And then went off after 8 mins with no carries under his belt. Catalan was another pack that rattled him and didnt want to know.

He's big, he's soft and he's lazy.

I agree with the first one not the second and to some degree the third. If you remember back to when Paleaaesina played for Wigan (someone of similar size) and near the end of his stint nearly always got pin-pointed by the opposition and more often than not ended up getting beat by a man than mostly led to a try and then getting subbed. I can't remember this ever happening with Mose so maybe the short minutes are down to the coach being cautious and pre-empting this kind of event. You have to agree that most 'impact' props have some issues with lack of fitness but I put this down to their body shape rather than effort put in.

I don't think anyone can say he's not lazy.

I agree that he could be fitter but someone that is lazy doesn't work at losing a couple of stone, which he did after his injury when he first joined us. And someone who I class as lazy would not put their hand up and play over 50 consecutive games. Ok in the majority he only did small minutes but when asked to did the longer minutes for the team.

In it's simplistic form the point is to score more points than the opposition and Mose with his block-busting runs near the line and quick play the balls score a few and contributes to a lot of try's. If he is capable of doing this near the line you need to surround him with other players that are capable of getting you into this position so he can carry out his role. He is never going to do 40 plus tackles a match but a team full of 40+ tackles a match are never going to score many points and thus not win many matches. You need a balance in a team and although in many peoples books Mose maybe marmite I don't think we would have won last season's grand final without him. I think he has gone off the boil since announcing he signed for St George but he is not on his own when it comes to players leaving & packing their bags early but I feel he is a big game player and I hope when it comes to the play offs that Mose is named on the bench for Saints.

We're entering business end of the season. We can't afford to be dropping players just because we don't like them.

A coach's JOB is to get the best out of his resources.

Do you think KC dropped him because he doesn't like him or performance based?

His job is to win games and pick a team that will win. He's dropped JT and Amor this year. Does that mean he doesn't like them?

I've no issues with Mose or Turner. Sure, their performances can fluctuate (like any player). But not to such an extent that I would have dropped either.

It strikes me that Mose has been poorly used. As has been pointed out by others - very often he is deliberately employed as a foil (which is always likely to impact on his number of carries). Also I would have started him far more often - especially against some of the bigger packs in the league.

Turner's defensive issues are in part a product of our defensive pattern. I predicted that Jones (or whomever) would find himself in similar strife and sure enough he was caught in no-man's land against Leeds.

On the other hand Amor's performances throughout the season have been considerably down on the previous year. Why this is so and whether he deserves to be dropped - I'm not sure.

I don't think Kc has used Amor correctly. Kyle is a long mins prop, he likes to do the work and of left on longer will rack up meters and tackles. It's rare this year he will bust a tackle but he needs to be on longer. I don't think two 15 min spells is the way to use him.

I thought the front row with Amor, robes, sav, alex and richards was the best we have played as a middle unit for long long time. All was industrious in the way they went about the job. If we can get Vea back in that pack and the middles play that way every week from now on then I can see us being there or there abouts.

So for me, Id leave mose out and stick with the same lads this week

I don't think our forwards are a problem - in any configuration.

Our problem - for most of this season - has been a misfiring (or non-functioning) half-back partnership. This has been further exacerbated by not having a genuine loose-forward who can function as an additional link.

In game after game we have been almost totally unable to get our backs into the fight. All the workload is being thrown back onto our forwards. These are big lads. They can't afford to be doing any more work than they already are because they tire quicker.

The crazy thing is - it's not as though our backs don't have any room to work in. We've made a truckload of yards all season. The fact that our centres, wings and full-back haven't capitalised on the foundations built by our pack really is a damning indictment of our halves.

Out of the 26 matches Masoe has played this year, in 22 he has made 10 or less carries. The best way to judge a player is look at how he performs against the good teams. In his 4 matches against Wigan and Leeds, he's averaging 11 tackles and 47m per match. He's not been poorly used, he's just been poor.

Which defensive pattern of ours is it that means our centre has to make the wrong decision and shoot in unnecessarily? Jones did so when defending a three on three and created a gap for Keinhorst. He made the wrong decision, this wasn't anything to do with defensive structure. It's just Jones makes the wrong decision a lot less often than Turner does.

The last 2 month or so we have had trouble getting out of our own half. I agree the halves have been awful but the pack has also struggled.

Totally agree and im shocked at some of the excuses that's been made for mose by some fans. If he's wasn't the happy go lucky smiling samoan then people would be calling for his blood.

My favourite is that mose won us the grand final for that one shot in first min! He lasted 8 mins in that grand final and sure he made one carry in that spell.

who said he won us the grand final with that shot in the first minute? If you can remember back to last year, just before he went off after 8 minutes it was Mose who chased back down the left hand side and made the last ditch tackle on what would have been most likely a Wigan try. He also did a similar chase back against Wigan at our place this year again stopping a certain try, for such a big bloke to do this is a phenomenal effort in my book and again it was in the big games when he stepped up to the plate.

