Heard a strong rumour that Potter asked Big Mac for some backing as to the senior pro's are not working for him.

IMO Potter will be gone before half way through next season.

People laughed at Saddened's despondency, but he has been proved right - fortunate scappings against lesser teams has been punished at the latter end of the season wherby our luck has well and truly run out.

The attack has looked attrocious this year, going through varying degrees of predicatbility, dourness and chuckle brother esque mistakes.

If it is true that Potter has lost the dressing room, and lets face it there were rumours on here of the bust up with Graham, then we need a miracle for the play offs no matter how hard you try to convince yourself to the contrary.

I think the fans are starting to question Potter now. I think only a good performance in the Play Offs will convince fans otherwise. At the moment, the coach and players simply aren't cutting the mustard.

Personally, I'm still unsure on him.

The season isn't over. I seem to remember Leeds fans questioning McClennan after they'd lost their way and look what happened to their season. They have even finished top this year which is an improvement.

Id be tempted to suggest the players leaving are the most unhappy in the dressing room! No matter what people think, there is an ego problem at Saints, Graham last week, Long last night. Its partly down to the success you guys have had, no matter how grounded people are, success breeds egos.

Once Potter has put these egos in check, and a little bit of reality has hit home that they aren't invincible, then there are some top senior players and quality youngsters in the squad that he has to put on the paddock and play an exciting brand of footy.

Have a little faith, i mean its a bad year and you reached a semi-final and finished second in the league table with an outstanding chance of getting to and winning the grand final! jeez, what a crap season!

Whilst I agree with the latter part of your statement the first part is just pure speculation unless you know something nobody else on these forums knows.

The problem Mick Potter has is one of the transitional change, the 2 nd half of the season has been shocking and coincides with some of the senior players not offered extended contracts. Put this alongside the injury situation, the coach is going to find it difficult to find a winning formula to work from.
My main concern is that the players don,t look happy and look frustrated in the way they play and the way the game is controlled by the officials.
Next week is a make or break game, win and we can create form to get us to the grand final, if we lose then I think we,ve got to accept we are not good enough to achieve anything this season.

What a wonderful day.

The sun is shinning.

Southstander is a good read.

"the - enterainers.tv" is a good read.

A nice scent of trophy polish is in the air.

Good luck for the playoffs.

Potter should go at the end of the season.He has no presence and his tactics stink.

If he had any balls he would have taken off both Long and Pryce last night as both of them couldn't give a toss.

Good to see people are coming round to
my way of thinking finally. I said all along he was a very poor choice and everyone said he was being brought in to develop the squad. We aren't building a squad so a better choice of coach would have been a John Kear type capable of getting the best possible output from very limited resources. I don't see things improving for Potter as we are not
making signings that will improve the squad.

How long do you give him before you admit it was a bad idea?

Time he went mate if hes lost respect of the players then he might as well pack his bags now, in fact I will do it for him.

Saddened I remember way back when it was announced that he was being considered both yourself and me stated there and then that we did not want him and it would be the wrong choice, seems as though we are been proven right.

There's no point sacking him now. The Play Offs start next week, he has to stay until at least the end of the season before the daggers come in.

Nope, it was to develop the [iyouth[/i Saddened! (see what I did there? I put in your exclamation mark!) I think Harry has only had experience at first grade level with Catalans, all his other coaching has been young players, hasn't it? The idea was for him to develop our young players and integrate them into the squad. I was fully in support of that as I'm all for giving our young talent an opportunity to show their wares. That all started off well enough. However, what I know I didn't anticipate was the way our senior players have gone totally off the rails. Injuries have compounded the situation but the signs were there before they took hold. It's difficult even for the best of coaches to integrate inexperienced young players into a first team when the seniors are on board. It's impossible when the senior players go AWOL (and even some of our young players are not looking as good as they did at the start of the season). Either the senior players aren't playing for him (which seems to be the consensus among fans I have spoken to, some of whom are RL coaches themselves) or he needs to go back to coaching college and learn some more moves.

Do you wanna know what the saints players did to the leaders shield before they handed it over, made me laugh when a few Leeds players started snogging on it.

You have been rambling doom and gloom for 6 years and finally Saints are looking as though the wheels have come off.

