You've said more than that Pete. And of course he has played halfback. Didn't we win our games this year when he played halfback?


Hanbury came from Crusaders didn't he? That happened after we'd signed Hohaia. Watts comes with a chequered past. And who is Seymour? Is he an international?


I would imagine by now that McManus has a lot of contacts in the market and would be able to check on what Royce said and what he recommended. And after all, coaches just recommend players. They don't recruit them.


He was available though.

Like I said, we don't know who was available and took Simmons word for it. As you said, McManus will have contacts so I'm highly surprised we signed a fullback as a halfback.

The lack of quality halfback is the major problem and IMO cost Royce his job.

Which is as much McManus' fault as Royce's. Had he forced Eastmond to make a decision at the mid point of the season before instead of three games into a new SL campaign we would have had time to bring a half-back in. By pandering to Eastmond we were forced to throw Lomax into the scrum half spot. He did ok. But a lot of that was down to his partnership with another youngster, Gaskell, which was completely new to SL's planned defences. Now because Lomax is more of an instinctive player rather than a tactically creative one he's been worked out at scrum half and we are left in the embarrassing and wholly undesirable position of having not a single functioning number seven at the club - [iincluding a reserve.
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Can't really argue with that, mac has to take his share of the blame but at the end of the day he's the boss and he won't sack himself. Jamie Ellis was another 7 we let go recently too whos looking like a good player

You do keep ignoring the fact - the fact - that Hohaia has played at halfback and that is where he also played in his junior years. He was only a fullback for about the last four years. Is Sam Tomkins not a halfback because he now plays fullback?


The last bit is utter tosh. What cost Royce his job were senior players not doing theirs. If Puletua had been awake and caught Wello's pass in Bradford we would have won that game and Royce would still be in a job. McManus is living in his own little world thinking we have a world beating team when actually we don't, and that's largely down to McManus and his recruitment policy of recent years, a recruitment policy you have derided many times on these very boards. So stop changing your tune.

He was let go at the end of Potter's tenure.

Jamie Ellis was let go for off field reasons rather than on field performance. It was the right decision at the time.

To be fair to Murphy, he could never hope to match Wigan's spending. Yes, he was a bit of an anachronism in terms of coaching. But he was also unfortunate to arrive at a time when Lindsay set out to buy the league.

But if things go wrong while Keiron is helping out, similar caveats could be applied by those who consider these things surely? 'To be fair to Cunningham, he was appointed at a time of massive upheaval and unrealistic expectations ...' That kind of thing. It would still not change the possible ultimate outcome though would it?

Unless Cunningham is left in charge for the entire season and performs poorly I really don't think his legacy will be tarnished in any way.

True and saints had no alternative really.

Keep saying it doesn't make it come true. Hohaia is a fullback who has excellent utility he is not an out an out halfback which is what we are missing. I like him as a player and I think he has great value to the squad.

Before anyone says it Leon Pryce was a different case, he didnt have a settled position but he was young and we wanted him to play 6, the big difference was we had a very experienced 7 to help him develop.

A quick look at Lance's wikipedia page tells a true story - he was utility then almost en entire season at centre then settled as a fullback for club and country.

Indeed, and at the time I didn't blame Murphy for our utter mediocrity in that era. But you only need to compare his tenure with what McClennan did with basically the same players and the same clueless dinosaurs running the club to see that he really was never up to the job. With God as coach we couldn't have challenged the Pies during their loony period of remortgaging their own future, but we should have been closer than we were...

Excellent first game from these two. They had us fired up for the first time in hid knows how long. We was running hard, running faster and working harder than we have for long time.

The defence looked much more organised and we was looking to really knock them down and not just pussy foot around.

We had runners and moved the ball around like a team that had been coachesd this week.

Great to see us actully have a kicking game. Hohaia was pinning then back with some top notch kicks.

The back on the bench has gone and we are playing with 17 players again.

McClennan was certainly a better coach than Murphy. But it would be wrong to say they competed on an even playing field. McClennan had the better squad.

You have a short memory. We played like that against Wigan in the first playoff game last season, and indeed in the Good Friday game against Wigan last season, and in fact against Leeds away last season when we turned our 2011 season round with the introduction of Lomax and Gaskell.

