[uThe Good[/u

Percival - one of the best debut performances I can recall. And do we now have a back with some pace ?
Kicking game - still not great, but a lot better than I've seen it. The ball is finding the floor.
Breaks - we actually made a few breaks in this game, and against Leeds, that's pretty good.

[uThe Bad[/u

Coaching (1) - defence didn't clamp the ball. Everyone knows Leeds offload, and to fail to control that is poor technique.
Coaching (2) - we made breaks, but in most cases, there was nobody following up.
Coaching (3) - compared to Leeds, we did not look fit. Players really blowing, and you could see the difference in the scramble defence.
Forwards - When Puletua is off, we lack any sort of go-forward. Too small, too lightweight.
Right-hand defence - Leeds attack down their left. We looked extremely weak out there.

[uThe Ugly[/u

Manu - For every positive contribution, this guy is going to make 4 negative contributions. An asset against lower teams. A liability against top teams.
Turner - wtf ?
Walker - Not writing him off, but looks like he's not ready. To be fair to him, he wasn't expecting to get on, I guess. But some shocking defence there for a forward.

Manu and Turner are the biggest disappointments in a lifetime.

I'd have a slightly more positive view than that. But not far off.

Walker was dropped in at the last minute, but he held his own for someone given 5 minutes to get ready.

You put a bit more bulk and experience on the bench in Perry, Warmsley, Flanaghan, and so the interchanges don't look as weak. But when you get injuries you have to play the squad.

Last week Wilkin had a stormer, this week we went back to panic kicking on the 3rd and 4th tackle as he was struggling at times to get it away cleanly on the 5th.

I still think Lomax is a positive at FB
Percival held his own defensively against a much more experienced player
Laffranchi/TP/Sia really controlled their tackles well and put effort in going forwards
Wilkin was not at his best, but neither was he shocking.
Clough did what clough does
Sadly Ade fell apart under the high ball once, and those who say Meli gets us on the front foot, well I just don't see it.
Turner has not shown a lot, but neither do I think that means it's time to unload a can of filth all over him. Shenton did nothing for 2 years, so we can give a player more than 5 games.
I liked what Jones was doing in the pack, maybe his place.
Wheeler, well the lad is very unlucky, he did ok, but at the moment neither him or Gaskell have taken the oppertunity to grab the shirt and make it their own.

You forgot Manu, poor. Can't see what Turner his mate is offering either. Tolerate average and that's what you get - average.

You may not like this but I'm consistent.

Wheeler and McShane are two of the most overrated young players I have ever seen.
Both teams were better when they were off the park.

I think manu and turner are the least of our worries. I'm getting sick of saying the some stuff every week.

WE NEED A HALFBACK ASAP !!!!!!!

As has already been said, some players looked very unfit.
Lanffrachi has too many pounds and lacks mobility. I saw Jones, Clough, Meli and Manu were puffing and blowing and unable to get back into the line.

With a bit more concentration in defence we could have won it. Conversion attempts were useless and Makinson would have got at least 2 out of the three.
Was Turner playing?

Ref was extremely poor. At one stage he gave us a rare penalty and told our team to stop complaining.

Both teams were dull as for 60mins. Was the worst half (the first) I've seen for a while. The ruck was slowed down too much by both teams.

I really fear about next week, our forwards are a sham.

My objective (ish) opinion:

Percival was outstanding....biggest disappointment for me was that he didn't have a winger with pace on his outside who could finish off the breaks he made. Had we had someone like Hodgson or Hall, we'd have scored two more tries off his breaks.

Kicking game was average at best.

Lack of creative half backs is a massive problem - the team will win nothing with a makeshift 6 and 7.

Our props were shown how to run by Peacock and Leuluai who were massive for them. Delaney had a strong game too.

Walker was impressive in his first stint on the pitch.

In terms of overall performance, we are a 5th or 6th placed side this season. Not being harsh, just realistic. Shame that our move from KR has seen massive increase in average attendances, yet a slump in the quality on the pitch.

