Ahhh, a typically reasoned argument from a pie if ever I saw one... Care to suggest why I'm "talking a load of cobblers" in anything I've stated, or are you just going to stick to some nonsense formed "opinion" based on no supporting evidence whatsoever? Hmmm?

And I go to MK, not the Wobblers. At least get SOME of your "facts" right.

Or go shag your sister. It's all good.

handbags.

Everyone's allowed an opinion.

No they aren't!!!

League games being pointless farragoes now is not in any way a matter of opinion - it is indubitable fact. The only place "opinion" comes into it is whether or not you consider it reasonable to fork out a big chunk of change on watching said farragoes. My opinion is that I have better things to do with my cash. You and others may indeed think otherwise (at least for the time being - give it another few years and another few "champions" from outside the top 4 and your "opinion" will change, trust me). That's fine. I hardly see why that's cause for the redvee-like muckslinging that the lesser evolved members of this board decide the expression of this opinion is worth, but there you go. In a way I pity them...

For the majority of teams they have far more point for far longer than they ever used to.

Back on topic re: Wigan.

They have looked pretty tasty, but it was against two of SL's weaker teams. They came up short against Huddersfield and got over a very poor Leeds the week before the WCC.

I'm not terrified yet. Wire and Wigan both look very good, but then I'd argue they are more settled in key positions than we are. They both looked far better than us at the start of last year too, but we made the GF and neither Wigan nor Wire did.

No need to panic, IMO we have enough quality to mount a serious challenge for both CC and SL.

Fair play to Wigan/Wire (and Hudds) though - all playing good RL.

For [isome[/i teams (the 3 or 4 mid-table nonentity teams that will be battling for 7th, 8th and 9th) that may well be the case. But why is there a justification for making the season artificially meaningful and exciting for the mid-table dross? Those teams/clubs do not deserve any more than mid-table mediocrity and yet you are happy to see them given the same completely undeserved and unearned lifeline to the goody bag as the worthy teams at the end of the season? Where is the sense in that? Where is the sense in any club trying for excellence when you can achieve exactly the same with mediocrity now?

The natural order of things is that the good teams should fight it out for the trophies all season, the bad teams should fight it out for survival all season, and the mediocre teams should have, well, mediocrity all season. The current playoff system skews this all preposterously making the whole thing vapid and stupid.

Here endeth the lesson.

No lesson - you said games are pointless, I'm glad you now agree that they are clearly not.

And yet despite all these "pointless" games, crowds have been going up. Strange eh?

I see... So arguing pointless, petty semantics is all you have then, huh?

For (probably) Bradford, Hull KR, Salford & Hull fans league games are not pointless. But I don't care about ****ing Bradford, Hull KR, Salford & Hull.... I [ionly[/i care about Saints... I am a Saints fan, on a Saints board, debating things relevant to Saints. Saints games are all utterly pointless. That is the point that is unarguable, and all I care about, and all I am here to discuss. That is the point I have made and which is 100% true and is the case.

Must try harder. D-. See me.

Or rather don't actually if you don't mind...

What do you care about Saints you only go to finals and against wigan



Lets go back to the 80's and see 1-2 teams winning everything and watch the crowds disappear? utter bollax NS

Don't forget, we've played what's deemed as lower ranked teams in London, Salford, hull kr and Catalan who are a good team but you'd expect 8 points from that with some points on the board as well.

Wigan look head and shoulders at the moment and if we was to play this week I'd have no doubt they would put 50 points on us.

Wigan are bigger, faster, better coached and very well drilled team.

People said all this last season and apart from one game at Widnes every single game between the teams were close. 2 we won and we could've won 2 others with a bit more luck.

Saints need to up their game but I've no doubt we will as the season goes on and we adapt to the loss of Graham.

Wigan may look good right now but it means bugger all at this stage.

It's just the mess we look at the moment that worries me and the methods Royce uses.

I just think we are in for the worst season we've had since super league started.

Who knows what will happen, but we looked worse last year. We were in a right mess after the Wire & Quins 'home' games but came good in the end.

I still think Royce is finding his best side which has led to lots of rotation and errors from the side.

You're absolutely right - instead, let's have a season where the first 85% of it counts for [iabsolutely nothing at all whatsoever[/i, and then decide the champions on what is basically a lucky dip basis so that everyone, including all the completely pointless nonentity teams, has a completely artificially manufactured chance of winning it instead. That's a far better way of keeping the punters interested all season and then deciding who the "champion" team is, isn't it?

Why not let's just go the whole hog and have all 14 teams run onto the pitch at Old Trafford and then award the trophy on the basis of an arm-wrestling or chess competition between them all? Everyone has something to cheer the entire season, including the final itself, then don't they? Utter genius!!!

