I agree, some of our backs ain't up to scratch and we lack a player who can beat a man and not need a pass to make a break.

The pack should have done better mate. They had virtually their whole pack out injured. We did make meters but we didn't bust them up. It was work manlike but not agressive enough in decence tonight.

We just don't have players that can make breaks and that always worries me.

Nah, I think thats a bit OTT, we haven,t met a team who has been better than the Saints pack this season. We just couldn,t get into our A game today, our kicking options was shocking, like to see the stats on errrors, Walmsley knocked on about 4 times today. The Hull KR pack just played a steady game whilst there backs scored mostly from kick plays.

If we can keep getting 6 wins out of 7 with half the back line missing, then I,ll take it.

You know I'm being sarcastic right ?

Our pack is good but by no means Is it a great pack. It's hard working but Imo nothing special.

I wouldn't be surprised if we are totally dominated next week.

Of course, the comment was directed at whomever is was that said Saints' pack is the best ever in SL

I would. Wigan's front row is only a couple of notches above gash.

Who has a better pack in SL at the moment? The supposed nearest contenders were Warrington but we comfortably dealt with them last week.

He also said we could compete with souths pack

I'm not saying its a bad pack but it's certainly not head and shoulders above every pack in super league.

We ain't played Wigan or leeds yet, so we will see.

By 'Souths' did he mean London?

And Wigan fans are insistent that their pack is small, and lost to hkr by the same amount in week 2 when they were still on reminding each other their names. and Leeds pack had been dominated by Warrington the week before they played us!

Are we the best pack in the world? No, of course not, are we as good as anyone in this league? Absolutely. The pack weren't the reason we lost tonight, the links were.

Do you not think we should have really hurt them in defence and bust them up in attack down the middle considering they had no pack ?

I agree it was the links that cost us tonight but stop making out that this pack is untouchable because it's not.

They had the obvious game plan from minute 1 not to come up the middle. From the kick off they spread it. you can't hurt at them if they're not running at you! Even then they managed to clear out the links a few times. On another day and another pitch the link doesn't work and we'd of scored 50. In fact it was looking that way until Wilkin decided to give Kelly a free run. In defence, they scored 2 gifts, a poor take by swift and a terrible 1on1 attempt by Burns. What can the pack do in defence about that?

The back rowers could of helped the link create some space with some better angles of running, as the wide defence was closing us down far too quickly. And the front row seemed to try to do too much towards the end. They did bust them down the middle, we had 3 times more ball in the opposition 20 than they did! How many chances are they expected to create???

Swift as I have stated previously is grossly overrated. People have been misled by the fools in the commentary box linking his name with pace which tonight proved he suffers a lack of. His all round game is insufficient for super league and I would rather see Gardiner play before him.

The pack was not beaten by any means in fact they dominated but the halves could not capitalise on it. On the whole the players were too shallow and too close allowing the KRs defence to smother any attack with ease.

This
+1

Is St. Pete still trying to convince everyone the SL title winning pack and most judges' form pack of this season so far isn't any good?

I'm truely shocked by the number of people willing to lay into this team at the first loss.

6 wins count for nothing but the 1 loss suddenly proves everything about how terrible we are.

All that loss proved was that we can't go unbeaten all season. Warrington also lost last night and they were one of the favourites with us to win SL.

Leeds beat Wigan last week and neither team looked especially dangerous.

Maybe just maybe the teams are a bit closer than people like to think.

Swift was aweful, would I drop him based on that? No!

I'm just glad the coaching staff seem a little more level headed, because if some people in here were in charge we'd be a bunch of surrender monkeys the minute things did not go 100% in our direction. It's sport, you lose occasionally. Get used to it.

Our you still mocking mental health and trying to convince everyone we have the best pack ever?

SL title winning pack? It's not even the same Backrow

Like all sport your only as good as your last game. I think we were poor against HKR and we got exactly what we deserved , winning the previous 6 league games (forgetting the slapping we got from souths) does't make the team immune to criticism. Some of the bitching has been over the top as per normal but most people realize it's a long season and this result will probably make little difference in the end.

How we respond to this defeat for me will be a better indicator of where we are as a team at the moment - From a frans point of view if we smash the pie's off the park then nobody will even remember the HKR game , lose and Cunningham will have a real test of his metal with a tough game on easter monday with a tired and ever thinning squad.

We lost through a combination of some poor performances and a strange set of circumstances (Burns injury, no sending off, Roby concussion, two intercepts while we're hammering their line etc).

I'm not overly concerned, but we need to show more game sense on Friday and I'm sure we will.

The worry is more injuries - it's getting daft now and, like last year, looks likely to sap our momentum for a spell.

All we can say is that we are the most experienced team in handling an injury crisis and yet still stay competitive throughout the season.
Could we have won a few more grand finals if we had a fully fit 17, I would think so.

I think given Burns is our senior halfback we needed him to brush off the attention and guide us round the park, sadly he didn't and let them rattle him and we looked pretty clueless.

Back on topic. I think Swift is a good winger. He constantly backs himself to go around his opposite number and I can see why people questions this. I personally would like to see wingers be wingers and just not another big fella to drive it up the middle when forwards are getting back into the attacking line. I think the last out and out world class winger we had was Albert. Yes in defence he was a bit suspect vs KR but to be honest a few of our players in the back line got bamboozled a few times. If any of you listen to Try Time on BBC Merseyside you will also hear Ray French on the issue of wingers. Do any wingers at SL level own a pair of sprinting spikes?

Swift's got errors in him, but most of the time they're just one, maybe two a match. It seemed like he got a bumper batch worth this week.
It was a bad day at the office, no more.

That's Burns for you. Frequently happened when he played for us. If you want the good bits from him you have to take the bad bits as well.