We will do a lot better this year in the amount of winning games. I think people forget Saints have had a tough campaign over this first third of the season and have won 9 out of 11 games.

The contenders in Leeds, Castleford and Wigan are all going into a tough period after next week all of them playing each other turning them into 4 pointers.

In our next 12 fixtures we play London and Bradford twice home and away and a home game against Castleford. I expect to see Saints topping the table in Mid May.
But at the moment we can forget this until the result tomorrow.

Wigan purposefully rotated people in and out last year and almost manufactured a bad run to be ready for the business end of the season.

Yet we want to be running at 100% in May???

Next year we will need to be at 100% in May due to the split and the CC proposed changes.

At the moment we should be looking at are we improved on last year?
Yes by some margin - I go into games expecting to win.
There are only 3 games where my expectation was not a result.

Wigan Leeds and Widnes.

I expected us to lose to Widnes as soon as the draw was made (widnes have not been playing badly at all and we where always going to change the whole team)

Leeds I expected a loss we got a win
Wigan I thought we would win but we underperformed by some margin.

So I get one over performance, one under performance.

It's all about expectations. At the moment Saints are meeting mine. Others seem to be expecting results more like the 2006 season. I was never expecting that.

Brown is known for tinkering with team selections but I do think he should keep the spine of your team as far as he can bar injuries.
Surely he should be maintaining - Lomax, Hohaia, Walsh, Wilkin and Roby?
Wilkin at 13 due to Manu being out for some weeks.
The Cup Tie at Leeds is so important for your season and a win there would mean Easter is soon forgotten.

Jesus, we've lost one game proper, and one by resting half the first team before a cup game, lets get a little perspective.
We're 1 point off top in the league.
By this time tomorrow we could be joint favourites for the cup (with Wigan)

oh, and our 2 main rivals (leeds and wigan) play each other twice in May so they'll be dropping points soon

Whilst we play London and Bradford.

Precisely. We've played Cas, Leeds, Hudds, Wigan and Wire and dropped 2 points against them , not too shabby

I have a strong feeling Saints will come out of tomorrow's game with a fine win. From what I can gather Leeds have played near enough there strongest side in both Easter Fixtures. Could that decision backfire on McDermott (tiredness could be a serious problem for them tomorrow) Nathan Brown could really have pulled off a masterstroke by resting those players that didn't play on Easter Monday as they will be fresh to a certain extent.

Below is the mini "big 5" league so far... (It unfortunately doesn't account for in form teams we've also had to face, like cas and widnes, or the cup game) ...

[size=100[code
Saints 2 0 1 +15 4
Wigan 2 0 1 +11 4
Leeds 1 1 1 +2 3
Huddersfield 1 1 1 -3 3
Warrington 1 0 3 -25 2

[/code[/size

learnt how to do tables have we

it's an interesting table as well

How did you get the columns to align properly? I can't figure it out. Kind of embarrassing seeing as I'm supposed to be proficient in C, C++ and Javascript...

I merely have x86 and mt4 languages on my cv ... I cheated and used irregular spacing and preview post

(which to be fair, is pretty much the summation of how to code in mt4 - when in doubt act like a 4 year old child would on the computer!

)

You've done bloody well to get it that aligned with irregular spacing. Bravo.

Here's a table for the 'true' top 5 and how they match up. One thing that stands out - we've played all the other 4 whilst other teams have only played 2 of the 4.

[size=100[code
Saints 2 0 2 -27 4
Leeds 1 0 1 +30 2
Wigan 1 0 1 +14 2
Castleford 1 0 1 +3 2
Widnes 1 0 1 -20 2


[/code[/size

it's easy when you cheat



So, we've played our fair share of "big" games, and far more than our fair share of the in form teams.

I think we've been very unlucky (or conspiracy) with our fixtures this year. Regularly play teams after they trounce London - look at the confidence Wakefield took into the game against us, makes a difference. We then seem to have all our big games/ bogey sides all together - happens in august as well I think

Yeah we've been very unlucky with a terrible run of fixtures, though we have a pretty nice May coming up. It also hasn't helped the two very hard draws in the CC.

it tabletastic in here

the kids have a new toy

Who ever loses today, is more than likely to win the next game between Leeds and Saints

And we have a hard May, going off the post on here it must be a conspiracy.

No, you'll have a easy June as I believe the next round of the CC is in June.


Surely even the most biased pie eater can't deny you've had a easy Easter period compared to the rest.

Dewsbury, London, saints, bulls, Hunslet. That's basically 4 weeks you can rest players.


I've not seen your fixtures for June but I'll put money on you lot having a easy game the week before the CC (I'll go for wildcats at home)

Not moaning about our fixtures and yes Easter was kind, however in May we play Leeds twice, once away and once at Manchester, Hull FC away, Salford away and Huddersfield away.

All at home? You don't seem to play away.

When have you got Leeds? I bet it's next week after the CC game between us and Leeds.

Think we play you the week before the CC, maybe wrong. But yes an easy fixture