Forget all the doubters and the jibes from other clubs Saints fans. You are going through what every team that has a big change in where they play go through. But the joke about the Stobart trailer is funny and could be related to the roof at your new place. Your scrum half tonight made some bad decisions. Chin up boys and girls.

I'll answer this too, I'm pretty bored.

Serious post as Royce has a very good background, and Tony Smith started bad and look now one of the best coaches in rugby league.At the moment Lavatory Park but soon be a Fortress Park.

How the hell would I know who's available?

It's the clubs job to know or find out, not mine.

All I know, we can't continue to go like this. We played a poor bulls team 9 playsrs out injured who hadn't won at home and we lost.

Weve also been beat by a injury hit hull kr and Catalan team and struggled against Salford at home and London away, teams are putting scores on these for fun.

Something has to give mate.

I take it you didn't see what the wests fans was saying when we announced he was our head coach?

Utter rubbish! Your happy we signed a fullback to play halfback? Hahahaha great stuff.

The was many props off contract last season. Jason king, kite, griffin, Gil dudson, Lauaki, kafusia (spelling), Luke bailey plus other I can't think off.

You comment on that fact it's not coaching and down to the jack of a scrum half, then maybe if he signed one on instead of a fullback we'd not be in this mess!

Used to. Live in East Manchester nowadays.

From a Bradford fan's perspective this sounds like a discussion we were having 5 years ago ie, just a temporary slump vs critical decline. The latter was true and the failure to see what was happening has made for a truly tortuous few years. Saints are nowhere near as bad as we got but there are obvious problems which are not just 'form' related.

Firstly Bradford are not a poor as some on here are making out. We're not top 4 but we are improving particularly in the back row where we outworked Saints.

The lack of a scrum half in the absence of Roby is obvious. The conditions didn't suit Wheeler and Gaskell who are both good on their feet but your attack lacked basic structure. Jeffries played well by keeping it simple but he was partnered by Sykes who did OK but is not even a halfback.

Perry, Laffranchi, Clough, TP is not good enough as a front four. Your squad doesn't have enough props and particularly enough young English props a la Emmit who went to cas. For the money he'll have wanted it was a mistake to let him go.

Whoever is in charge of recruitment and retention has simply got it wrong. Too much money in overseas players and marquee signings like Shenton, and not enough young English forwards to form a core group. Nevertheless you have very good players. Lomax, gaskell and Wheeler need sticking with as they'll get better. Wilkin, who some on here criticise is an excellent player.

To sum up things are not as bad as some are making out but there are issues. The key one is the mcManus' judgement might just be starting to slip. If Simmons is partly responsible for starting the season without a 7 then he's partly to blame.

To sack or not to sack that is the question. I looked at the table last year, we lost 7 and did not beat Wigan or Warrington in the regular rounds.

We have to play Wigan and Warrington 5 times this year. Without counting Leeds that puts us up to 9 losses. No one can predict the future, our defence has tightened. But we can't play half a RL game. Defense will keep you in games, but it won't actually win games. The philosophy that defence wins games, is so wrong it's unreal. You can't defend for 80 mins and win. As a bradford fan said, we looked like we where playing well in the forwards and then it dropped off. Well thats Huddersfield and Hull all again. If the forwards are making headway, holding the territory, but then there is no result from that, that's when the lack of confidence kicks in.

I do not subscribe to the Saddened maddness, over our playing squad, but neither do I subscribe to the everything will come well in October theory. Quite frankly, I don't care about October. It's one game, I don't want to see a team back loading the season, prepared to lose half their games, to be fit for October. It's insane. Fans go week in and week out and whilst Trophies give you bragging rights, the week in week out wins and losses are what really impact on fans decisions to buy season tickets. If I was supporting a team the purposefully backloads their season, well quite frankly they can go sing for their supper for the first 15 games. If they aint bothered about preparing a proper season, then I won't pay to watch a full season.

We are not Leeds from last year, we don't have our 2 most influential players out, (yes Roby missed the last 2, but this rot set in way before).. When you look at the comments from Royce, he is quick to mention Roby being back next week, well that may help keep the score down but he is not a God and will not wave a magic wand and defeat Leeds on his own.

In the end the coach has to take the hit for player selection (backs on the bench) he does not use this to keep us fresh for the playoffs as he kept the policy (although I would now call it dogma) in the playoffs and the GF.

Not getting a prop - criminal . It's ok saying we have pushed backrowers forwards, but this has been done with too many of our current props. You can promote 1 maybe 2 backrowers, but you need a core of 3 or 4 props to do this.

Lance in at half back. Sorry but just wrong, decent player that he maybe not what we needed if we were replacing Wellens than fair enough, but he was coming in to cover the wrong players

I agree with all of this but I can't seem to make the point clear that we are in deep $hit due to this years recruitment.

