I see... So arguing pointless, petty semantics is all you have then, huh?

For (probably) Bradford, Hull KR, Salford & Hull fans league games are not pointless. But I don't care about ****ing Bradford, Hull KR, Salford & Hull.... I [ionly[/i care about Saints... I am a Saints fan, on a Saints board, debating things relevant to Saints. Saints games are all utterly pointless. That is the point that is unarguable, and all I care about, and all I am here to discuss. That is the point I have made and which is 100% true and is the case.

Must try harder. D-. See me.

Or rather don't actually if you don't mind...

What do you care about Saints you only go to finals and against wigan



Lets go back to the 80's and see 1-2 teams winning everything and watch the crowds disappear? utter bollax NS

Don't forget, we've played what's deemed as lower ranked teams in London, Salford, hull kr and Catalan who are a good team but you'd expect 8 points from that with some points on the board as well.

Wigan look head and shoulders at the moment and if we was to play this week I'd have no doubt they would put 50 points on us.

Wigan are bigger, faster, better coached and very well drilled team.

People said all this last season and apart from one game at Widnes every single game between the teams were close. 2 we won and we could've won 2 others with a bit more luck.

Saints need to up their game but I've no doubt we will as the season goes on and we adapt to the loss of Graham.

Wigan may look good right now but it means bugger all at this stage.

It's just the mess we look at the moment that worries me and the methods Royce uses.

I just think we are in for the worst season we've had since super league started.

Who knows what will happen, but we looked worse last year. We were in a right mess after the Wire & Quins 'home' games but came good in the end.

I still think Royce is finding his best side which has led to lots of rotation and errors from the side.

You're absolutely right - instead, let's have a season where the first 85% of it counts for [iabsolutely nothing at all whatsoever[/i, and then decide the champions on what is basically a lucky dip basis so that everyone, including all the completely pointless nonentity teams, has a completely artificially manufactured chance of winning it instead. That's a far better way of keeping the punters interested all season and then deciding who the "champion" team is, isn't it?

Why not let's just go the whole hog and have all 14 teams run onto the pitch at Old Trafford and then award the trophy on the basis of an arm-wrestling or chess competition between them all? Everyone has something to cheer the entire season, including the final itself, then don't they? Utter genius!!!

God, give me strength....

Blobby: you speak sense.

I think in all the knee-jerk reaction from Friday night (as much from me as from anyone else), we have missed a couple of very encouraging things. Firstly, how many times did we drop the ball on Friday night? Aside from Foster's drop (and that was helped by a big bash on the back just as he was collecting it), I can't remember us knocking on. I'm sure we must have but certainly nowhere near the rate we had been knocking on up to that point. I think our completion rate on Friday night was something like 96% (as opposed to around 76% for the Dragons).

Secondly, we didn't run laterally. We ran forward all night, even when we were giving up the ghost defensively. That too is a significant improvement on our play so far this season.

We did collapse defensively, although the last try of course shouldn't have even been an option given Leon Pryce's infringement from the preceding set of six. However, we shouldn't have to rely on referee competence to see us through and clearly a major amount of work needs to be done on our defence. Although the problem is bound to be structural to some degree, especially post Jammer, I do think it is also an attitude problem. We need to maintain our intensity in defence as well as attack. Hopefully that will come in time as we adjust to the new team layout.

Why Would it take this long to know his best team? It's not as if we've signed 6/7 players in. We've lost pryce, eastmond, graham and Moore and replaces them with laffranchci, hohaia and flanaghan.

I've just got a feeling he ain't got clue what hes doing and last season spared him the blushes with the injuries.

By rotating players this year, he's completely contradicted himself as last year his favourite excuse was he can't fiend the same side. The injuries was a blessing in disguise for him.

My biggest worry from Royce being in charge is the recruitment. I'm pretty certain he will be on a one way flight back to oz at the end of the year but god help the next coach that's got to sort the mess of recruitment he will leave behind!

I can cope with no old Trafford appearance this year but his methods will set us back years and years.

+ 1

I do know what you mean Pete and if you look at my posts (not that I expect you to - I am just being anecdotal) I have had the same view of Royce from the minute he was appointed not just from this season. He's a really good guy but I just don't think he's a coach that makes a difference and squeezes that extra bit out of us when we need it - many of the pundits in Australia said the same when he got the job.

I also suspect that he will not be here next year and hope that we are working on bringing in someone absolutely top class. If the rumours about Nathan Brown have any substance I think that would be quite an interesting appointment - he's quite well regarded in the NRL and for me that's the real measure; not the views of forum members who sometimes get carried away with emotion not knowledge (and before anyone flames me I class myself amongst them at times). If it's not true then I hope we get someone with a pedigree who can change us into winners - it's only that extra 5% we need.

The mitigation for me is, ironically, the players who are underperforming at the moment. Wherever you sit on the the play offs/league debate what we have proved is that our players generally step up and become very competitive when they need to. I just think we lack that killer instinct in finals that's all and in reality we are no more than a couple of players away from getting back to where we were a few years ago. This year's recruitment has indeed been strange as I simply don't see where Lance will play given that Gaskell is such an exciting player and Laffranchi is not what we needed in a particular position. They are not bad players - just the wrong ones IMO.

