So apparantly its a sort of "s*it happens - doh" according to you?

Problem is why is s*it happening to us a great deal more than to other SL teams?
Its worth looking for the answer rather than taking your fatalistic attitude.

How do you know that it is a problem with the physio?

I remember last year before the challenge cup final Tony smith said his players were conditioned to collisions similar to 50mph car crashes as that is the intensity of the challenge cup final. Maybe that is why you don't see them and some other teams take so Many contact injuries

Hay up Saddened ....Dont start moaning about injuries deal with it..

The physios are the only constant - last 2 years we were blaming MP and the fact that the players were over weight and unfit, now under Royce there is no doubt they are "fitter" but suffering more and more with injuries.

This isn't just a bad run.

It's really pi$$ed me off when everyone was bagging potter for the injury situation over his two years! And here we are half way thru royces first season and they are worse than ever.

Has any thought, it might not be the coach?



It's pretty obvious it's nothing either coach did wrong.

we are all saying wait till we have most of the players back, but will this happen. so we get 3 players back then low and behold 2/3 players get injured in same game so back to square one. i dont think we have gone a game without us losing players every game. getting fed up of going to every game knowing more players are going to be injured and none returning.

The key thing is to get the so called better players playing and the halfbacks.

I'm sure yesterday would have been a different game if two of lomax, Pryce or eastmond, Gaskell or wheeler was fit to play 6 and 7.

You're missing the point. Royce cannot pinpoint a trend - he identified that himself, saying if it was quads, hamstrings or something then they could change what they are doing. Last season WAS quads! It was our trendy injury, do you not remember? There was a pattern to our injuries last season: they tended to be muscular. In Royce's book, that would mean something needed to change. This year, though, they are not all muscular. Only a very few are: three groins (though Perry is over his) and one hamstring. All the rest are contact injuries.

We remind me of Hull a few seasons ago. They were decimated by injuries and plummeted down the table. We could go the same way unlesss things change very, very quickly.

Part of the problem with this is the new Stadium.
As we at the All Stars know, for the season preceding and a few years after the stadium does affect the balance sheet. Which leaves less for recruitment. Its a pain worth bearing because once the stadium is up and running you will reap the benefits for decades to come.

You make a fair point.

We've been very unlucky with injuries and it's easy to lay the blame with the physios and conditioners. Who knows, it may well be their fault, I don't know, I'm not a doctor. But it could also be that we have alot of players who aren't very druable and we have a pretty small squad? The likes of Roby and Graham don't pick up many injuries, so maybe we need to bring in some more players who are proven to be very durable to compliment the current players and young players we have, so we're not over reliant on certain individuals?

When Wigan appointed Maguire they also changed some of the backroom staff, Mark Bitcon was employed as chief conditioner, and employed staff to work with him.

They also invested in extra physios, a sports psychologist.They now have a gps system that lets them measure and analyse things like collision impact, players speed and distance etc, and have someone in place to analyse alll the data and report it back to the coaching team.

Sports science is a very big part of that Wigan set up. Does the same thing happen at Saints?

You could probably sum up our season so far in one word INSTABILITY. WE don,t really know what impact on new ground, new training, new coach, new conditioning is actually contributing each in a small way to the situation we are experiencing.
What concerns me at the moment is that we can,t rest players, the likes of Shenton, Roby, Graham and Sia need to be rested before the play offs. Our best bet is to target the Challenge Cup to rescue the season, I get the feeling a grand final is a bridge too far.

Is Britcon the slap head with the giggs that sits with maguire and wane?

I remember pre season the players were conditioned to be more mobile and lost weight. Many of the players said they felt a lot fitter from it and were looking forward to the dry pitches. Maybe this has made them less impact resistant.........personally I think it's just bad luck that the injuries have hit all the pivotal players all at once.
Cunningham, Scully, Martyn, Long, Joynt had bucket loads of injuries but they were never all out of the game all at once as we are now experiencing.

Injuries happen, but what concerns me about the younger? "Twitter" players is their problem with sleeping? they seem to be up half of the night and when they are the tweet? I never remember not being able to sleep but then again we did not have twitter!

I may use twitter, but when it gets turned off that is how it stays!

As much as it disappoints me Rogues makes a valid point - I dont know the answer to these questions but again Paaaaat is another example of players comming back earlier for other clubs but never Saints...

Being updated as I type, 2 state of the Art Nintendo WII Sports packs are being ordered for the new stadium.

But he wasn't in the 19 man squad that was named 2 days before the game. That would suggest he wasn't fit enough on Thursday.
Obviously they have taken a gamble to rush him back, probably down to desperation, and it as back-fired.

I asked this question on twitter and was told that Joe Greenwood was due to play but picked up an injury late in the week, which meant we put Flannery back in the squad.

That's him.

Not just the younger. Wello has tweeted about being unable to sleep on matchdays. It's the adrenalin and pain. I'm sure players from all teams have the same problem.

Except James Roby. I'm sure he just puts the clock on snooze mode and has a kip!

While Saints do have an injury crisis in the halves. The impact on other areas of the field IMO is pretty much par for the course.

What i do find noticeable is that many of the injured are the younger players.
I put this down personally to the large step up in intensity between under 20's and then 1st team level. Saints have more young players than most sides, so naturally these kids will pick up more knocks.

I also find it typically narrow minded of many Saints fans to assume that only Saints are having injuries and other clubs are all running around injury free.

There is a lot of knee jerking going on with some fans that fails to look at the bigger picture. There is a world other than Saints out there.

For example in the last two years fans used an alleged injury crisis as a weapon to beat Mick Potter with. The reality as some people pointed out last year, was that in terms of games missed by injured players, Saints were pretty much mid table.

Lets look at Warrington as as example this season. Im aware of the following players being injured for them at various times in 2011 and missing games, Matt King, Ben Harrison, Mike Cooper, Gareth Carvell, Chris Bridge, Chris Riley, Richie Myler, Lee Briers, Simon Grix, Ryan Atkins, Louis Anderson, Adrian Morley and Brett Hodgson.

No doubt i could show something similar at Wigan or Leeds or Huddersfield.

Over reaction, much?

Yes, we have a ridiculous amount of players out at the moment, and yes that's bound to impact on the way we play our rugby..... but we're sitting 2nd in the league - that is a great achievement.

As for the 'clique', what do you expect the players to do? Rush back into playing and risk futher injury? They are clearly just trying to make the best of a bad situation and help eachother through it.

How about getting behind the lads & appreciate the effort that is being shown (although clearly there does need to be some changes after yesterdays performance - but these will no doubt come in time when players start to return), rather than moaning about?

That's not Bitcon who your referring to. I've asked a few times on the Wigan board as to who that guy is, but nobody seems to know. But your right, he's constantly with Madge and Wane.



This is Bitcon.


He usually spend all his time pitch side, along with Rads and Hampo.