That was one of the worst Widnes teams I've seen tho. Never heard of half of them.

Widnes were a settled side with players in the right positions, our players were all over the shop when we had a couple of injuries, you know we are going to struggle when you find LMS playing centre.
Lance seemed to be playing 2 positions for a short period full back and hooker. Moving Wheeler out to the wing killed off any creativity in the middle of the park.
Still struggling to complete our sets, that needs to be fixed quickly otherwise we will struggle to compete next week.

Soliola was again destroyed playing on the right at second row.

I said against Wigan that he was the player that was giving Wigan all that space to attack Walsh and Turner, and again today he was directly at fault for Widnes first two tries.

He was saved further embarrassment due to the dawson injury meaning he was moved to centre with Wheeler on the wing.

Wheeler went down injured near the end after making a half break. The physio seemed to be rubbing his calf.

Tommy Mak scored one of his super mak trys and got injured in the process. Spent the rest of match limping.

With regard to the youngsters.

Thompson I think played the whole 80 and ran it in and tackled all day.
Greenwood also did a long shift and at time threatened, but isn't quite there yet.
Liked the look of Tilley with ball in hand. He is somewhat lightweight but has is a good passer and has the makings of a traditional ball playing loose forward. Certainly thought our ball movement was better when he was on the pitch.
Savelio was a beast. For me he needs to be in the 17 against Leeds, as he makes things happen. I think he made 3 clean breaks due to smashing straight through the defensive line. Even when tackled he was making big yards with people hanging off him. His only weakness is lack of stamina at present which means he cant do long minutes, however when on the pitch he is a wrecking ball

Alright in isolation but that's very harsh IMO. I don't know what the commentators on the radio or whoever you were listening to were saying but we had our best back-rower playing the majority of the game at centre (although he has been out of form recently), Gary Wheeler on the wing, Matty Fozzard making his debut around the ruck, Wilkin at 7 and in patches, a set of forward almost full of under 19's. Our pack at one point included Walker, Fozzard, Savelio Greenwood, and Thompson.

Our edge defence needs working on to an extent but I wouldn't take too much out of that today. Next week we'll have players playing with 9 days recovery/training under their belts and we'll see how we go. I'm lead to believe that Leeds put a strong 17 out today so we'll see. Don't read too much out of that today.

Andre Savelio was brilliant today though. Always thought he would be a high level second-row but he could easily be a prop/13.

Similar theme in last few weeks regardless of personnel. Marker defence is woeful, teams constantly jump out of dummy half & make easy yards. Our line speed in defence is non existent ATM & we are obsessed with blindside plays or playing around the ruck. When we get the ball wide we looked decent today.

We are playing it too tight around the ruck area, Leeds and Wigan use a very similar umbrella defence involving 2 players either side of the ruck area moving up quickly from a border line off side postion. its easy meat for them with teams with a flat attack.
Roby is now struggling to get the ball away especially when its a slow play the ball, its also effecting our impact props who receive the flat footed and instead ending up doing hard yards. We need to get the ball out wider and play the game on our terms.

I've read a few posts from people saying he carried the team today, maybe I'm being too harsh. I just think at the moment he's a bit of a luxury that we're carrying. We need 17 players working hard.

It was a disappointing result. That try were Wilkin was clearly obstructed seemed to finally kill us off. We showed some good character coming back in 1st half.

I think people look at the way Mose walks back at the beginning of the set and assume that he's lazy. But then he puts in a huge carry every set and puts a stint in defensively as well. He also did plenty of minutes today - around 50, I reckon. Without him today the score would have been much worse.

I was at the game. I seen the 40 points we conceaded with my own eyes.

Why on earth were you posting on here then? Could have got behind them rather than looking on forums.

Still, each to their own.

It's not hard these days to post on smart phones when stoppages in the game. I don't see what the big deal is letting people who can't make it what's going on?

Do you never use your phone at all at games? It's 2014 mate not 1980.

Our best backrow forward MANU is out injured.
He makes more tackle busts, more metres and more metres per carry than Soliola, while also having a higher tackle completion percentage 94% compared to 91% for Soliola.

Soliola is an impact bench forward, and a good one at that as he livens things up with a big hit or a couple of strong runs, however he lacks the all round game consistency to be a starting back rower imo.

I've said for some time that he is an accident waiting to happen. I know he looks sensational and has the commentary team in raptures but I'm not convinced he has to score every try in a horizontal position. At that speed, it would only take a badly executed tackle to cause serious injury!

Jog on you clown. He doesn't put himself in those positions for the sake of it. If he didn't need to do it then he wouldn't.

I still think the loss today would have been more palatable with a decent performance on Friday.

I've only seen Savalio once and today he seemed better. Could it be that he could nab a shirt off LMS?