We at least one prop but where is he going to come from? Our quota is full and with no British players off contract available then I can't see how we can bring a prop in.

Also, the halfback problem IMO is the biggest problem at the club but again, where is the new halfback coming from?

Lance might drop to fullback in coming season when wello calls it a day but that still leaves us short in the halves.

I expect Meli to go at the end of the season along with with flannery so effectively they need replacing in order to keep the squad. So add that to the props we need, the halfback we need means we are looking for 5 players with no quota spots.

The next coach has got one hell of a job on his hands and the next appointment has to be correct or we will find ourselves as a non play off team.

Evrything you have said there is spot on.There was no fluidity between the halfbacks and on numerous occasions the ball went to ground.Also the fitness of the team looks poor.Compare that to the likes of the wigan team(Who i think man for man are not as good as us)there is no comparison ,they are miles fitter than us .How many times were plays screaming out for a quick play of the ball or a player trying his best to get up quickly to play it but it never happened .Slow cumbersome and devoid of any real gameplan is how i see this team and until these areas are addresed saints will sytruggle.

If you are talking about a prop for this year then I fear we have missed the boat, as you say everyone is signed up. There are possibles but none of them as good as getting a prop at the normal time of year. We would have to be looking towards a loan, a player not playing well for another SL club, or someone playing well who we can, steal from a NL1 side. None of these are ideal options and it may well be better to struggle onwards for the rest of the season.

However if we are light in the pack, we could share the load more. Take yesterday, drop the back on the bench in Ashe and put Megennis on. It would give us more forward grunt in numbers if not in quality.

Halfback wise well we've just let too many go too quickly, Long, Smith, Eastmond, Ellis. The rot for me set in telling Long and Ellis and Smith to go, before we signed up eastmond long term. At that point Eastmond could pick his contract which put us with a 2 year contract with no chance of getting him for the next years.

Gaskell and Lomax can play halfback, but as Long says if they are being coached one way, they are unlikely to say, hey lets scrap this and play some different plays. Halfback can be recovered as they are young and can adapt, but the coach needs to coach the plays.

It's not impossible to turn this season into a better one, and not impossible for a new coach to bring in new players next year, but we have to get in first. If maguire taught us anything, it was a coach can take a top 8 side and make them a table topping side with 1 addition.

I'm not sure that Royce is to blame for the amount of passion that is being shown on the pitch.

I wouldn't be that disappointed if Leeds, Warrington and even the goons beat us, as long as the guys showed they give a feck,rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in.

Still missing my point, how can we bring anyone in next year?

We've no quota spots as lance is on 4yr deal, laffranchci 2yr deal, perry still has next season, sia looks to be signing a new deal and TP has two more seasons.

For us to bring a prop, halfback and replace both Meli and flannery we'd need to all English and I doubt we've got cash to spend or the is enough good quality players available.

If we'd signed a scrum half and a prop instead of a fullback and backrow then we wouldn't be in this mess.

Interesting review of your signings,


[urlhttp://www.leaguefreak.com/readarticle.php?article_id=12[/url

Look at it like this, if we had two tough and dominant front rowers, TP and Sia could be wide running second rowers, and especially with TP, he could play longer minutes and be used as an attacking weapon rather than just a battering ram for 10 mins.

I'm sorry to say, LMS has failed to deliver on his potential, Laffranchi isn't big enough and Perry doesn't appear to have the desire for it. As long as we have these three leading the way and trying to put us on the front foot with ball in hand, we will always be physically dominated by many opposition packs. When was the last time you saw any if these three put a hit on like Kylie Leuluai or get his nose through the line like Jamie Peacock?

I think Royce is on borrowed time at the moment, he needs a win from somewhere and it looks a million miles away. Our next set of fixtures couldn't be tougher and Royce has somehow got to lift the players confidence and pick up a win from somewhere. The way we're playing I cannot see us winning any of the next 3. Will McManus tolerate 7 losses on the bounce and 8 games without a win especially if that 7th loss was against Wigan? I think Royce would find it impossible to come back from that and McManus is a very patient man.

I watched the game with a mate who is a Saints fan and a group of Wiganers and they actually felt sorry for us by the end last night, that's how bad we were.