I'll give you Soliola - he was the standout forward after Puletua tonight. Really worked hard and made both yards and breaks. But battling alone when TP wasn't on the pitch with him.

As for Gardner, he's never been great under bombs, but he did run the ball back much better than Meli or Makinson have been doing. Not just in terms of impact and yards, but also the speed of the PTB after the tackle. I thought he was worth his place.

Meli's second try took a lot of scoring from the point where he got the ball. It was a wonderful piece of skill. It was also the only real positive contribution. He even nearly fluffed his first try by overrunning it. As for his workrate - shocking.

I enjoyed the game, it was a real arm wrestle that could've settled differently.

Leeds edged the territorial game through a combination of two excellent performances from Peacock and Leulieu going forward and a better line speed in defence. Clough got some good yards and Puletua caused trouble, but we're lacking that Nick Fozzard/James Graham who'll just hit that brick wall for you when you're under pressure - perhaps Walmsley will grow into this.

We had our chance to take the game in the early stages of the second half when we (soliola in particular) were having a lot of luck up the middle. I thinkwe could have got some more penalties for Leeds holding down, but hey ho.

There were some good kicks, but just as many last tackle plays when we didn't look like we knew what to do. I think the pressure Leeds applied caused Wilkin's playmaking real problems today.

Compared to Leeds, we just looked a little unsure as what to do next, which saw some wasted plays with our guys getting it at half pace and being tackled on the spot.

Fair play, Saintsfan, Meli was poor on the whole tonight, perhaps the only player that I'd really criticise. I think LMS and Boof could certainly have done more in the forward battle, though.

Wheeler's injured again (siiiiiiiiiiigh). Does that mean Gaskell will come back in, or will he do something wild like play Turner #6?

Lomax took his try well and threatened on occasion, but he was pretty faultless fielding kicks, which is promising.

Young Percival? Smashing, just smashing. Fair play to Walker as well, who probably isn't quite ready for starting a match aginst Leeds.

Felt like the right team won, but it was 3 tries all.
Kicking is something we desparately need to address. Why they've had wheeler doing it when we know he struggles to string games together, I don't know.
Who is the best kicker at the club? Neither Wheels or Turner on tonight's showing.
I guess Gaskell will take over if he comes back in.

I thought we were an utter shambles, no leadership, no game plan , no creativity against a Leeds team who were really not all that good.
Positives.........Mark Percival, we can also put some of the blame on Bentham for allowing Leeds to be offside for 99.99% of the game
Negatives........still no half backs, gutless pack, one man brain dead rugby, looking like we will struggle to make top 8, another potential 22 more games of this rubbish.

This at the moment is probably the worse saints team since the mid 1980's.

Leeds played a tactical game after last weeks bruising WCC. It stopped Saints go forward completely. Great play.



Then I read this and realised you probably don't really understand the game in too much depth.

I think looking at the game without the hurt of the loss, people will see we scored as many as Leeds and missed all our kicks. We made good progress down field, I will be very interested in the Stats.

I thought Ade did run well, just a pity he did not clatter Hall if he was going to let him catch it. Meli did do well to score the last try, but I'm not sure he has the work rate in him?

If I was going to score them out of 10.
Lomax - 7, Meli - 5, Turner - 4, Percival - 9, Ade - 7, Wilkin - 6, Wheeler - 5, Laffranchi - 6, Roby - 7, TP - 7, Sia - 8, Manu - 6.5, Clough - 6.5, LMS - 5, Walker - 6.5, Greenwood - 6.5, Jones - 7.

Willie manu is a second rower who would be devestating out wide and for the life of me I cant understand why Brown is playing him at 13 .... As for Turner well we did warn you

I think the reason he almost overran the pass for his first try was because, minutes earlier, Percival have left him for dust.
On tonights performance, I wonder whether Turner would be better utilised on the wing, with centres being picked from Jones, Percival and Meli? If he ever runs from dummy half, he always seems to make yards and he would have had the pace to keep up with the breaks better.