Whilst a loss is never great, I'm sure brown will have taken a few things out of today.

I do think Sia has been having a few off weeks, not sure if it's a dip in form or his mind elsewhere with Brown bringing up the NRL.

I do like Brown but he does seem to do crazy things at times.
Whilst in theoretical hindsight it would have been better to reverse the squads this weekend. Putting out that side in front of a sell out Langtree would have had cry's of horror from fans, SKY and probably the chairman as it's one thing to lose, quite another to throw a sellout clash.

We had to put our 'best attempt' against Wigan. Although I still reckon Brown has held some players Amor and Swift back as a precaution. They may not have won us the match, but they would have made a difference, but may then not have been fit for Leeds.

It's about squad management. We go full tilt at Leeds then have 2 weeks to recover any injuries.

I hope you never somehow find yourself sat in the home stand at Huddersfield with your smartphone mate, you'd end up getting burned as a witch.

Sia got ripped apart on two occasions against Wigan which resulted in them scoring but Wigan always handle sia well. It's not the 1st time they have targeted him in defence as he shoots out the line and they always bash him up.

I honestly think poor coaching cost us the game today. How we started with Wellens and Wilkin and switched Hohaia to full back is beyond me.

I thought Savailio ( Spelling ) was your standout player today, he ran hard and straight and used his strength well and troubled us whenever he was on the pitch.

Masoe on the other hand looks like a player that you notice when he does something good, but his defence was shabby, he tires far too easily and seems to want to pick and choose when he wants to join in with his team mates. The new Iafeta Paleaaesina?

Neither team had their strongest team out, you were weak in the forwards and you got us on a day where we had the good sense to drop Danny Craven and play Grant Gore instead, a player who links very well in the attacking line.

In all the result was a fair one, your completion rate was poor and your wide defense was shocking, you showed flashes of quality but thats all it was.

A pick me up for us Vikings after the last two poor performances.

Fair post but maybe little harsh on Mose who played well today.


A few saints fans are missing the point that you lot had players out today which included your scrum half mellor. The saints team today IMHO was good enough to beat Widnes today.

I'd put money on Hohaia, makinson, jones, wello, Wilkin, Mose, Sia, Lms, Greenwood all being in our 19 next week and the likes of walker, wheeler and Saveilio pushing to be in there. So possible 12 of team out today could play next week.


So credit to Widnes who deserved your win.

Brown: "With four or five minutes to go, we were still in it, but the score probably reflected the game. Our start to the game is an issue. We have not started games well at all.
"Whether it's kick-off, bomb or anything - we start the game very poorly and we have to look at it. The guys had plenty of fight in them - 18-4 down and we fought our way back - but credit to Widnes.
"The thing with Easter is that everyone is in the same boat. We had 10 lads who didn't play today but we are playing Leeds this week and we have a lot of injuries and that's just the way it is, but we will get some benefit of them not playing."

I hope they do sort this current trend of poor starts. I'm glad he's acknowledging it.

Shocking performance and result. LMS should be playing for Rochdale, give Savelio or Richards the jersey next week vs Leeds. As for Sia i'm totally shocked how highly he is rated by the majority of Saints fans. He can put a shift in defence but so can Flanagan, he is virtually non existent with the ball. Cant break wind, nevermind a tackle.

I disagree we had lots of round pegs in square holes today, most of our experienced players playing out of position trying to create an understanding, you can do it with a few players but not with the dissruption we had today.

We had Lance playing full back and hooker, Soliola and LMS playing centre, Wheeler on the wing.
Our pivotal players are Lomax, Walsh, Lance, Roby and Wilkin all of these where either not available or playing out of their optimum postion.

Put these players back in the team alongside Amor, Walmsley, Manu, Swift and Percival we would have thrashed Widnes, we had a 13 player abscence/adjustment to make, that does not include the young ones making there first appearance this season.

Widnes could be a promising top 8 side this season they more or less put there first choice team out, Saints put a patched up team based on Leeds next week, it was always going to be a banana skin game and we slipped up.

I've no doubt we'd put a score on them at full strength but it's worth pointing out they also played Good Friday, also had players out, also had their 7 out and also play super league team in the CC next week.

I,ve just checked the Widnes team for Good Friday they had 13 players on Good Friday playing in the same postions today Easter Monday.
We had 13 players missing or out of position today yet it was possible to win this game despite the handicap.

Our biggest problem regardless of which players we select is our completion rate. Our games with Wakefield, Huddersfield, Castleford, Wigan and now Widnes is around the 50% mark, we are not respecting the ball.
Wigan and Leeds are operating around 90% add the fact that they have a good structured defence then Saints have lots of improvement to make, can they respond at Leeds next week.