God, give me strength....

Blobby: you speak sense.

I think in all the knee-jerk reaction from Friday night (as much from me as from anyone else), we have missed a couple of very encouraging things. Firstly, how many times did we drop the ball on Friday night? Aside from Foster's drop (and that was helped by a big bash on the back just as he was collecting it), I can't remember us knocking on. I'm sure we must have but certainly nowhere near the rate we had been knocking on up to that point. I think our completion rate on Friday night was something like 96% (as opposed to around 76% for the Dragons).

Secondly, we didn't run laterally. We ran forward all night, even when we were giving up the ghost defensively. That too is a significant improvement on our play so far this season.

We did collapse defensively, although the last try of course shouldn't have even been an option given Leon Pryce's infringement from the preceding set of six. However, we shouldn't have to rely on referee competence to see us through and clearly a major amount of work needs to be done on our defence. Although the problem is bound to be structural to some degree, especially post Jammer, I do think it is also an attitude problem. We need to maintain our intensity in defence as well as attack. Hopefully that will come in time as we adjust to the new team layout.

Why Would it take this long to know his best team? It's not as if we've signed 6/7 players in. We've lost pryce, eastmond, graham and Moore and replaces them with laffranchci, hohaia and flanaghan.

I've just got a feeling he ain't got clue what hes doing and last season spared him the blushes with the injuries.

By rotating players this year, he's completely contradicted himself as last year his favourite excuse was he can't fiend the same side. The injuries was a blessing in disguise for him.

My biggest worry from Royce being in charge is the recruitment. I'm pretty certain he will be on a one way flight back to oz at the end of the year but god help the next coach that's got to sort the mess of recruitment he will leave behind!

I can cope with no old Trafford appearance this year but his methods will set us back years and years.

+ 1

I do know what you mean Pete and if you look at my posts (not that I expect you to - I am just being anecdotal) I have had the same view of Royce from the minute he was appointed not just from this season. He's a really good guy but I just don't think he's a coach that makes a difference and squeezes that extra bit out of us when we need it - many of the pundits in Australia said the same when he got the job.

I also suspect that he will not be here next year and hope that we are working on bringing in someone absolutely top class. If the rumours about Nathan Brown have any substance I think that would be quite an interesting appointment - he's quite well regarded in the NRL and for me that's the real measure; not the views of forum members who sometimes get carried away with emotion not knowledge (and before anyone flames me I class myself amongst them at times). If it's not true then I hope we get someone with a pedigree who can change us into winners - it's only that extra 5% we need.

The mitigation for me is, ironically, the players who are underperforming at the moment. Wherever you sit on the the play offs/league debate what we have proved is that our players generally step up and become very competitive when they need to. I just think we lack that killer instinct in finals that's all and in reality we are no more than a couple of players away from getting back to where we were a few years ago. This year's recruitment has indeed been strange as I simply don't see where Lance will play given that Gaskell is such an exciting player and Laffranchi is not what we needed in a particular position. They are not bad players - just the wrong ones IMO.

The one I was most excited about was actually Flanagan given how he should have developed in Oz.

Keep the faith. As someone else said it's not how you start but how you finish and we tend to get better as the season progresses.

I'm getting deja vu here from last season!!

Most Saints fans are very simple creatures capable of very simple reactions only unfortunately it seems... Losing an early season non-entity game means we are the worst team ever, the players all need sacking, the coach needs tarring and feathering and shipping off to Alaska, we're going to struggle to even make the playoffs etc. etc. You'd think that some might have learned by now even with their tiny, tiny little brains... Bit depressing to see it every single season really...

1) For the first 55 minutes of that last game we looked really good.
2) Catalan got lucky with a lot of ball bouncers during the last 15 minutes, how often does that happen where every 50/50 bounce goes the way of one team?
3) Catalan had the benefit of some dodgy calls at key moments.

It's not all doom and gloom.

Saints let off athen got themselves in a panic mess for the last 15 minutes. They will learn from that.

....you forgot to mention number 4 - our defence , especially on the goal line has not been good enough thus far.

Hi all and thanks for the glowing praise of what our 'Ape' is achieving over the lump.

Feel free to all come along to the DW on Sunday and watch free flowing rugby at its best and to see how a well marshalled defence look like.

We may well be the best supported team in SL, but there is always room for a few more and anyone wanting to defect will be welcomed

Last few games we have looked pretty good yeh but im not reading too much into wins against Bradford and Castleford. Lets see how we do sunday against a good side, aslong as were top 4 at the end of the year weve got a chance of winning it. Wire will walk the hub cap.