Whilst the players, particularly the senior players need to shoulder alot of responsibility for our poor form, the coach ultimately sets the game plan and structure of the team. I've not seen many Saints sides this poorly organised and dull to watch. We play with no invention until the game is gone - did we offload during the game the ball before Laffranchi's at the end? Our kicking game is awful, absolutely awful. Our long kicking game often ends in the full back or wingers hands on the full and our short kicking game is extremely predictable. If we're 30/40m out we bomb the ball. If we're near the opponents line we go for a grubber, but there's no real precision in this. It's just a hopeful grubber more often than not. How many times have we been caught on the last? There isn't one player taking the game by the scruff of the neck and dominating in this area. There is no direction and leadership. Do we have any real set moves? When we did change our "plan" from one out rugby we were moving laterally and not really committing defenders, it was far too predictable and easy for Bradford. This is all down to the coach who organises and sets the game plan in training, yet we don't appear to have one. We're rudderless on the field and at the moment we look like we're rudderless off it too.

I've never seen a team with such a poor kicking game. That comes down to no experince in the halves.

We've had Gaskell, lomax, lance, wheeler, wilkin and roby all attempt to take control of our kicking game and everyone has been poor.

Let's be fair here, of the 5 games you've not won, one was a draw, one was a 2pt loss, a 1pt loss and a 4pt loss. The Hull game was the only 2-score loss you've had. You're not exactly far off the mark. Just lacking confidence and leadership. Your senior players are letting you down and not passing on experience.

Royce needs to try and sort this out. I suspect he won't have until after Easter to try. If any of the next 3 games is a drubbing, he'll be gone.

Very good post. I think the key is the lack of any sort of invention. If you watch Wigan, Wire, Leeds and Huddersfield, then after the first few drives, they are organising for a move. The halfbacks are shepherding people, and the runners hit the angles. If you watched us yesterday, you'd say that we didn't have any moves at all. We played like an amateur side, banging the ball up repeatedly and hoping an individual would do something unpredictable. That's why Hohaia got caught with the ball on the 4th tackle repeatedly (unforgivable, in my book as an ex-hooker), and why Wheeler kept getting tackled at first receiver because either he was incapable of offloading, or there was nobody to offload to. You're right about the kicking - it was truly dire.

I'm not sure what the answer is here. We do have some size up front - Perry and Puletua are very big men : at least as big as the strike props at other clubs. The two problems we have are firstly that there are no other big men. Their replacements are LMS, Clough, Laffranchi, Flanagan - all of whom are basically second rowers (I know LMS has been used as a prop, but I used to ref the lad as an under-18, and watched him through his development at Broncos, and he's a 2nd row. Lovely speed, decent footwork, but not a hammer-driver). But the second problem doesn't just start when Perry and Puletua are off the field, because when they're on it, they're currently running like they have concrete boots on. It's almost painful to watch how slowly they take the ball in, compared to the likes of Crabtree, Leuluai, even Carvell. It's just not a major threat for the defence, and they're not getting on to their front in the tackle through winning the collision, so the PTB is slow. I'd be willing to shove Meli and Soliola in as prop, tbh, simply to get some size and pace in there (especially as Meli just isn't earning his coin with sufficient sweat right now). Something radical is needed, because playing with a pack of small-to medium-sized second-rows is losing us games.

As for the moves and the backs, that comes down to coaching. I think Gaskell, Lomax and Wheeler have a lot of talent. But it is not currently showing on the field. Shenton is a good centre with a decent step, but he is getting no running chances at all, so he never gets to use it. There is simply no excuse for a team of Saints' quality to look so utterly clueless throughout an entire game. We cannot have a game plan that relies solely on Roby breaking the line and offloading to support. That's something which needs to be worked on during training, and fast. Or McManus needs to consider his options.

If Royce goes though, who else is available? Who do you replace him with? There's no point replacing like with like.

I'd be very surprised if they weren't already looking. Dare I say Brian Noble!

Give it Keiron Purtell for the rest of the season, he's always saying he needs a chance and whats the worst that could happen? we miss the 8 and Eamonn is forced to invest in the squad and a proper coach?
Its simple maths for Eamonn 15k fans or 10k and £100k less in his pocket EVERY home game. Thats the difference between a top 3 Saints and a 9th placed Saints and i'm being generous there.

As I have said elsewhere, and as other Bulls fans have posted on this thread, this all reads like groundhog day for us. It's all almost word for word where we were several years ago. The only real difference is that ours was down to having no money, which led to a long term decline. Yours can't be down to that, so presumably can be fixed far more quickly?

Down to retirement of the senior players and top players being pillaged by union/NRL in a short space of time. In the last few years they've lost Sculthorpe, Long, Cunningham, Graham and Eastmond. Roby is all that's left. Wellens is hardly the player he was, and the young players aren't ready yet.

I can only assume your redneck upbringing left you educationally bereft and unable to read.



There sure were. Unlike you I don't know whether any of them wanted to sign for Saints. Perhaps you should ask Deep Throat?



Aside from myself and a few others no one thought we needed a scrum half. I certainly don't remember YOU putting your head above the parapet and claiming such.