What were missing at the moment is someone to do what Nobby did at Wigan when he saved them from the drop. He went back to basics and got the good players they had playing to a simple system to get the confidence back. We need something similar because were just all over the place and playing tinkerman with our current limited squad is not helping at all.

Let's make a change. Even if it's only a short term one for the rest of the season.

It's obvious he's not the man. There's no pointing keeping Brown any longer.


Get rid.

You may see it that way, but the win at Leeds had a lot more of luck about it than planning, from where I was stood at the time. The number of times Leeds literally gifted Saints tries that night, was unbelievable.

Last night we where woeful in the first half but solidified the defense more in the second half and did not fade. There were some nice touches, but the big difference was having direct running forwards hitting the ball at pace.

There is absolutely no of this at the moment. Our ball carries are stood about 1 meter to the left or right of the ruck and they are starting pretty much standing still. The fact we are making progression down feild bodes well. But with that type of running near the opposition line, the opposition are more in our faces, so you need to hit them at pace. We were very pedestrian, but still this was an improvement on Leeds where we were reliant on Luck.

I agree on the changing of the halfbacks. But overall as a team I thought for the 80 minutes we had more in our control than during the Leeds match. The question is with so much tinkering having gone on, if he now reverts Wilkin back to 7, he will be accused of tinkering again. Personally I think he should have kept Wilkin at 7 and GOB at 6. But if he now does this it will be another case of Brown changing the halves.

I do think he is taking a little too much lattitude with the season, he has to remember that whilst we want a winning team eventually. The games leading up to that still matter in terms of fans, support, revenue. We all joke that the season is a pre-season for the playoffs, but Brown has pushed this to the extreme.

I can still see us winning the next few games, but more than anything now, I'm wanting to see evidence that Brown knows who is the best starting 17. Sure injury and month loans have to be accounted for, but there is no need to move 5 players to fit in one.

That is what rush did last year, he steadied the team with basic rugby, which worked, to a point. And that was te point that Brown came in to a team that was reasonable if nothing else. His job was to turn the reasonable team into challengers, which so far he has struggled to do. Partly that is because of injuries and disruptions, but last night we had a virtually full strength team that should have been capable of beating Hudds. The fact that our performance was so far below what it should have been raises questions as to why?

That's a very convenient but unconvincing argument.


Yeah, because it takes us half the game to work out who is on our inside/outside and what they're doing while there due to Brown's stupid tinkering. We have just finished round 17. I see no development, just the same old, same old. In each game bar the first there have been things 'to take out' of the match but we still look the same overall, bar the Leeds game when at least we had pace and flair out wide on one edge (and that made a difference). He ruined that of course by changing it all around needlessly.


This I agree with. However, given the lack of urgency he appears to be playing out club policy as there are no signs from McManus that he is unhappy to exploit the fans to this degree.


Frankly I can't. I can't see where the next win is coming from. Had we beaten London and Widnes then I'd agree but we can't even be relied upon to perform against lower placed or out of form teams.

Unconvincing? Some of the tries they conceded were worthy of the Moscow State Circus.

Not convenient either from my point of view, given my comments after the Leeds match were:

Last year, losing at Odsal was the final straw which led to Royces' sacking.

I know we're in a bad run of form at the moment, and Saints are usually a bit of a graveyard for us - but - if we were to win, is another Saints coach at risk?

Ultimately I think not. The board at Saints clearly don't care one bit about winning and I can't see them paying off the rest of Brown's contract.

I don't think there is as big a push for the sacking as last year. But then again I would have given Royce till easter. Unlike saddened who will sack and remove all players and coaches at will contracts exsist in the real world. We've done sacking coaches I think this season the buck stops with the players. It does not divorce brown of all responsibility. But it gives him a he'll of a lot more leeway than Royce in his last season.

Pretty much agree with this and also your later comments around the fact that our second half performance was better than that against Leeds.

The thing I took from it was that despite being disjointed due to lack of settled half backs we still ran the giants close.
With proper settled halves we would be able to cause teams a lot more problems.

