My initial reading of it, I thought it was a shot at the players, and the recent rumours that some (cough Wilkin cough) were questioning tactics/ selection decisions - and McManus was reiterating who responsibility falls [isolely[/i to the coaching staff?

Or another shot at koukash, he can't help himself these days ...

Regardless of which interpretation is true (and I'm sure those who it was aimed at will know), McManus ain't happy with brown...

I think it's a pop at Brown...

Brown played down the derby against Wigan, highlighting that it was just 2 points. Yet you had Wane admitting that he was cheering us on against Cas has he wanted his Wigan team to be the one's who took out unbeaten run away.

As a Saints fan (and that's what McManus is), Brown's attitude above is not acceptable. You don't take the passion out of it, because that's were you get that extra 10% out of your team.

He is clearly having a pop at Koukash. It has nothing to do with Brown. The fact that he wrote it in the MANCHESTER evening news was a clue.

Read the whole paragraph. He talks about carrying out his role as Chairman in a dignified and professional manner. Something Koukash never does. He says he never offers a view or opinion straight after the game as emotions are often running too high, or too low. What does Koukash do? He goes straight onto twitter and rips into his players and coaches.

In the final sentence of the paragraph, he is refering to Koukash. It is well known that the good doctor interferes in the playing side of things far too much. You only have to watch Noble's interview on the BBC the day after he was sacked to know this.

Eamonn is saying that it is the coach that should speak to the players in the dressing room after the game. Not the chairman. It is directed straight at the doctor.

If you had been at the recent fans forum, you would know exactly what Eamonn thinks of Koukash. He properly ripped into him. It was hilarious. He still has not got over Koukash's comment about Saints holding back the game in this country.

Just watched the highlights

Ok I agree something isn't quite right.

Convincing win, unconvincing performance.

The defensive problems are still there and any decent side would have taken us apart last night. Ship the ball wide, you will score against Saints. Send up a bomb, you will score against Saints. It's not rocket science for any coach that has quality players to execute.

Our timing with the ball is completely out, we have no respect for possession and look completely and utterly without motivation. Maybe a rant off the chairman is what's needed because they are clearly not getting it from Brown, he seems to me like he wants to be their mate rather than their boss.

Regarding the McManus piece and the upper-case 'THAT', I think he was emphasising what a chairman's role [iis not[/i rather than what a coach's role [iis[/i. However, given that Brown has been keen to suggest that we weren't far away in the games against Wigan and Leeds, I think the implicit message is that our coach needs to re-calbrate his sense of what is an acceptable level of performance for this squad.

Regarding the match, I've got mixed feelings about it. In many ways it was a typical top v bottom clash, with the intensity going out of the game after 20 minutes. We did dominate London physically, particularly in the first half, and our overall game management was good (keeping your opponents in their own half for 30 minutes is an achievement no matter who you are playing). It's worrying how poor we were in aspects of the game that require communication and organisation, though. Our attack was poor. Walsh was brilliant overall, but he does like to go wide a bit early for my liking. The ball keeps getting out to our centres and wingers with defenders right on top of them, because we're not doing enough work in the middle to lay the platform. Our edge defence is even worse, though; it seems at the moment you only need to string a couple of passes together against us and you're guaranteed numbers.

The best action on that field last night was watching the girl's play at half time they made more yards than Mose?

I don't think I've seen a "supposedly" good team opened up so easy. Even when we was playing well early on I commented on how any team that moves the ball wide with runners will open us up with ease.

Up to the Wigan game, tho I don't think our defence was great, we had the motivation to get back as at the time we was "perfect" but soon as we lost that perfect record, we lost the desire to win at all cost.

When the perfect record went, we was dropping off tackles that we had been making, we wasn't running wirh the power and aggression pre Wigan.

We've had 3 good defensive performances this year (Warrington, Salford and Leeds) the recurring theme is in all 3 we had a point to prove. (In browns eyes at least)

You can't nil a team and be bad at defence (Leeds for example I'm sure everyone will agree are very well drilled in defence and are yet to manage it), so we CAN do it, were just not, so the question is why? we all know defence is about attitude, and since Leeds, our attitude stinks. Has there been a fall out at the club (and McManus has decided to wade into?) or have our players believed there own press from the first 5 weeks and not bothered to train since? Whatever the reason, until the attitude returns our defence will remain leaky.

Thought it was interesting, londons first try was a carbon copy of the first try Warrington scored,

Ok so edge defense is a problem.

Why?????

We have 2 great wingers going forwards, are they to blame for our edge defense?
Is it the centres?
Is it the second rowers?