Not a bad performance from us, by a long stretch. Better than the HUll game and against much stiffer competition than Bradford offered. We're also getting to try a lot of differnt players out.

You're right about a half back, though. Very important. I wonder what we'll do?

We do have someone like that. He's called Makinson and he was cooling his heels somewhere unknown instead of playing outside Percival instead of that wastrel Meli. Makinson can fly AND finish. What a great pairing those two would make. I'm sure Makinson could learn how to play on the left edge ...

I have to say I was expecting the usual over reaction on here but most people seemed to have taken this loss well. It was a disappointing performance tonight, I didn’t think we would win but we looked lost for most of the middle of the game.
The positive was Percival and Lomax, for the first time in a long time we had two backs that looked dangerous. Jones looked good in the pack and Walker put in a lot of effort on his first start.
The negative was the one man rugby we played due to lack of direction/leadership/a plan. This seemed to make us try for too many interceptions and our defence looked very poor at times. Our insistence to let people who can’t kick goals kick at goal defies belief, with Wheeler and Turner no were near good enough. I can understand not putting too much pressure on Percival but what is wrong with Lomax kicking?
The thing to remember is that we have not had a good coach in 4 years and a lot of the senior players are just not pulling their weight. Brown has a lot of work to do to get the team up to speed and he is going to have to do it with a lot of the salary cap in the stand for this season, if he wants things to improve. In the end they have 27 rounds to get it right. Last week we sorted out the fullback position, this week it was the left centre, so in 15 weeks we should have a good team

I have to say I was thinking that during the game. Meli got shown up by Percival in both game awareness and pace tonight. Makinson is fast and can finish. You would think they would make a good partnership.

Wilkin to 13, Manu to second row, but who to 7?

Maybe Makinson would of scored a couple,but then again so did Meli and chances are he wouldnt of scored the ones Meli did.What can i say,he scores he takes crap,the team as a whole dont play well he takes crap,im waiting with baited breath for next years scapegoat if he leaves.

Of course he would have scored the tries Meli scored! Neither required strength, which is what Meli uses. It' possible other things would have happened also because not only does Makinson have pace and finishing ability, he also defends very well, is brave under the bomb and works hard.

Valid point re: wing partnerships I think here.

No, I'm no Meli fan, and I think you can certainly make the case that Makinson may have performed better overall tonight, but I doubt he would have scored Meli's second try. That was a seriously classy bit of work from Meli, involving great footwork, balance and strength. It's important to give credit where credit's due, even if I thought for the rest of the game he was almost disgracefully lazy, and was shown up by Gardner.

I think the problem with Meli isn't that he's not fast enough. I think it was more that he clearly was not expecting Percival to be making those sort of breaks, and so missed the first couple. But when he realised he might at last have a centre inside him who could get through the line, he was certainly up with him for the last two breaks.

At present, while I agree that Makinson offers more speed than Meli, I would rather Meli got the ball from 20 metres out than Makinson - he's a much better finisher. Defensively, they're both as liable to let someone in, although for different reasons. Makinson isn't as lazy as Meli in returning the ball and helping the forwards, but as he's too small to make any yards doing so, the net effect is zero. So ultimately, Meli keeps it on finishing power alone. Now if you could put Makinson's greater speed and workrate together with Meli's finishing power, you'd have a decent winger.

Gardner and Meli would be my first choice wing partnership every day of the week, but that's just my opinion.

To say Meli just barges is way off the mark. Yes, he can barge over and score tries (his job) but he does have a lot more to his game. I thought he had a great game against Bradford last week, made some great runs up the middle with ball in hand, and took an awful lot of pressure off the forwards. Meli struggles under the high ball, and can infuriate with his laid back style on the field, but that is his character, the way he is, and any Saints player will tell you that.

His try scoring record compares very well to the rest of Super League, and although he wasn't great tonight, we look much more threatening with Francis Meli on the wing than we do with Tommy Makinson.