This is what Hodgson does so brilliantly for Wire and Ratchford is only just learning (last night was clearly his best effort all season) - it's not just about catching the ball and dancing about like a chicken in a Biafran village (a certain Wigan player, take note!) ..... If the fullback holds his deep position and resists the temptation to join every attack, he has the best view of where the opposition are loaded or short; a few sharp shouts to those in the playline and you can block the gaps or exploit the space to your best advantage. I think this is what's stopping Lomax from being a decent fullback right now - his direction of the players/game in front of him.

I think all players has different strengths. Lomax usually marshalls the defensive line well and chimes in the attacking line well. We have to remember what Ratchford has around him compared to Lomax. So it maybe something Lomax shows off more, with a decent half infront of him.

I thought apart from the first 25 minutes we were pretty decent. It was just that start when Warrington came out really fast and we could not live with their speed of movement and passing and kicking.

I thought Saints game upped its level once Howarth went off the pitch. Howarth was again very poor, his passing from dummy half is not only slow its inaccurate, pass after pass went either above or behind players, and I think this contributed to our spilled ball, as it allowed wire the time to spot our players and nail them big time.
Lance also offered us a running threat from dummy half which forced Wires markers to watch the dummy half area more closely. This frees up space elsewhere. When Howarth plays hooker you can pretty much ignore the dummy half area and defend wider.

Lance will no doubt come in for a lot of stick , but I personally thought he contributed quite a bit for us in the positive sense. In part I think he is being hampered by being a runner/support player in a team lacking a top class organiser.
This theory will obviously be put to the test next season with him playing alongside a known organising halfback in Walsh, with Wilkin offering a second option as playmaker/kicker

My MOM for Saints was Swift. He was forever carting the ball up regardless of tackle and invariably made metres with every carry. I also noticed a couple of times him and Makinson being used together in some cute interplays which on another day could have opened up space for some long range try action.

Lomax for me took his form from the wakefield match to this game. He did some great stuff going forward but showed lack of experience in marshalling defence to handle kicks.

On the subject of kicks it was notable that Wire were only capable of breeching our try line via kicks. That in a way shows that we have the makings of a good defensive structure that is hard to break down by passing methods. We however have work to do on being able to read kick plays. This is something Lomax needs to develop.

I was screaming for us to take the 2 points with 10 minutes left as that would mean we could win it with just one try. To score two tries in ten mins is a really big ask. I thought also that by making it one try to win it this would have mentally affected wire as they would have started to panic a bit. It also would mean we could win it with just 1 second on the clock. Whereas to score two trys you really need 5 mins to stand any chance of winning.

remembered something else from last night which ive seen throughout the season from Saints which really winds me up as its poor practise from Saints.

Approximately 12 mins left 7 points down.
Saints get a scrum. Instead of forming it quick we just mull around. Lee Briers then spends a minute and a half chatting to the ref asking him what he had for tea and if he is excited about moving to the NRL next year. All the time the clock is ticking down.

If its our scrum and we are losing we should always rush to form it quickly. Don't give the opposition time to settle and get their breath back.

This is one of my Pet Hates, when we played our worst game in history against Widnes a few weeks ago we were losing by 4 points with 10 mins to go. We had a scrum and our players just wandered up and took about 45 seconds to pack down, this doesn't happen regularly at Warrington but in that game we did this about 3 times, which overall would have lost us about 3 minutes.

Inexperience? If you recorded the game go back to the penalty from Hohia and listen to briers. Prior to playing the ball. How inexperience in defence negates counts for creative play I don't know.
As for being boring are you sure you were watching the same game that I was stood on the terrace? I tell you what was boring 82 -10 that was boring.

Carvell's try want a Lomax mistake. Time was running down and he had to try to let it roll dead to have any chance of getting the ball back and winning the game.

As for the Higham try, the dreadful Howarth should have tidied up before it got to that point.

[q=#FF8040:1bmpyvaq=#FF8040uote="St pete"We should have took the two points with aprox 10 mins to go with the pen under the posts. That would have made it 18-23 with a converted try winning the game. It would have also put massive pressure on the wolves.

Could not agree more regarding the missed penalty opportunity. Dire are well known bottlers and would have bottled it big style last night.

