How long do we have to put up with this garbage?

A team which offers no threat beyond a hopeful up and under bear the line?

Poor recruitment

Poor selection

Poor substitute management

Weak goal-line defence

Soft forwards

Absolutely no self-belief

Shockingly stupid discipline

Teams not needing to play well to beat us

Enough. FFS. Enough.

Do we wait until Smith is back and see what happens?

Personally I'd give him until the end of the easter period

I do believe though that EMcM should be calling him in and asking to explain a few things

Don't think we will be much better when Smith returns, a better kicking game perhaps. KC's Plan Z is really zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The Super league landscape has changed. Gone are the days where you could kick and scream when things weren't going your way, get a new coach in and bobs your uncle. Look at Huddersfield.

By the end of the Easter period, we could be where Leeds were last year. Do you see us beating Catalans away? No, me neither.

We have to stop making excuses. He's had more than 2 years of relative decline, and the same weaknesses, particularly a complete inability to attack.

This is bad. We shouldn't indulge in wishful thinking.

When was the last time you actually enjoyed watching Saints? You know, went with a smile on your face expecting an entertaining win. As opposed to went with a clenched @rse hoping we'd somehow scrape through?

He has to go.

Pretty much blaming the ref.... again

Yes! Definitely!

No team should sack their coach 4 games in. If the club was thinking of doing it, they should have done it the end of last season. The club backed him with his signings and we've got all his stuff in place so no way will sack him YET.

I think Smith will give us some direction and better kicking game but for me, it's Jonny lomax we miss big time. He's our threat on the edge and he scares the life out of teams.

Personally I'm not happy with some KC coaching and methods but I'd like to see us when lomax and Smith are on the field and fully fit Taia and LMS on the edges.

I agree

in fairness your lads gave it a real good go tonight, play with that passion and get lomax smith back and imo you wont be far away

Except it's not '4 games in' is it? It's 2 seasons and 4 games in of steady decline and it frustrates me when people insist on taking that short term view. If this was his first season I'd be agreeing with you but you are ignoring the fact that he is doing nothing but taking us backwards and has done since he too over.

Matty Smith is not the answer. Never was.

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Your missing the point. I personally would have got rid of him after last season even though we was 80 mins from grand final and had something like won 12 out of last 13 games. I would have sacked him on the basis of the style of play because at times was some of the worst rugby I've ever seen from saints team but Mcmanus stuck with him. He's just signed on 5 players and give the lads a full pre season and imo it's madness just to throw the last 3 month of pre season based on this year, we have no option but to give him more time this season.

If we bring in a new coach now, he might not want the new players, the pre season a waste of time and effort so let's give him until mid season and see where we at and not be silly by sacking a coach 4 games Into new season.

I think we are approaching into a period very similar to Leeds last year where you are expecting things to get better but we are going into the "bottom 4 creep" situation. When Smith comes back we will definitely have a better kicking game but its doubtful it will make the likes of Peyroux, Wilkin, Douglas, Lee etc play any better.
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For me, sadly we are probably looking at a 70% Lomax from now on, his footwork and lack of speed against tighter defences is not going to be influential as in the past.
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KC is so bogged down and stubborn in his own beliefs now, I reckon after Easter we can probably see that we will have too much to do to ensure we are in the top 8. For me once once Smith comes back we need to remove Wilkin and Peyroux out of the team and put more energy and honest effort into our back rowers. Our pack in reality is a front row and 2 wingers, KC has believed in this for a season and 4 games now, its embarrassing but the opposition will quite content for it too continue for all the season.

The last couple of games I have watche don TV I thought Peyroux was one of your better players, obviously I dont see him week in week out like you guys and for everyone to have the same opinion he obviously doesnt cut the mustard. But I thought he was reasonable enough last night. Also think adrenaline got Taia through his first game, although he made errors showed his class too. Think at this point in time itsgood for saints you have replaced Greenwood with him. Good luck for the rest of the season

It's a shame we are like this post Nathan Brown. After the disaster of Royce Simmons and Mick Potter I truely beleive Brown had brought us through the other end of transition stage. He had brought in better players and got rid of the players that was letting us down and we won a grand final.

On the back of the grand final, we didn't build it on, in fact we took 3 steps back in bringing in a rookie coach. You need to build on success and not go backwards like we did. The most crazy thing in bringing KC in as coach was the fact he'd never ever coached a team. He hadn't done the u16s, u19s, reserves or even any amateur coaching, he was just let loose as first team coach without cutting his teeth in the game.

The common purpose with Potter, Simmons and Brown was too manage a transition and bring some of our younger players through, for better or worse we did see that change but struggled with consistency.
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For me KC because of his inexperience is doing the opposite, he wanted leaders so he got them, he wanted experience in key positions so he got them, the only thing that didn't change was his game plan. He has also lost trust with his younger players Savelio, Greenwood, Thompson, Richardson, Fages have not been handled well on the man management side, we are becoming an old team with an uncertain future.

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To be fair, we did need some leaders and experience. I thought the signings of Smith and Douglas was good idea as both leaders with loads of experience but Smith ain't played yet and Douglas has been very poor.