After watching him for Samoa against New Zealand in the world cup at Warrington I believed we had signed a gem of a player but if he could perform at that level week in & week out then no way would the NRL have let him come over here so all in all deep down I new he would have his flaws and have been satisfied with his contribution whist over here and enjoyed his stint in a Saints shirt. He has certainly been an improvement on the last big name import we last had although that wasn't hard to achieve.

Since when did ANY forward pack - no matter how good - dominate EVERY game throughout a season?

Packs - like players experience highs and lows. Being off its game for a few weeks is not unusual in a long season. Huddersfield looked like bottom-of-the-league material at the beginning of the year.

But not being able to effectively engage the back division for most of the campaign is suggestive of something far more serious than form.

Jones was in precisely the same situation as Turner because Saints are always defending narrow close to or near the line. We get away with it on Percy's side only because Percy is an unusually good defender who also happens to have arguably the best crash-tackle technique in the competition. But you can't expect everyone - whether it be Turner or Jones - to defend as well as Percy. He's a natural.

Why we cram so many guys into the centre of the field leaving both centres with the devil's own choice should someone clear the ruck and first receiver quickly is a question which only Keiron Cunningham can answer.

That's why I said over the past 2 month or so. I never said a pack should dominate every single week.

The last 8 or so games we have struggled to make meters apart from alex and was merely pointing out that last Friday we seemed to be more of a unit and share the work out more.

You mean to tell me Jones shot in on a 3 vs 3 because we were tight around the ruck? Every team defends narrow nowadays, how many teams don't use a sliding defence? Problem being that slide doesn't work if you've got centres and wingers doing their own thing and shooting in unnecessarily.

I haven't seen a single side in SL which encourages its centres to blaze out of the line and crash tackle as often as we do.

To be fair to Cunningham, it began to creep in more under Brown. But Brown aint here now.

My guess is the coaches aren't confident in the one-on-one defence of some of our bigger guys - especially against smaller, nippier halves and hookers. It's the only reason I can come up with.

I wouldn't play Masoe again now. I'd tell him he can pack his bags and go home early. I'm baffled as to why posters on here defend him and make excuses for his lack of carries, blaming poor passes or whatever. It doesn't seem to limit Walmsley's impact if that was the case.

There's no reason why Masoe can't make a similar contribution to the team as Walmsley does. Walmsley's a big lad, like Masoe. Yet he doesn't shy away from the graft. He knuckles down and does a magnificent job. He appreciates how lucky he is to be at a club like Saints after learning his trade in Championship. So for me, it's an attitude thing. Mose is the Nani of Rugby League.

IMO if we had 13 alex Walsley's in the side we would win the NRL but he is the exception not the rule. If you are looking at the pack IMO I am more disappointed with Amor than Mose and feel he has gone rapidly down hill since his first dozen games last year for whatever reasons. I feel he has lost size, strength & power.

Part of the problem of us not getting good yardage has been our poor and repetitive style of play. Pushing everything up the middle on drop off passes has been easy to defend against.



We did look better, but we were also shifting the ball wider more often and better. That created gaps in the middle for our big forwards to make breaks and half breaks. I'm not sure that the lack of yardage in the pack has just been down to individual players.

Masoe tends to gets a pass from most because he does tend to show in big games and people remember him rattling players. I don't think his stats are great and some of that will be down to him, but I do also think he's been used poorly at times. Last year, when he needed to do big minutes (generally in games when we carried injuries) he did them.

Comparing Masoe and Walmsley is silly. They are two completely different players with radically different physical builds.

Masoe is, what, 21, 22 stones?

How many forwards do you know who top out at a similar weight as Mose and do the same work as Alex Walmsley?

And before Mose's weight is used as a stick to beat him - yes. When he arrived he was clearly overweight. Right now he's close to optimum. He's certainly not failing his fitness obligation to the club.

20 stone apparently at 6"6 (and a half). Walmsley is 6"5 at nearly 18 stone. So admittedly I did get a bit giddy.

I doubt Mose is 20st. I used to think Mal Meninga was big but Masoe makes him look like a halfback. The guy is absolutely huge.

We shouldn't forget the difference in shape, too. Ask any sports fitness conditioner. They'll all tell you the same. Certain body shapes are more effective than others - depending on the role.

You only need look at their legs. Walmsley's are much longer with less of a cross-section. He has an absolutely enormous stride. Probably why he covers so much ground so quickly.

This is all about whether he deserves a place on the bench and although he is a bit of a fat pudding, on balance he is worth the bench place as he can offer something different if required during the game. Normally I would say that a 22 minute total mins player should be in the 17 but he can sometime do it for us.