strips the ball off their player in a 2 man tackle right on Saints line. Not on the back foot.

Newman concedes by flopping on a player already being taken into touch with good play from Mom. Not on the back foot.

Frawley passes into Mik’s body around the half way line as we’re attacking, losing possession. Not on the back foot.

Penalties for offside conceded in the opposition 30 several times. Not on the back foot.

You see my trend and there were plenty of other instances I could point to. Miller failing to make the 10 on a tee kick - like he kicked out on the full the previous game. You could argue a couple of his other errors were based on pushing it too hard.

Without these kinds of errors we don’t lose possession and territory. They put us on the back foot. In the general collision, Walmsley aside, we were comparable to Saints I would say.

Really poor field kicking too - at this level of opposition you’ll get punished for sloppy play and we have been.

Before you say it (again) I do agree we look too passive in D especially in our half at times. I suspect RS is trying to save energy but it clearly doesn’t work at times.

Agree with all of the above, especially the bit about it being a tactic to save energy for a big final push, but if we were more aggressive and played with more intent, we wouldn't need to save the energy for a final hurrah, we would already be far enough ahead. We also should be fitter if we can't play at the right tempo all game, the use (or otherwise) of subs only makes this worse.

I mean we have looked strong against lesser opposition in second halves but we haven’t held our line against a good side or broken them down with their good D.

I’m not saying the CC was good enough from us because it wasn’t; but in the cold light of day we did create opportunities against them and as I say we don’t make those stupid errors and we may well win both. The ref was pretty harsh on some 50:50s though and that happens sometimes in sport; I think some of those calls did affect the flow of that game and put Saints at an advantage.

The fact anyone can look at the 2nd half of the SL latch and the cup match and think we were close is really worrying. If that's the standard that's acceptable then no surprise we are where we are at now. Main problem to me looks like mindset. They play as if it doesn't matter whereas Wigan/saints/etc run harder, tackle harder and therefore get the 50/50 calls. Add in the lack of basics and it's a good job the likes of London and hull fc are in SL so we don't finish bottom.

I don’t know if it’s a lack of fitness or whether we just don’t have the right physical specimens to compete with the likes of St Helens. If it’s the former, comments like “trainings over rated for some of these guys” from R.S may give an explanation as to why other teams are fitter. If it’s the latter, that’s worrying because we’re stuck with players who can’t physically compete with the big boys for the rest of the season. Our kick chase is laboured, (not helped by Frawley’s terrible kicks), our line speed in defence is poor, and we never hit the ball at pace in attack, all worrying symptoms of poor physicality. Add to that the engines of our so called “impact” players Lisone and Sangare being pretty poor, it’s no wonder we simply can’t match the intensity of Saints. We should be okay against some of the plodders in Superleague, but when we need to match the big boys physically I’m not sure we can do it.

I dont think our kick chase was anything different to Saints kick chase, the difference was the kicking game, we were kicking it straight down Weslbys throat, meaning he was on the 40/50m line by the time we got to him. Saints seemed to find the ground ot turn our players around 9 times out of 10, meaning their defencise line had longer to get up field.

I've been really disappointed with Frawleys kicking game, hoping it improves.

You're right about hitting the ball at pace though, I cant understand why only a handful of players do it and most of them dont. I cant imagine Smith is telling them not to run onto the ball at pace, so it must be down to the individual players in my mind.

Kicking game is as much about field position as it is skill or technique. If you're having to. kick from your own 30m or 40m area constantly, then the opposition will be starting close to the halfway line more often than not.

But you can still do a great kick from your own half that hits the deck in between the defenders

You can, but even the best kickers won't do that every time if they're constantly kicking from deep within their own half.

I watched the game and I don't think he was superb.
He was OK.
Again he drifted in and out of the game and the majority of his kicks went straight into hands.

I admire your optimism,and you make some valid points, sadly you gloss over the facts we never really troubled the Saints defence, they however made easy yardage against our defence. The big question is are we a good team playing poorly or just an average/poor team.

EVERY team makes easy yardage against us. Seeing teams go 80m in sets is frustratingly common and we are becoming more and more reliant on wonder plays / individual efforts to get ourselves out of our own 20. "passive defence" Im yet to be fully sold on.

it's a tactic. let the other side camp in our 40 for 70 minutes and, if we have any energy left, we'll win it late.

groundbreaking. all those great coaches over the years have got it all wrong.

The further you have to kick it the more time the defenders have to get under it.

There's a difference between an kick to a specific area of the field where your defenders know what to chase and the receiver knows (roughly) where to be to catch it on the full, and a varied kicking game that asks more of your chasers but puts the receivers under much more pressure. That difference is coaching and game plan, and we've clearly decided on the less risky strategy, which also gives the receiver an easier time and more yardage.