Lomax had another excellent all round performance at fullback. Playing him there provides space for our three quarters to exploit.

Percival showed speed in attack but also the ability to defend effectively. Something very rare in an 18 year old.
It was noticeable that the Leeds backs who are the fastest 3 quarter line in the league could not catch him.

Meli still can finish, but boy has he slowed down now. Look back a few years and there are trys of Meli going 80 yards against Leeds and other sides. Saints blew a number of trys on the left flank because Meli could not keep pace with Percival.

The players look lacking in energy. Every match i have seen this season we have looked deflated.
This is particularly visible in the second half, especially in the last 20 minutes when teams have gotten on top of us.

Hull , Leeds, and Bradford all dominated the second half against Saints. I've not included Huddersfield, as they completely dominated both halves.

This tends to point to a lack of depth in the pack and or lack of fitness as we drop off considerably once rotations start to kick in. This is a big concern, because when Saints were a top side, it was usually in the last 20 mins that Saints would get on top of the opposition in a close game. This leads to the conclusion from evidence so far, that Saints are now one of the weaker sides in the competition.

Jon Wilkin possesses a good kicking game, but he is not a halfback. His passing is slow and inaccurate, and he lacks the guile to be anything other than a make weight in that position. We need to try other people there.

I would be tempted to try Hohoia and Gaskell in the halves, with Lomax at fullback.

What then of Wellens. I would play him as a traditional loose forward. This has the disadvantage of weakening the packs initial go forward, but should give us more width, creativity and experience in a creative position. Not to mention an excellent support runner midfield.
It would also allow the bench to be strengthened, because one of our back rowers such as Manu or Soliola could come off the bench for impact.
The bench in particular is an area that we really lack impact at present and as stipulated above is one of the reasons why we are falling away in games.

This would produce a side something like the following.

Lomax
Gardner
Turner
Percival
Makinson
Hohoia
Gaskell
Perry
Roby
Lafranchi
Wilkin
Soliola
Wellens

Bench. Puletua, Clough, Manu, Jones

As you can see the above bench is quite formidable. With size, mobility and also flexibility.

When injuries hit we just swap in the likes of Greenwood, Walmsley, Wheeler, Meli etc.

From last night and what I've seen so far this season:
1. We need a halfback(s)
2. Manu has been shocking in the 4 out of 5 games I've been to this season
3. Kicking game was better, at least we found the ground a fair few times, but like Jon Wells said, kicking on the 3rd and 4th is just throwing tackles away
4. Turner can't defend
5. Percival and Meli offer a million times more in attack than Gardner/Makinson and Turner
6. We haven't got enough size in our pack. We rely on Sia and Puletua far too much

Also, what did people think of Jones at second row?

But Percival and Makinson would be terrific to see in full flight.

That'd give us some pace down that side. Give Meli some credit though, he can finish and did well last night.

If only we had the players to put them into space!

All this bagging of turner is laughable. He's not had a good pass all year. Centres need good ball and we don't gone them any.

Same with Manu, he's a devastating runner if he gets the ball in good postions as we've seen for past 5 years in super league. Manu ain't become a bad player over night.

This all stems from the halfback problem.

Turner hasn't had a chance in attack. The only one I recall was when he scored against Hull. His defence has been poor though without a doubt.

What's his defensive stats ?

Before last night, wasn't overly bad, but last night's stuck in my mind

I give credit to Meli for the second try he scored and that's all I give him credit for. Makinson could have scored both the tries Meli scored AND done it with pace and more finesse (in the case of the first try, when Meli over-ran his centre and almost dropped the ball).

I don't think the is much in it between Meli and makinson. Makinson is better in defence and Meli better in attack.

The reason he did not have to break a tackle is that he has the skill to beat a man; he made Maguire look stupid. I was also impressed with the way he handled Ablett, he (Ablett) was swatting the Aussies off like flies last week. I just hope last night was not a one off for Percival as it was the most promising debut I have seen for many years. A real in the making????? One can live in hope.

I don't get this defensively poor idea.
I thought we where defensively quite strong against one of the more potent attacking sides in SL.

Melbourne Storm the best side in the World only restricted Leeds by one more try than us.

If you are keeping a top side to 20 points that is not bad defense. 'Lesser' sides would have struggled to score those 20 points.

The halfback situation is a bit of a given, but unless players can be offloaded mid contract, mid season, it's going to be the case all year. So we can put it in every thread from now till September or accept it and see the side as it is until next year.