Even the Morgan signing made good sense. He is experienced nrl player, fast and good with the ball. It brought us balance to the side as we have two centres but again, that ain't worked out.

i'm someone who has always felt the need to be patient with Longy and Cunningham due to their lack of experience in coaching.

The back end of last season gave me hope that something had clicked with the pairing and they had figured out a few things on how to run things.

So far this year though it has been a reversion to past issues.

The defence has been on the whole ordinary, this is despite the so called poor defensive players being let go.

Last night was one of desperate players having to make many last ditch scrambling tackles. That for me is one of the reasons we are conceding lots of penalties. The defensive structure just is not in place. For example i noticed last night numerous times that two players were marking the same space. This leaves gaps elsewhere.

Offensively we are very one dimensional. I accept that missing half back and fullback is going to affect overall creativity. However in the past we have been in far worse situations, but had the structures that allowed players to run set plays and get over the line. We have also been prepared to use the ball, something we are seemingly unwilling or incapable of doing now.

The stats bear this out, in that the second rowers are getting comparatively less ball. All the go forward is via the front row or the wingers. This basically shows that its a case of winger returning kick, then further winger carry, then Prop carry, prop carry, prop carry, finally kick.
No wonder fans are complaining about boring rugby and opposition teams are easily handling us.

I have bracketed the opposition for comparison

Against Leeds.
Wingers: 44 carries (27)
back row inc loose forward and replacements 26 carries (39)
props inc replacements 56 carries (44)

Against Leigh
Wingers 23 (23)
back row 36 (43)
Props 46 (41)

Against Wakefield
Wingers 34 (36)
back row 31 (46)
Props 54 (25)

Defensively ive noticed the back row appears to be doing all the work. I think teams are just bypassing our big pack when going forward and moving it wide. We on the other hand just smash it straight through the middles. We make good yardage doing this, but for me opposition coaches are just suckering the Saints into a false belief that they just need to keep ploughing through the middle. The problem with this is the props are getting overworked and tired out. This forces the back row to play tighter in the middle defensively to plug gaps there. This then leaves spaces out wide forcing the back row into scrambling defence and conceding penalties.
Opposition coaches are just manipulating us into a tight pocket that they can easily control, before out flanking us when they have the ball.

IF KC and Longy are to survive i think they need to muster at least one win in our next two games. Lose both those and they are gone.

As for replacements. Geoff Toovey who is currently at Bradford Bulls would be my choice, as is proven Grand Final NRL coach, failing that Steve Mcnamara could be an outside bet.
I know many call for Darryl Powell but for me his teams have so far flattered to to deceive, and when previously put in charge of a big club he was a disaster.

I'd attempt to bring over Jason Demetriou or Dave Fairleigh.

Daryl Powell was far from a disaster at Leeds. He took over a mess after Dean Lance and gave kids a chance which started a period of success. He led those kids to 2nd in league,a cup final and to 80 mins from a grand final.

He wouldnt leave Cas for Saints tho so all irrelevent.

You guys are stuck like my Leeds team was last yr. You are a great club tho and will come thru it but its a tough period to go thru and im not sure where your next win is coming from. You will be fine though.

No I am not, and what you are suggesting is folly - do you really think we can wait for an empty ground because I'm telling you, when that happens (and it will) the business can NEVER recover from it - end of. This is a commercial and results business, end of, no fog no fudge just black and white and that's it. There's no room for 'let's see how it goes' and someone as shrewd as McManus will be/should be looking at the overall picture and assessing this:

'How much confidence do I have in this guy to deliver'?

In doing that he can't ignore the fact that KC's overall record is woeful - that should be the determinant of whether he stays or goes and he's hardly got a compelling argument to stay has he? Eamonn has backed the guy, he isn't delivering and no amount of 'see how it goes' will change it because he simply isn't coach material. Without being a smart alec I said that the day he was appointed (and I think you did too) - delaying the inevitable will only cause further damage, not make things better Pete. Sometimes you just gotta do it.

I'm going to disagree. We should have got shut last year but we didn't. We now have to give him time to see if he can turn it around as you can't sack a man who the club thought was right for the job 3 games ago.

We are on a very "tricky wicket" at the moment, can we afford to wait for a turnaround, come Easter we could be staring at 9 losses which was our whole season loss last year before the eights. There is not much confidence that dramatic changes can be made from a stubborn man hell bent on his style of coaching at all cost to player and supporter.
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If we do end up with the worse scenario at Easter we are probably looking at avoiding the middle 8's, this conservative style of play can't go on we've not had our injury crisis yet, once that kicks in we will really start to struggle especially if it effects our back line.
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Personally I would give him the Catalan and Warrington game if he fails then we quickly need a new coach and time to change things around.

FWIW, even as a Wiganer I feel for Cunningham. He was a great player for you and may have become a great coach. He was simply imo given the job at least 5 years early. The majority if not all good coaches have learnt their trade by coaching at youth, reserves and assistant level for a number of years before getting the top job.

It's very rare a young inexperienced player comes into a team and performs consistently straight away, a coach is no different.