The one I was most excited about was actually Flanagan given how he should have developed in Oz.

Keep the faith. As someone else said it's not how you start but how you finish and we tend to get better as the season progresses.

I'm getting deja vu here from last season!!

Most Saints fans are very simple creatures capable of very simple reactions only unfortunately it seems... Losing an early season non-entity game means we are the worst team ever, the players all need sacking, the coach needs tarring and feathering and shipping off to Alaska, we're going to struggle to even make the playoffs etc. etc. You'd think that some might have learned by now even with their tiny, tiny little brains... Bit depressing to see it every single season really...

1) For the first 55 minutes of that last game we looked really good.
2) Catalan got lucky with a lot of ball bouncers during the last 15 minutes, how often does that happen where every 50/50 bounce goes the way of one team?
3) Catalan had the benefit of some dodgy calls at key moments.

It's not all doom and gloom.

Saints let off athen got themselves in a panic mess for the last 15 minutes. They will learn from that.

....you forgot to mention number 4 - our defence , especially on the goal line has not been good enough thus far.

Hi all and thanks for the glowing praise of what our 'Ape' is achieving over the lump.

Feel free to all come along to the DW on Sunday and watch free flowing rugby at its best and to see how a well marshalled defence look like.

We may well be the best supported team in SL, but there is always room for a few more and anyone wanting to defect will be welcomed

Last few games we have looked pretty good yeh but im not reading too much into wins against Bradford and Castleford. Lets see how we do sunday against a good side, aslong as were top 4 at the end of the year weve got a chance of winning it. Wire will walk the hub cap.

Indeed. We did well in the first half because we starved Catalans of possession and severely limited their time in our half. It was good, but it served to mask our deficiencies when it comes to defending our line. Pretty much every time Catalans started a set in our half it was a guaranteed try, and this has been the case in all the games so far. It reminds me a little of England's defence in the world cup.

Sort that out and the rest will follow.

Lets get my original post into perspective here.

SaintsFan and Northampton Saint in particular.

I am probably one of the least fickle saints fans you will ever meet, and we look as though we have gone backwards from last season, even the early season form is worse than last years.

I was pointing out that Wigan look better than last year and are streets ahead of us at the moment, we need to up our game to match them but unfortunately i'm not sure if we have it in us this year. Losing KC and Jammer in the past 2 season has really hit this team.

Get a reality check guys !!

Its only four weeks since the Wigan boards were suicidal because they lost with virtually a full strength team to that set of 'minnows' from Huddersfield with nine regulars out and were asking for 'Boo' to be put back to stand off !! and questioning whether they should keep Wane !!!!

Since then they beat Leeds fair enough but also Bradford and Castleford and put them away as a Wigan team on a roll always will..... but to be fair us 'minnows ' would expect to win at Bradford and Castleford this season !! as surely would Saints !! Yes decent side Wigan but so are we and so are Saints I wouldn't expect wigan to put significant points on either of us on our own 'middin' and if we get our full side out i would expect to beat them at home !!

Nonsense - we've so far lost narrowly (and by some accounts perhaps unluckily) to an almost certain top 4 team, and drawn at a ground where we always normally manage to find spectacularly entertaining ways to lose. In both of those games we were apparently the better team for most of it but just faded towards the end.

I saw both of the games against Wire and Harlequins last season - in no way have we even come near to the dire level of performance we put out in those 2 games, Quins in particular. We'd have lost by 50 against Cats if we had...

Any way you cut it, we're looking better and stronger now than at the equivalent point last season.

Until all the teams have at least played each other once, i'll reserve judgement to who i fancy for the GF and CC, Catalans are not all that, Saints just collapsed after being on top for most of the game and i can't see other teams in the same position doing the same. Freak win that for me.

Saints will come good, i just think it's the early season jitters/finding your feet taking a bit longer that than it usually does for Saints, the only real test Wigan have faced is Hudds and came up short.

Leeds had other things on their mind and i'm sure if that game had been played a few weeks later rather than a week before the WCC the game would have been a lot closer.

I don't know what our best team is, do you? Last year, we were pretty much forced into a certain side due to injuries. This year we haven't suffered as badly (touch wood) and therefore have options. At full back we have Wellens, Hohaia, Lomax and Makinson who could all play there. On the wing we have Foster, Gardner and Makinson. In the halves we have Hohaia, Lomax, Gaskell and Wheeler. We don't know our best props yet either. I think Royce is struggling to pick his best side hence the rotation and hence a bit of struggle to find some consistency. Hopefully he'll find the right balance soon and we'll see a more consistent team.

Whilst I have doubts over Simmons I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as he took us to a Grand Final and was close to taking us to the Challenge Cup Final last year too.

It's not my job to know what the best team for the club is, it's Royce Simmons job. This is the coach that decided against pre season games and then starts to experiment during the season with his line ups!

I stand by everything I said, he'll set us back years with his crazy methods and completey shocking recruitment.

Great guy, crap coach!

Wellens needs putting to pasture or sold to Widnes.

You need more grunt up front.

Foster needs to sort his D out rather than his hair.

Simple really