Tommy came up with some very big defensive plays which is worth a shout

Yes, it sounded as though he had a watertight game, didn't seem to be many mentions of any cockups from Wilkin.

vast improvement offensively than what ive seen in recent weeks. We were actually trying to play some rugby and scored some excellent trys.

Defence in the first half however was rubbish. Too many times you could see multiple players marking the same territory leaving gaps out wide.

Second half i think we started to revert to the five drives and a kick drivel.

I thought our right hand side offence improved when LMS replaced Peyroux.

Next friday should be interesting Wire are desperate and we look lacking in defensive structure

Fages and walmsley I'd agree with. Percy has started to get better service these last two games, and he's showing more of what he can do. I think I'd put Roby ahead of him. A more active game from James, which helped.

Peyroux constantly out of position and throws the defence out. Also makes Morgan look bad.

For those of us that actually watched the NRL last season, we know that Morgan doesn't need any help to look bad

Regards

King James

I don't think I have ever seen a player look as unhappy and disinterested in a Saints shirt. He even looked miserable scoring a try.

Someone make the lad a nice pie and tell him the weather will pick up soon.

Duly noted, but I'll reserve judgement until he gets a decent second row inside of him.

I thought you deserved that. Saints played with more intent and attacking adventure then I've seen you do for a long while.

I'm a big fan of Percival and I thought Fages was exceptional. If he were English I'd be getting pretty excited about that sort of performance. He was constantly looking for openings and his offload just topped it off.

Like Hull last week, I think the players have spoken on the Cunningham issue. They clearly don't want to get him sacked, the effort was definitely there tonight. What was also there was the style of play. I've not seen us promote the ball, play on the front foot and actively look for the offload like since Cunningham has been in charge. Some of the attacking play was great. The defense was a contrast, the first half was absolutely horrendous, ridiculously poor defending. The second was brilliant, from both teams and the intensity was far higher.

The player that impressed me the most was Tommy. His big hit on Bosc had the neighbours banging on the wall in complaint against my shouting. Theo's offload which ultimately won us the game was sensational, the kind of thing that would massively hyped if Billy Slater or Shaun Johnson did it.

If we back that up and beat Warrington things will be looking a lot better than they have been. If we don't, tonight will just have papered over the cracks and allowed Cunningham to struggle on for another few weeks. I'd love to know whether the increased attacking intent shown tonight was a Cunningham-led thing or the players taking things into their own hands. Last season when we were playing horribly, there was one week where things noticably stepped up and we went on a big winning run. Is it Keiron's doing or the players saying enough is enough which his structure and grind?

The one thing that almost ruined the game was the refereeing. Swift's no try was another example of very strange decisions going against us. Saints should make an almighty fuss about that one, it was sent upstairs as a try and there wasn't even the slightest hint of evidence to the contrary. Having said that, the forward pass call to deny a Catalans try was also a terrible decision, one I'd have been raging about if it was us being prevented from scoring.

Not really much to write home about that, against a team wasted by a poor leeds team last week, the dragons are all over the place and the early try for try shows how poorly both defences are at the moment.

Saints seemed to get stuck in a bit more tonight, but with our average recruitment we will never be more than "just in the top 8" for a while as we will always struggle against well organised teams.

It's interesting to see that the last two games we have been hitting percy more than ever and it's working as we look dangerous.

Regarding Ryan Morgan, he's really disappointed me so far this year as he's looking totally disinterested and looks like he doesn't care. It's the fact I know he's a good player that's really grinding on me. He's fast and got top foot work and can be real threat with the ball. I know we seem to be hitting the left 90% of the time this year but the is nothing to stop him getting in and taking a run. Percy has gone 3yrs without good ball but he's willing to get in and take a scoot or take a carry but Morgan seems content to just stand out on the right doing nothing. We got to the last 10 mins yesterday and was losing by 2 points and needed someone to do something from nothing but he was just happy stood out on the right doing nothing.

I just hope we get some sunny weather and dry ground so we might see the real Morgan.

I just get this gut feeling that Morgan is not happy with our game structure and quite often he has Peyroux, Walmsley and an unfit LMS defending on that side which looks weak in all the games this season so far. He is a much better option than Peyroux at centre, like you say a few more dry tracks and a more adventurous style of play might put a smile on his face to see what he can really do, having Peyroux and Owen either side of him is not going to bring tears of joy though.
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EDIT: Just looking back at some of the replays quite often Roby switches play back to the left hand side quite a lot, that might some of the reason why Percival is seeing twice as much ball as Morgan, which is par for the course, Shenton got starved of quality ball when he was at the club and didn't look too happy as well. Our attacking structure needs to be better balanced but will KC see the middles as a priority over anything else.

But does he really want the ball? Yes he's got crap either side of him but percy had all this since he's been here and got into the England side.

I just think he's either not bothered or lazy. He hardly gets the ball unless it goes out the the right edge as he won't do the tough stuff like percy will.

He needs to get more involved imo

Pete

The stats against Catalan show Morgan had 10 carries for 113 metres while Percival had 9 carries for 69 metres.

Now considering that the ball tends to go to the left were Percival is, then that would indicate that he is pulling his weight when he gets offered the ball.

For me the problem is Peyroux, in that he naturally cuts inside and kills the ball moving out. LMS is far more willing to shift the ball out, and it was noticeable that with LMS replacing Peyroux, that Morgan got more ball.

Hopefully Saints will see sense and move Peyroux to the bench where he can provide cover.

I also am a bit old school in that i want wingers and centres to play on the wing and not be misused as additional props down the middle. One of the issues we have in recent years is an obsession with following the Bulls complex of having what are in essence forwards playing on the wing. We did this with Meli and Gardner. This obsession with size can certainly get you to finals, but as shown with the Bulls and Saints it tends to come up short in the big games, when pace trumps size.

Wigans recent success is built on pace. Leeds before was built on pace. Saints before that was built on pace.

The teams defeated in finals against the aforementioned sides eg the Bulls and Saints tended to be big battering ram sides. With little LOFA (length of field ability).

I find this stat a little hard to believe. Percival made good ground repeatedly down the left. This seems a bit unlikely.

I find that hard to beleive. Was Morgan Mrs doing the stats?

My point regarding him not coming in for the ball. My point is, we are losing by 2 points with only 10 mins to go, we want our so cold attacking players like Morgan, percy, lomax etc to get hands on the ball and do something.

Wigan had two big strong wingers such as manfradi and Charnley. Leeds use two big strong wingers in Ryan hall and Tom briscoe also.

There are lies, dammed lies and statistics. Agree that Percy made a lot of yardage last night.

I think it was Morgan who set up Fages with 10 mins to go for the last try, Morgan had a bit of game awareness to change direction and cut inside with a quality pass to a supporting Fages, the rest was skill from KC's "baby Theo"

Roby broke his nose and lost two teeth on Saturday. He's a tough guy is Robes

You can't really blame Morgan for being disinterested given how rarely the ball goes to the right and the players he has alongside him. Owens and Peyroux are hardly inspiring team mates.

Gardner?
My memory of him was not as a big tough unit.
And Meli might have been big, but he was as soft as cow muck.

Gardner returned the ball really hard,showed no fear going into contact.

Fair enough, but this was in the context of the Chair's comments:
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All I was saying is that Gardner was not in essence like a forward size-wise, as he was saying.

Oh i don't know about that, wasn't he nearly 15 stone and 6ft2 ?