You have just got to face it; the once mighty saints are no longer. At 1. Wellens lack of pace is is really being shown up, he is now missing tackles that were run of the mill to him two years ago and he is certainly slowing the line down when he links up. At 2 & 5 been the weak link when Saints were the top side. At 3 & 4 Shenton is just not good enough and Wheeler needs to put some time in; probably the worst three quarter line in the top half of the league. At 6 Lance Oh No is turning out to be an embarrassment of a signing. Whatever he is it is certainly not a stand off. At 7 I believe a star in the making. At 8 Perry has turned out to be a poor signing and has never really been match fit during his time at the Saints. At 9. We are blessed with the best in the game. At Ten an average prop. At 11 Soliola is playing at his full potential at the present, I would hope there is more to come. At 12 Wilkin Tries hard. At 13 Flannery is to be blunt past it. On the bench Lafranchie (spelling) puts in a good shift if only he was a true prop and a stone bigger. The rest apart from T P are an average lot. This in my opinion adds up to an average side that will win nothing.

Really?

I'm surprised we are even in the 8, never mind only 5 points behind top spot

...and let the loony typical Saints fan kneejerking begin.... We're a #7, 1 or 2 props and decent tactics/coaching away from being a genuine trophy force again. Any 2 of those 3 happening would be good enough even.

More of a long transition, our chairman has had to battle on all fronts. Deliverying the new stadium was the top prioirity, signing the best players around was secondary and he had to change policy and look at youth. The problem with this is that we are competing in a period when there are quite a few teams who have well established experienced players in the key pivotable positions.
We had a long period of dominance and competiveness which no other team has been able to replicate, when you look at most of superleague years a LARGE percentage of those years, Saints were always in a final.
Its the clubs need to revaluate team policy now that we are up and running in the new stadium and to make sure our "Spent Force" is a temporary one.

Sport is cyclical. Wigan had a long period as our inferiors and had to take their medicine. It was great for us and very tough indeed for them.

We're back on their coat-tails now, but our time in the sun will come again as their team breaks up. You've got to try and make the most of these disappointing days and remember them for when we have our day again - will make it all the sweeter.

Oh dear me I forgot smallhampton will not have a bad word said about his beloved Shenton. Well tough; he is garbage.

You sir, are a prat.

To be fair, he hasn't been very good has he? Garbage is a bit strong, but nothing like we all hoped for

He hasn't been helped, though, by the fact that we never pass the ball to the right. He and his winger (be it Ade or Tommy) must spend half their lives getting frostbite.

Shenton improved as the season went on last year and he was great in the Grand Final. But I really don't think he is over his injury. That elbow has an incredible amount of strapping on it. I hadn't seen it up close until today, at Wigan. It might have been better if he'd had an operation rather than just rehab.

Saying he was great in the GF is rather over egging the pudding IMO. He was ok, and his injury was a major factor in our loss, but that was more to the loss of organisation and us having to shuffle the team around even further.

I understand the thoughts about giving him time after a major injury, the problem is that he's had half a season so far and he's not getting any better. Cunningham was given a lot of time to recover from his injury, but he was a key player, Shenton is not. How much longer do we give him until we at least take him out of the firing line to recover some confidence and to improve our team? He's adding very little at the moment.

I also wonder how much of our play not going down the right is due to a lack of confidence in him from other players. I may be way off, St Pete seems to know players and he may have more of an idea, but I can't remember a time when we've ignored one side of the pitch so much before.

I disagree in that it was his defensive strength that we missed when he went off rather than having to shuffle around. But that's history now anyway.


I doubt it as we were the same last season. I notice Robes often passes to the left and everyone else just seems to follow. That's a very simplistic way of describing the process but at Wigan today I really noticed it. I think after standing behind the sticks at Langtree Park, where we are much further away from the action, seeing the team so close as I did today meant I noticed a lot of stuff I just haven't been seeing previously.

How have the Saints managed to get themselves into this position where they are a spent force and all past their best? Maybe you should have looked to develop young players and focused on your Academy?

There's a guy who has been on the Warrington forum for years teaching us the value of this called Rogues Gallery, maybe we should put him in touch with you, his advice may help?

This "Rogues Gallery" of whom you speak sounds like a visionary. Do you think he might have knowledge of how anything and everything Wigan is better than anything and everything anywhere else when most of it is utter fantasy and noone outside of Wigan actually gives a **** anyway? That's exactly the kind of thing we need to hear more of on a Saints forum and I hope he descends on us to spread this gospel forthwith.

Not enough craft, guile, focus, calm or raw power in the opposition's 20 cost us today.

wi*an have the upper hand over us because their one-on-one defence is top drawer and gives almost nothing away. Against that, a team needs to have 3 or 4 players with that special 'something' to best their opposite number or make a half-break and slip the ball out of the tackle to an player alert and astute enough to be on their shoulder. This Saints team just don't have that. Nor do we have anywhere near enough pace to make breaks from well away from the opposition line count.

Today, the pack evened itself out. The difference was that wi*an had a halfback with genuine rugby brain who could dictate play, and real pace in the backs to exploit any gaps to the max.