What we saw tonight was (a) James Roby back (meaning Lance could play at halfback - and hey, Pete, do you still think he isn't a halfback?), (b) no errors, and (c) pride from our senior players and pack, which is what I've been ranting on about for weeks now. Our attitude changed and as Hohaia rightly said, all that the new coaching regime did was speak about pride in the shirt. I think our senior players were stung into finally playing properly by our new coaching regime following the sacking of our coaching staff. Glad to hear Hohaia say the performance was for Royce as well as the fans. Pity they couldn't have done it last week instead.

The test will be if they can back it up against Warrington now that a video will be available. Warrington also have a lot better defence than Leeds came up with tonight.

But whatever. It was great to get a win and finally be able to celebrate a good performance at Langtree Park.

That win had little to do with brilliant coaching and revolutionary new tactics magically appearing into a vacuum over the last week which is no doubt what the kneejerk brigade will be proclaiming on here for the rest of the week. All that happened is that the players, finally relieved of whatever back-monkeys they were suffering from from the previous coaching incumbents, just went out and executed for the first time this season. There's little they did tonight that they would probably not have done under Royce without the baggage going on.

The adrenaline and natural performace boost against Wire and the Pies will likely carry them on to decent results in the next 2 games, but the real challenge will come once the regular season grind starts back in earnest after that. We'll really only see the mettle of the new guys, what they bring to the team coaching/tactics-wise and how capable of maximizing our chances come the big end of season games they are come the slog against Salford, Wakefield, London and the rest.

Lance was outstanding last night, great kicking game, Played with his head up and didn't look like he got out of 3rd gear. He played the role we've been in dire need of.

It's only one game tho, even Jon wilkin played good at 6 against Leeds once and then was gash the following week.

Anyone who believes Simmons wasn't the issue is delusional at best. If Royce was still in charge, we'd have never played like that, no.way on earth. We'd have had Lomax and Gaskell in the halves, Makinson on the wing, Meli in the centres, Wheeler in the 20s, TP at prop, Wilkin at Second Row, Clough at Loose, and the final piece - Hohaia on the bench, with no size in the other three subs.

I don't think kc and rush have coached the team to play that way, I just think they've removed the over cautious tactics of Simmons. I don't think we'd see so many offloads all year as tonight, and not once the "lomax, gaskell, wellens" move, which was so obvious, and desperately showed wello's pace up!

Somebody said our only tactic of five drives and see how far gaskell can hoof it was all we had.

Anyone criticising the decisions to remove Royce has gone strangely quiet. One swallow doesn't make a summer, but I'm 100% sure, we'd have never played like that tonight under Simmons

Great Post well said Sir, spot on

I'll second that

The enormous performance boost from Bradford to Leeds was 95% down to the players pulling their fingers out for the first time this season - fact. No coach who has ever lived could pull around that kind of transformation that quickly purely off his own bat. Royce is now revealed as clearly not the man to take Saints forward and should probably never have had the job in the first place, noone is arguing that, but the players we had out against Bradford and Hull should have won both games with whatever tactics they were employing, and would have done so easily had they put in even remotely the same kind of stint they did against Leeds. The players must shoulder more of the blame than Simmons, an honest guy doing his best who was just a little out of his depth and unable to cope with Player Power at the end of the day.

Some slightly less than gifted people always resort to childish insults at these times I find. Very silly.


Well, you will never know will you. We certainly played that well at times last season, with just not quite as many offloads. We need to be careful with that as Warrington will be far more savvy than Leeds were.


Except me of course. I stand by my position because I still believe it was the wrong thing to do. It is a pity that there was not another way to kick the backsides of our senior players and it's a shame players can have unprofessional attitudes and get away with it completely scot-free. That doesn't happen in any other field of employment.

I find the players simpering support for Simmons to be a little sickening. It was their performances that lost him his job, and to dedicate last night's perfomrace to him is really just a kick in the slats. Having said that, I am absolutely delighted that we have at last turned in a top performance, and if Simmons was sacrificed to that end, then so be it.