There's no doubt that Wheeler has lots of potential. I think he is more than capable of playing centre and he has a touch of creativity to go with it. The injuries are frustrating but unless he's breaking down repeatedly [iwith the same injury[/i (say like Nigel Wright with his ankle) I see no good reason to get rid of him. I have no time for the idea that his body isn't up to it. Fragile players don't get anywhere near as far as Wheeler has. They are found it pretty quickly in the junior grades. Gary is just one of those players blighted by bad luck. For all we know his next injury will be his last and he will go on to a successful career - somewhat like Tommy Martyn following his final knee injury.

What exactly do people want Meli to do ? if the ball isnt coming his way its not his fault,saying go and hunt the ball is all well and good but realistically what would it achieve ? He is a winger shunted inside to play centre its not his job to go into the middle of the field looking for the ball.And also for that try,yes he took a dummy but shouldnt the spotlight be on Moore for once again missing Burrow ?

Overall this year Meli has been good in the centres,i agree we could use an out and out centre but to blame him for tonight is just wrong.

for me any player who is quite willing to walk up and down the touch line and watch the other members of the team play their hearts out while scratching his lazy ar*e is not a man I want to see at Saints.

Not commit two defensive howlers per GF?



I can just imagine it now. Gary Schofield readying himself for the start of a game [iwhilst mulling over whether looking for the ball inside could realistically achieve anything.[/i



Did you tell this to Martin Offiah, Jason Robinson, Alan Hunte, Phil Ford etc. who when not scoring outside for fun often came inside for the ball to case havoc?



The spotlight IS on Moore. But Moore can at least claim he hasn't dropped a (try-conceding) clanger in every prior GF against Leeds.



You're confusing playing well with [iplaying to win[/i.

The other games are irelivent this thread is about tonight


Meli isnt the cause of our loss tonight,our forwards didnt play well enough,after an outstanding your for Lomax and Gaskel they lacked ideas and spark tonight and lets not forget stupid penalties ( Moore,Soliola and a couple of others ) also injuries.There are lots of reasons for tonight but lets just lump them all on Meli huh.I suppose that makes it easier than actually having to deal with what went wrong.

Meli - useless at Old Trafford and has not looked interested foor 3-4 weeks.

Why did we keep Flannery? Could have let him go and brought in a cheap back a la Carmont style

Said by you on the Moore thread but also relevant here.

I think we kept him because he's cheap, non quota and the is a lack of quality players available.

Who could we of signed bearing in mid it would have to be a british player ?

Is not good enough now.

Nor Flanno now

Let him go

We cant just bin him without paying him and we cant afford to do that.

And he's makes up the squad. We can't just have 17 players and bin everyone else.

Flannery will be squad player as the is nothing else out there.

Is this where the wheeler side thread starts?
Come on Gaz W take it from L Gaz!

Ey?

Absolutely ridiculous knee-jerk reaction to one of our better players this season. Try redvee mate - they love that kind of agenda'ed scapegoating nonsense over there.

I wonder what on earth more anyone could reasonably have expected of any of our 3/4s in attack in the playoffs given that not a single none of them ever got passed the flippin' ball...

As i posted on a different thread on a different forum

What cost us tonight was a mixture of things,poor tactics,poor discipline giving away penalties on the last tackle is a sin.Poor choices when in possetion,lack of creativety in the halves ( and please dont think im knocking Lomax and Gaskel but tonight they showed exactly what they are and thats inexperienced ) 4 repeat sets and we cant score,the forwards lacking any real punch,our lack of plan b ( again ) stop Roby you stop us,poor tackling.Our injuries they really threw us at a time we looked good.These are why we lost tonight doesnt matter what people think about Meli or Moore the whole team lost the game tonight.

wheeler at SO

There was little wrong with our tactics - we just lack spark with 2 inexperienced halfs to try anything more advanced than 5 bashes and kick deep at the moment frankly. Those tactics were winning us the game handily after all, and it was only bonehead penalties, an injury and Rob Burrow that ultimately lost us it. If Burrow (or a fit/on form Pryce/Eastmond...) had been in a Saints shirt tonight then those tactics would have won us it by 20.

C'est la vie anyway... I'm off to pretend that the sport of Rugby League doesn't exist for the next 4 months and then... New stadium time!!! Bring it on!!!

OK Meli was not the only one at fault. To start with when shenton got injured we had given up our domiinance already.

We took that kick from half way. Then followed it up with two penalties to drag Leeds kicking and screaming from defending their own goal line straight back to our own line. Then Shenton got injured.

With hindsight only

Maybe Royce should have move meli back to fosters centre and put Wheeler and makinson back on the wing. FB would be the issue then. But lomax to fb and wilkin to half back with dixon in the pack.

Hind sight is brill. Would have taken a minute or two to sort out but would have left us less exposed.

The hall try from a meli point of view was terrible. He dropped back on the third tackle. This gave burrows everything to run at. When burrows shifted to that wing he did not race forwards to cover the hole he left leaving us totally out numbered. Then he played like a FB backing off Burrows not needed at all. Then he took a dummy leaving the actual FB with two guys to tackle as Meli totally missed hall. The least he could have done after taking the dummy was to take out hall and give a penalty. In the end it was an easy stroll for hall.

All in all the penalties cost us as it gave Leeds very easy feild posistion in both halves. They very rarely worked the ball into our half with out a penalty from us. But this territory was nulified mostly by good defence until shenton left us.

So not totally melis fault but was the oppertune man to go for once our penalties put Leeds in position. Sinfeild is no fool and its no coincidence they just loaded that wing from there on in.

Really? Who'd have guessed THAT from the title?



Push your bottom lip back in and dry your eyes. Contrary to your straw man argument very few people are suggesting Meli is THE cause of the defeat. But he certainly is A cause. And it's not like this hasn't happened before.

Totally right. Once he saw what we had on that edge he knew that Christmas had arrived.

Exactly mate. I think inexperience in in the halves cost us tonight. We had good field position but took wring options, especially Gaskell. I'm not knocking them at all because they have been fantastic but that's what you'll get with inexperience in the halves.

Our kicking game was awful, for some reason Gaskell was kicking the ball with the outside of his boot.

Leeds was there for the taking and we didn't do it. To many times this year against big teams we've dominated in possession and field position but not put the points on the board.

We will learn from last night and should make us a better team.

Totally correct. I posted the same thing on another thread last night.

You've got to take your hat off to Leeds tho, they exploited that side and took full advantage.

Not really. Any team would have done the same, including us.

It's that easy is it?

Shame we didn't exploit ablett all night who's postional play in defence isn't great.

They saw our weakness and punished us.