Wellens would have knocked it dead rather than give Carvell the opportunity to ground it, that's where the inexperience comes into it. Had there been another 10 minutes on the clock Lomax may well have done himself.

Lomax knew there was only 2 or 3 minutes on the clock and giving Wire a repeat set would pretty much give them the game.

It was the right thing to do, to gamble and try and let it run dead, had he cleared it himself they would have won anyway, just by one less try.

Redex113 take a day off. Dire? Bottlers? How and what can you back this up with since Tony Smith has took over? Stop living in the past.

Yep as this season we have beaten Wigan and Leeds in the last ten mins! Have a look a your own form! Not beaten us at your home ground



embarrassing

:3c8jxg3k


Yep as this season we have beaten Wigan and Leeds in the last ten mins! Have a look a your own form! Not beaten us at your home ground







embarrassing'"

Isn't it strange how poor we are at home since our move to Langtree? We seem better playing away.

Knowsley road was a real fortress for us. Winning home games is the platform for a high finish in super league IMO. The days of us finishing top of the pile was based on us not losing at home of losing one/two a season.

Who'd of thought a stadium would make so much difference. After all, it's only grass we play on.

Have you been in a coma...its not 2005 anymore....you do know that?



why don't you grow some and start taking defeat with some class.

:376urxgi


Yep as this season we have beaten Wigan and Leeds in the last ten mins! Have a look a your own form! Not beaten us at your home ground

We lost the game in the opening spell as Brown selected the wrong side to start. LMS should've started the game instead of Walker, we had no go forward in that opening spell and that put pressure on our kicking game. Laffranchi and Puletua offered absolutely nothing once again. Warrington were able to batter us in that opening spell and scored points.

Once Walmsley, LMS and Sia came on our intensity lifted and so did our go forward. We were actually the better team from the half hour mark up until the Warrington drop goal and in the end if we hadn't made some stupid decisions we could've won the game. All woulda, shoulda coulda but after the start we made we worked our way back into the game quite well.

The return of Roby is a great boost to us as we won't have to see Howarth again. His distribution and overall contribution was painful. He was awful in his opening spell and came up with a baffling decision to kick on the 4th to change the momentum of the game in his 2nd spell.

We're not going to get to the Grand Final but if Brown has learned his lessons and selects a bigger team to start with, we may well compete against anybody in the games we do play in come the play offs.

I agree. We were the better team in the second half but it's the start that has done us yet again.

I think the fact they got a drop goal says it all. They knew we were on top and had to go for it.

Think we can take a lot of positives from the game though. The fact that the majority of their trys came from kicks because there was only the Evans try that never came from a kick. That's a big positive for our defence.

On three of those kicks they were also fortunate and on a different day the ball may have bounced differently:

Howarth should have taken the kick but then it pops up and Higham strips it from lomax. Waterhouse knees it after a deflection and then the last one lomax should have dealt with that but you can see why he took the gamble.

It is, yes. I've chatted to mates about this and I reckon it's simply down to the playing personnel. When we lost Jammer, we lost the last player to have any feistiness about him and any leadership quality. I don't think the stadium has anything to do with it. It's just coincidence that we have no aggression or leadership left in our team at the same time as we move stadia and this group tend to choke/panic when confronted by the majority of home fans.

That's my theory anyway!

After watching the game again and reading the views on here - I have reconsidered my MOM as Lomax; he did have a mixed game. I would give it to Sia or Manu.

Manu IMO was head and shoulders above any saints players. Sia had few drop balls and was hammered by the wolves defence but his attitude was top class. Every time he dropped the ball he was next in with the tackle trying to make amends.

Sia was playing like a extra prop. He was taking it down the middle but we need him and Manu running out wide but unfortunately we don't have the halves to get them running out wide but Walsh should be able to next year.

Both sia and Manu could be devastating running wide if we could give them GOOD ball.

I am adamant that had we taken the two points on offer we would have won. You lot were already treading water and tiring fast and would have made mistakes, not surprisingly as your town has been based on the wire industry and breweries. What do people who work in breweries do? why they bottle it and wire workers ? they are skilled wire pullers.