The Bradford game on Sunday will give us a better idea of were we are as a side. They are a mid table side and one we should be able to knock over on our own turf.

Saints have the 6th best defence in the league but the third worst attack.
This lack of attack is a clear indication of our lack of strike in the halves and three quarters.

I'm feeling more positive today.
I think Brown is confident of making the playoffs and is having as much of a tinker for as long as possible. Its not very pleasant for us fans, but I think come the playoffs and certainly next season, he's going to get serious. I just hope all the ing about won't have damaged our players or driven away too many fans.

Despite our league position I'm not worried. To me Brown is trying different things and clearly is waiting for a clear out at the end of the year, he's no fool and I'm still confident he can improve our side

But will he be given the chance? There are rumours Wellens, Gardner, Laffranchi and Flanagan have all got new deals. There will only be Perry, Meli and Puletua that will leave at the end of the year and those include 2 of our better players. Unless we pull some very, very decent forwards, we're going to be worse still next year.

The problem is even if he has the players he wants he will still tinker with the team, just look at Huddersfield for the proof.

From all those players, I'd give Flanagan a new deal, Puletua at a push. Keeping any of the others would be stupid.

Flanaghan is nothing more than a squad player, he's ok to fill in if we've got injuries.

Wellens and Gardner to sign new deals?







You win, Saints. You win.

Having looked at the fixtures of all of the teams around us upto Hull in the table and looking at the improvement I saw on Monday night. (I thought our attacking structure looked better, defensively we still need a good amount of work) and with Lomax on the verge of a return I fully expect us to beat our next four opponants (Bradford, Salford, Hull KR, Cas) that will probably move us up to the heady heights of 7th. But there would probably be a gap then between us and 8th and 9th and I expect only a 3 point gap between us and 4th then with us to play 2 of the teams above us (Catalan and Hull). We would obviously need to improve from where we are to start to beat both of those teams away from home but some wins, some confidence and some better players playing to their potential could se us do it.

From the fixtures over the next 4 rounds I am expecting the following teams to get the following points

Hull - 6 (possibly 8 )
Catalan - 4
Leeds - 6
Bradford - 2
Hull KR - 2

But the number of occasions that the above teams play each other (including us) in the next 4 rounds could mean anything is possible, plus if Huddersfield do fall apart then that will have a big bearing as they play 4 of those teams.

Its all a bit speculative but I prefer to look at the positives rather than the negatives

The Run in over the next 4 games. I agree that we should win all of ours, if we don't then I will be concerned. Last year when I got concerned Royce was sacked a week later so my concerns, could be other peoples worries.

So this is how I would predict the next four games

Hull on 20 + 4 = 24
Dragons 20 + 6 = 26
Rhinos 19 + 8 = 27 (leeds have 5 games in this same time period)
Bulls 16 + 2 = 18
Rovers 16 + 2 = 18
Saints 15 + 8 = 23

I'd agree that's probably puts us about 7th a point of 6th and 3 of 5th.
But then we need to continue the run into some tough games.

There's no point looking at the next 4 games and saying we are going to win them. The way we've played this season means there are no guaranteed victories and we simply need to win our next one and then we can move on. Hopefully Lomax will return this week or for the Salford game and we can keep Roby & Soliola fit. We have half a chance then.

I think we will only win 4/5 of our remaing fixtures. Not sure where that would leave us in the table but its going to be a struggle to make the 8.

The way we've played in the last few weeks, with O'Brien in the side and Lomax back, we'll beat a lot of teams IMO.

Very optimistic.

IMO we've been awful the last few weeks.

....

I can't believe people are happy with our performances over the last few weeks, I think we've been pretty poor.

Our attack has been boring rubbish off the cuff with no structure.

Our defence is worst I've seen for many years. When teams move the ball wide, we are stretched.

Our kicking game has been shocking!

We beat Leeds but to many fans got carried away, it was a win but we was poor.

The Warrington game was enabrassing at times.

Hudds was better than us and I don't think they got out of 3rd gear.