felt sorry for the lad, he never got a chance to make up for the mistakes.

But what I'm saying is that it is too early to make that judgement since he's only had three games and he's already been asked to switch places (and let's face it, Potter does like to experiment - by his own confession too). Had he played on the wing with, say, Roby playing centre (assuming Flannery was injured although I've no idea whether he was) then he could well have had a better game. He is perfectly capable of putting in some great defensive moves but his line defence isn't yet strong enough. That could be positioning and/or strength and/or style. Only time will tell but I don't think three games is enough to say that he is not yet ready for the step up, especially when half the team were misfiring.

Nope. Potter preferred to put him out then pull him out, no doubt undermining his confidence in the process.

Wheeler hasn't looked a step out of place, cracking player and will only improve. Easily SL standard.

The jury is still out on the other two I suppose, but I tend to feel the same as you.

Wheeler is the better of the three, but where is he? He misses far more games than he's available for.

Not true this season actually. He was tackled over the hoardings at Hull KR and continued to play with stitches in but they became infected and so he missed a game or two. He got a wrist injury in training and that is why he is missing at present. How serious that is I don't know. But had he not ended up over the hoardings at Hull KR, he would have so far missed two games, which many of our players have this season. Meli alone has put in a good stint of injury and now Wello will be on his third absence, no doubt.

There was a time when Eastmond appeared to be made of glass, but not this season. Wheeler is more than likely having a bad run with injuries. It's his ability that was being questioned, and for me he has shown he can mix it at this level already.

I do think people are a bit harsh on Foster I think the problem is injuries (& maybe Potter). If you think about left centre I think Foster would be about 6th choice.ie Soliola, Wheeler, Dean, Flannery and perhaps even Wilkin ahead of him. It does seem that whoever is played their gets an injury, & with Roger M out forcing Lomax back in on the wing it was a recipe for a c*ck up, and that, unfortunately, is what occurred.

Foster really needs to improve physically, it will help his game no end, he is just too small for the intensity of SL.

This thread is to morons what UV light is to a fly. Talk about feckless.

Just out of curiosity, where was Flannery this evening? I don't remember mention of an injury ....

i agree and you can add bryn hargreves to the list as well.

He made it worse when he took Foster off by putting Pryce at centre - he was worse and doesn't have the excuse of inexperience. At least Foster tried!
He should have put wello at centre, pryce at F/B or even moore at centre and pryce at S/O.

Scott Moore is pi55 poor,not good enough where as Wheeler does at least have a bit of class.

It was the right decision to bring Foster off. He looked way out of his depth as he did against Leeds, when they scored 3 down that side.

You cant be sentimental about these things, he isn't ready yet. He'll need to go out on loan at some stage soon IMO.

Give the lad a break!!

He's 19. He's played 2 SL games and he's expected to go in at centre and do the same job as a Gidley? It was the wrong decision by Potter to put him in at centre, or if there is no one else put Gardner, Foster together and Lomax and Gidley.

In 2 years time when Lomax, Foster and Wheeler are playing a more regular position in the squad, when they've bulked up a bit, when they're playing in their right position - judge them then. Not when their coach has put two inexperienced players on one side, any team that does that then it's always going to be a recipe for disaster.

Same goes for Scott Moore - don't judge him now when he's being expected to play in a unfamiliar positions, judge him next year when he's playing regular hooker!!

It will be a test of charachter for Foster this, but at the end of the day, the blame has to lie with Potter. When the team was announced with a flank of Lomax, Foster and Dixon you just knew what was going to happen. I could see it, my mates could see it, my dog could see ,my dead gran could see it and if rumours are to believed, the senior players were absolutely fuming with Potter when he announced the team.

You need a coach you respect. I dont for one minute believe he has the full respect of the changing room one bit.

Way out of his deapth! Would he be in the team this year if it wern't for his kicking? I havn't seen him do much else right.

Does a no frills job of filling in on the wing when injuries demand it, and he's let no-one down there.

Clearly not ready for the step to the centre berth at that level though.

Probably the right time to start blooding him and letting him make these mistakes.

He needs a loan spell and a bit of time to fill out.

he wouldnt be in team if any of Soliola, Wheeler, Dean, Flannery and Meli were fit - they are not, so we are down to the bones of the squad.

I've not seen the SKY replay, but I assume that Eddie & Stevo were as sympathetic to Saints injury plight as they were to Leeds earlier this year?

Dont think they mentioned it to be honest.

Meli, Flannery, Wheeler, Fa'asavalu, Dean, Soliola, im pretty sure 5/6 of those would be in the first team if they weren't injured.

But we aren't the Whinos so it wouldn't get mentioned.

Wilkin too.

Bottom line is, though, that we had a threadbare squad against Leeds too but went out and played like we meant it. We looked like we didn't want to be there on Saturday - that had more of an impact on the result than injuries.

Poor attitude (with a couple of notable exceptions) and we got what we deserved.

Yeh that's true enough.

It wasn't particularly relevant. We didn't get beaten by a side outplaying or overpowering us.

Sure the first couple of tries came from our inexperienced duo of Foster and Lomax missing tackles, pretty horrifically it has to be added. Despite Foster being out of position and drowning, Lomax had two one on one tackles that would have shut out the first couple of tries and they just went over him like he was a speed bump.

The majority of the rest of the tries came from stupid individual errors. I can only think of the Gibson and Broughton tries where there were genuine moves put on us. The majority I can remember were from pretty poor kicks that we made totally unforced errors from. Even Broughton's try saw yet another embarassing attempt at a tackle from Wellens.

Despite how shocking we were with the ball, we should still have won that game and even if we were full strength I don't see how that would stop Wellens and Gardner gifting them about 24 points.