Is it coincidence

I posted this back in March, think it still hold true today


I seem to have said this before but here goes ..... Saints are in a transitional phase, one that will see a lot of quality players go, to be replaced by a younger crop, of that I am sure ... as for the coach I feel that Mick Potter is on a hiding to nothing, if we are a success this season he will have done it on the back of Ando's team.... if he fails then it will because we are in transit to a greater success either the way a 2 year contract doesnt leave a lot of room for error and to that end I suspect we will not be as successful as previous seasons. Hopefully I will be proved wrong and therefore will be worthy of the brickbats that will follow ....but ?


Still the play offs to come but really think our season is imploding rather faster than I first thought

Didn't think he was the right man for the job all along.

Easy to say I know.

The negotiations being drawn out and Potter being
lukewarm in the press. He wanted a job back in Oz
really. It has showed since.

Since arriving he has limited resources admittedly but has failed to
Impress. In the media a real non-entity. No passion , charm
or insight.

The style of play is dour, Saints are the Bulls of the late
nineties without the Beef to real bully sides.

McManus has made many excellent decisions, but
appointing Potter and scrimping on recruitment
have been errors.

He needs to go at the end of the season and
the recruitment strategy needs rethinking.
A punt on some National league players would be
a way to go if cash is that tight.

Entertainment and Pace would be perfectly acceptable
during some trophy less years of transition. Being bored
on and off the pitch is not.

I think he has had to look at the "other side of the coin" by way of the club financial standing and the new stadium. He,s obviously took the risk of youth development for the future, and on paper Mick Potter has the ability to promote this.
He dosn,t come across as a tactical or motive coach, especially with the more senior players, this is not acceptable by the fans but I think McManus has already "cut his cloth" that there might be 1 or 2 lean seasons ahead.
It could be a lot worse we could, playing in a "no mans land" like Wigan and Bradford.

It's ok getting rid of Potter but who could take over????????????

FWIW i'd get rid of him at the end of the season but can't think of anyone to take over?

Getting rid of coaches willy nilly doesn't work. Look at Wigan.

One of the players who is leaving has been one of our best players over the last few weeks.

Most fans on here seem to agree that potter ain't the man for the saints job.

If that's true, who gave him the job?


Why ain't the club signed players on for the last 3 years?


None of that is Potters fault. He got offerd the job by sir mac and he took the job. This ain't like the catalans team that potter had. His teams are big and rough.

Maybe the man who gave potter the job and the man who stopped the club signing players fault.

Sack the board!

This forum is a joke at the moment. Can we not wait until the play-offs have finished before we start writing obituaries?

We have signed players,and weve also resigned players like Wilkin,Roby,Graham,Wheeler,Pryce on longer bigger contracts.

We spend to the cap or as near as damit. I dont think moneys the problem.
I think the next couple of weeks will answer a lot of questions but after last night I think we probably know the answer unfortunatly.

Although I was mocked I bet you could go back 3 years and find scores of posts from me about this issue. It's been coming and I think Potter is potentially unlucky. It was a thoroughly poisoned chalice he took on and one that could very well destroy his coaching career after a promising start at Catalans.

In recent seasons we had an absolutely outstanding team and a decent squad. Over the last 3 or 4 seasons now we've constantly weakened it to the point we are at now. People say I go over board and there is a little truth to that perhaps, but you would have to have your head in the clouds to not spot the weakening of the squad with this idiotic notion that kids from the acamedy can replace all time greats and senior pros alike. The way to bring young players through is to have one or two amongst the senior players and to only bring more in once those have either left or played enough games to be established. We throw them in like they are expendable and we could well end up destroying the careers of players like Jammer, Clough and Eastmond through giving them too much responsibility too young.

I've said it for a while, we're 3 senior players short of a full squad and given the fact that we've now got very few star players it's mysterious as to where the cap money is being spent, if we are spending it.

I don't know how anyone can blame Potter yet. He needs a chance to rebuild.

Saints are in exactly the same position Wigan were in 5 years a go.

We lost Farrell, Lam, O'Connor, Cassidy and Radlinski in a short space and tried to replace with kids but it didn't work.

Long and Cunningham are still hanging on at Saints but they are past it now. You try to replace with kids but you can't replace experience. Under the salary cap you can't buy experience either.

I don't think things will end us as bad at St Helens like they ended up at Wigan (two record defeats and a relegation battle) but it'll be damn hard for you to keep at the top.

Like's been said though your season isn't over yet.