I would not jump at dumping Wilkin just yet. Suggesting Lance can do better, makes me think people have no memory of the 20+ games where he had no half back qualities.



So unless we are going to throw a kid or an unknown in and risk further disruption, Wilkin had a great game last week, he struggled more this week, but you don't pick your team based on each game in isolation.

I think defensively if we can keep the better sides under 20, we should be looking to keep lesser sides under 12.

This would give us a good defensive platform, the attack is going to take time to solve, but you can see Brown is mixing it up and trying different combinations to get the best he can out of this team.

Also I did say pre-season, that Wellens could play at loose and I still think he should. Lomax showed last night against a quality team he can hold his own.

If there are any changes next week, I would only put Gaskell in for the injured Wheeler.

Lomax, Ade, Turner, Percival (unless he is too shattered after a first run out), Meli, Gaskell, Wilkin, LMS ( not sure he is ever going to improve beyond his current level but he does not bring impact so start him), Roby, TP, Sia, Manu, Clough. Laffranchi, Jones Warmsley (if fit again), Greenwood.


As for the responses saying disaster, attrocious etc, I'm not sure if that was alcohol talking but they certainly saw a different game to me. I was more frustrated about us giving over the ball in great positions, ie the Laffranchi drop and others right in the 5m area, but at the end of the game, we had enough chances to win it and just the compusure and Leeds kicking game beat what was a fairly new line up for Saints.

Turner is at 94.5 % completion rate.

That is around same as Shenton in his first year with us but significantly ahead of Shenton in his second year.

Its slightly below that of Lyon and Gidley who were around 95-97% but on a par with that of Willie Talau.

He has made more tackles than any other of our backs and is 9th in the teams overall total of tackles made.

Apart from allowing Peacock to get going and Turner's few poor moments down our right, our defence wasn't horrendous. We just looked devoid of ideas in attack until we started giving it to Percival.

Thanks CM.

Just as I thought, he's the new scapegoat.

IMO he's not done anything great but certainly done nothing wrong to deserve the stick he's getting

That's my point but you cycle back 5 weeks to Huddersfield we looked clueless in attack and defense.

We now have pretty decent defense, creativity from fullback, more control at halfback. A centre with promise. I still think people expect Saints to suddenly turn into a team that play like the 2006 side. The game has moved on and defenses are tighter. If we turn out a similar performance against Warrington, I can see us not slipping up the same against Warrington with those defensive lapses.

I also think Turner's defense, was only exposed because Wheeler missed his tackle, it's not always the last man that caused the problem, although I did only see it once, but I recall it was a white face that seamed to get pulled out of position for the break that leeds made???

AND kick goals.

No St P.

The scape goat will always be Meli (most people in general) or Wellens (Saddened).

If you are not in a position to make a tackle, it doesn't count as a missed tackle, as you've not attempted one. This is where Turner will be appearing to be okay statistically and why missed tackle %s are pretty useless as an indication of overall defensive ability.

I don't think he's being made the scapegoat, as he's not done anything drastically wrong. But he just doesn't seem to have any ability either, it's a strange signing for a side like Saints. He's the kind of player who normally starts at a big club due to his athleticism and physique, then drifts down the league as his lack of talent is exposed.

Broken record...

Exactly, we,ve not had quality half backs for 4 seasons now if we include Pryce and Wheeler with all those injuries. Our service to the centres and wide out second rows is abysmal. Shenton is a good example of that, now back to his best at Castleford................. because err.........they have half backs.

It does raise the question of why it is that we keep producing kids from the Academy who we claim are halfbacks but, er, aren't.

I would not say they are not all halfbacks, but we lost one in Eastmond and smith was not favoured as his organisation was seen as not required with Eastmond in the side, who then promptly left and I beleive Ellis had other issues.

We ended up with no organisers, not no halfbacks.

I thought Meil reminded me of Paleasenia in the head guard.

Worrying given he is one of our wingers.

Must be in there final stage of development ready for superleague, they all end up pushed out wide when introduced to the first team. Foster and Makinson were centres and got used on the wings,Wheeler and Jones were half backs and got used in the centres. Swift was also a half back and got used on the wing.
I seem to remember 6 years ago that Longy mentioned the half backs from the superleague to the academy sides were all technically coached in the same manner so they slot into positions when needed, i get the feeling this has been abandoned, maybe fans with internal knowledge within the club might confirm this.