It's not always the last man in the line to blame.

Do we drop our wingers back too soon and too far. Sometimes they are dropping back on the 4th tackle.

Is this because Lomax can't cover the field for kicks?

I did notice against Leeds we did ok up to the 4th tackle. We could pin them down somewhat, but at the 4th and fifth tackle they would spread it wide and have the numbers on us.

Its a number of things. Poor one on one, poor decision making, players being lazy not getting across, players not wanting to tackle and quick play the balls.

Basically not committed enough

I agree and Soliola is one of our biggest culprits at the moment. On current form he is playing dreadful.

In a nutshell: Poor Coaching. I'm sorry to say this, but I don't think that our coaching set up is anywhere good enough for a club like Saints. There is no basic structure in the team, there is no passion, and above all there is no motivation whatsoever.

Does anyone have any insight into what goes on with the coaching.
Is it just brown, brown and the king, other coaching staff???

Louisi (sp) is his assistant

When I watched the match back after I'd returned from the game I noticed that Stevo had a rare lucid moment and made an astute observation. He said that we were operating a sliding defence within our own 10m when we should be marking one on one at that stage. He also asked whether Brown was setting us up like that. I think that could go some way to explaining why we are failing on the edges as invariably it is on goal line defence that we are doing so.

I don't think we slow the play the ball down enough, teams are up fast and attacking before we set. Pretty strange as Brown used holding down tactics at hudds.

Crikey. Well, [ieven a stopped clock[/i and all that.....

Reading some of the posts on here, you would think we are battling relegation as opposed to being comfortably the 2nd best squad in the comp.

Yes, there are areas to improve on and yes, there are valid criticisms of some that can be made, but I just wonder to what extent the early 2000s have spoiled Saints fans.

We are grumpy sods.

But I think people will start to recognize this come mid point of the season. At that point you can start to measure yourself against the rest.

At the moment we are measuring ourselves against a dire 10 days.

I agree about the spoilt attitude. We don't really have a right to expect trophies yet although I would be disappointed if we didn't make the final this year.

Quote ="saintcj"I agree about the spoilt attitude. We don't really have a right to expect trophies yet although I would be disappointed if we didn't make the final this year.'" Eamon would agree with you according to this: www.loverugbyleague.com/news_149 ... drick.html?

Quote ="saintcj"I agree about the spoilt attitude. We don't really have a right to expect trophies yet although I would be disappointed if we didn't make the final this year.'" Eamon would agree with you according to this: www.loverugbyleague.com/news_149 ... drick.html?

I absolutely agree the GF is the target, I know others call it the hubcap, but I would think from a revenue point of view and the fact we are now out of the Challenge Cup the league leaders should also be a target.

How do clubs make their money?

From people walking through the doors, and a winning team gets people through the doors. Winning the GF is too late in the season to provide a boost money wise. You get little for winning the thing and season ticket sales the following year will be based on expectations on the 2015 team not the glories of the 2014 team.

The GF brings all the credit, but it's the league leaders that bring in the money.

My expectations are a top 2 and a GF... Not an easy task, but I think that is why we should aim for league leaders as 2nd+3rd will more than likely be the toughest draw, being a combination of probably Wigan, Leeds or Saints.

Whoever gets top will more than likely be playing Widnes, Cas, Huddersfield.

I know which teams I would opt to play twice at home.

Also the fixtures have been kind to us apart from the Easter period.
Our away trip to Catalan has a two week break prior to playing them.
Cas at home: they have to play wigan the week prior
Wigan away: wigan have to play 13th, 18th, 22nd us on the 27th. It's their catch up week for the WCC.
Leeds away: is the Friday after the CC final always a nice time to play a team
Hudds away: is an 8 day break.


I'm not for one minute suggesting a run of unbeaten games to the end of the season, but you look at that fixture list and with nothing else to aim for we should be sending our best team out week after week, with good odds on winning.

Obviously that's your opinion that we have the 2nd best squad in super league. I disagree, I'd put both Wigan and Leeds above the squad on paper.

Problem is, the game is plsyed on grass and not paper, if you go out with the wrong attitude like this team in, then we get burned.

Nobody likes to lose but it's part of all sport and has to be accepted but losing with no heart, comitment, desire and poor attitude is very hard to accept and to many players are not playing to their ability so having even the best squad counts for nothing.

We aren't spoiled. We have high expectations.

Maybe if other clubs had high expectations as well there wouldn't be so much mediocrity about.

We want Saints to be the best squad in the comp, not the second best. It's what everyone should be aiming for.