We need a halfback who can orchestrate play, a pacey, powerful centre and a winger with similar attributes, an impact player to give us something extra near the line (Manu) and a bustling prop who can boss the middle (because for all that Frank, Perry and LMS are *alright*, they're just solid pros)

One of the things I have noticed is the number of times Lance goes to take up the acting half position then Roby comes in to move him out of the way and then he ends up a yard or two away from the play the ball when he should be further out as first or second receiver. Noticed this a few times yesterday and particularly at Widnes in previous round. It potentially wastes one or two plays within the set of six. Is he still in the mindset of a number nine? This contributes to the disorganisation that has previously been referred to.

and you are in denial if you think we are only a few players from a decent side.

Spot on for me, I'd also add a full back to that list too. There's holes right throughout the side and the fact of the matter is, if we're stopped around the ruck, we have no chance. We dont have the half backs to guide us around the field, we have no kicking game and our outside backs don't have the magic to create for themselves. Shenton is a trier, but I've seen no real quality from him in 1 and a half seasons. We're lacking a matchwinner in the Centres and at full back, someone who can beat a man and win a game on their own like Jamie Lyon did many times for us. All our moves completely fall down when it goes beyond our 6 and 7 should it even get past that point in the 1st place. We need a serious recruitment drive if we want to win trophies again.

I'd also add in that we've been poorly coached since Anderson left. Millward made us entertaining and exciting to watch and Anderson made us ruthless and structured, a bit like Wigan are now. Since then our standards have dropped and I'm hoping Brown can get more outr of the current lot than Potter, Simmons and Rush have. By this I mean, developing individuals within the team - forwards running onto the ball quicker and exploiting holes in the defensive line, playing to a better organised structure, defending more dominantly. These are things any players can be coached.

Out of interest how far did you think Huddersfield were from being a decent side under Jon Sharp before Nathan Brown took over?

I do agree in the sense that we are a decent coach away from becoming a decent side, but we need better players to take us to the level where we need to be.

Brown's appointment is the first step towards becoming that top side again.

I really don't understand fans falling over themselves to bash our pack. I thought it was pretty effective yesterday. Indeed, I think it's been effective in the overwhelming majority of games this season.

Yes, some forwards did drop off tackles yesterday - but most of these mistakes were in the final twenty minutes when the game seemed lost. Prior to that I thought our forwards stood up to Wigan pretty well.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about our backline which leaks opportunities like a busted water pipe. On reflection it was a mistake to bring back Wheeler in a game this big. Together with Shenton and Meli he made Wigan's task of breaching our defence very easy. I really can't recall any Saints side over the last twenty years which has been this woeful defending down the channels.

This problem is further exacerbated by our inability to keep opponents off us through our one-dimensional attacking and kicking which is giving them up to twenty yards per set. Wigan's kicking penned Wellens back to his goal line whereas ours regularly gave them tackle zero anywhere up to the half way mark.

I've been saying Lomax isn't a scrum half since the beginning of the season. Yes, he has the ability to unlock the weaker sides. But any team serving up a cohesive and determined defence will nullify him completely. This is not to say I think Lomax is a poor player. He's just being asked to perform a task his (copious) talents aren't suited to.

Gaskell is the future in terms of playmaking. Right now he's not physically ready to perform this task on a regular basis and I think one of the reasons he's been kept out of the side is to work on his frame. Hopefully he's bulked up a bit but we're going to have to wait until probably next season before we see any serious benefits.

Again, I think our best option is to shunt Hohaia to scrum half where he can work in tandem with Gaskell. I'd then divide the hooking responsibilities between Lomax and Roby (making us far less predictable in that area) with Roby moving to loose forward when Lomax occupies the spot.

At fullback we need to look seriously at phasing in either Makinson or possibly Swift. Josh Jones has done enough (and is physically developed enough) to warrant a long-term spot. Shenton is a waste of time right now. Yes, he's still recovering from injury - but this doesn't mean we can allow a player to continuously turn out sub-standard performances without taking action. Ditto Wheeler. I've given this lad plenty of latitude over the past few years but my patience is now at and end. I said earlier this year that he needs to cement his position this season or not at all. So far he has done little to nothing to achieve that aim. Meli? What more can be said about this guy. I simply can't think of any better symbol of Saints' failure in recruitment over the past five years than Meli. Last season he dodged a bullet by turning in some surprisingly good attacking displays in the centre but this season he's not even doing that. The guy is long past his sell-by date and we should look at other options in the academy.

Lomax is a hooker playing scrum half. He also seems to have lost a yard of pace since last year for some reason? Maybe he bulked up too much in the off-season

I bet you were fun to be with yesterday.



0 -2 and then 4 -18.
Where did you watch the second game, or was that another game "that didn't matter"?

There you have a big problem in the team IMO. They should not be dropping off in the final 20 minutes. They should be working just as hard for the full 80 because we could have pulled back two tries in that 20 minutes (assuming the ability to score, obviously). This tendency to drop off in the second half is in direct contrast to last season.

NB had Paul Anderson, already an accomplished assistant coach.

NB was able to bring in a vastly improved conditioner.