What happens if we win the GF with KC and rush?
What happens if we win the CC with KC and Rush?
What happens if 1 + 1 does not equal 2?
What happens if we win the next 4 league games?
What happens if we win 2 and lose 2 games?
What happens if Wigan go on a losing streak of 7 games?
What .....................

You get the point, it's a very negative point of view to take. Currently this team are 2 out of 3.
Royce and Purtill were 2 out of 7,

I understand people get joy out of misery, but jes' it's a loss to Wigan which I think every Saints coach has had in there day. I see no reason for our performances to crash. People talk like having an untested coach is an impossibility. Well how many teams did hanley coach before coming to Saints?

Rush has years and we mean years of coaching under his belt. So what if he was not a head coach, Royce was hardly dripping with head coach experrience, his job was with guess it............................................................ the youth team structure.

Saying we would have turned it round under Royce to get the previous 2 wins well, there was nothing to show that was going to happen. Under Royce would we have dropped the back on the bench, moved meli back to the wing, dropped gaskell, started lance at 6, not rotated the wingers each week, played josh jones, etc etc etc....

Under Royce it was going to be more of the same. Hence why on other threads people claim Leeds where not ready for us in that game. I just hope after the next set of games if performances are good again we don't have people holding on waiting for another loss somewhere down the track to say the end is nigh.

People so easily forget that we were playing really badly before Leeds away last year - although we had James Graham on board to cover up the cracks in the forwards - but we turned it around at Leeds away. There was nothing at all to say that things couldn't have turned around with Leeds again this season regardless of who was in charge.

The problem we now have is that we might have a group of senior players who are not going to play unless the fancy takes them AND an inexperienced duo in charge. When Royce was around at least we had an experienced coach who had already been through a similar pattern with the players before AND turned it around to the point where we were off to another Grand Final. And let's face it, I don't think anyone thought we would get to a GF last year given the number of injuries we had and the disruption caused by that factor plus all the off field stuff. We ended up winning our last 10 matches if memory serves.

Royce had form on turning the team around. The present regime do not. While hopefully things will turn around, because although I am still firmly of the opinion it was wrong to fire Royce (for a number of reasons) I do still want Saints to do well, there is a bigger risk this season than last that they won't because not only are we without our inspiration on the pitch but we are also without experience in the coaching team.

Actually I did think we would make the GF!!!!



I believe I said we'll finish in the top 4 and get a final appearance be that CC or GF. You could see the performances coming last year, what we lacked was a win against Huddersfield, Wigan or Wire. But at no point did I think a win against those 3 was impossible, just difficult.

Royce was right to be sacked for a number of reasons, most of which was our abject inability to create, I'lll give him credit where it's due and last year I did not at any point lose faith, but at no point last year did we have such a poor run of game. 2 out of 7 was not good enough and would have got pretty much any saints coach sacked. Although I thought the sacking was due this weekend. But then I thought we would beat bradford with ease and that would get him through to the next 3 games.

Royce was also very dogmatic in his approach and like some other coaches seamed to lack a plan B.

It seams your willing to accept that Royce could have turned around the performances with the same ol same ol. Yet one loss to Wigan and you are quite unwilling to accept that this team (who do have experience) can do anything.

Shaun Mcrea was an assistant for a few years prior to Saints
Hanley had close to zero coaching experience
Millward coached leigh before Saints,

So 3 successful coaches who had no first grade pedigree to talk about. Rush has had more experience than hanley, could be said similar or more than mcrea and less than millward, but millward coached at a lower level, so is being a SL assistant or a youth team coach for a SL side equating to a head coach at a lower league side, i would say not, but you get the point their lack of first grade coaching did not stop them getting results.

We won two, drew one and lost four. Just to make sure you are reporting things accurately.

Sacking him hasn't changed anything though, has it? We were just the same against Wigan as we were against Hull and Bradford, only against Hull and Bradford our defence was better.

i'm more and more convinced you're a troll

Hmm. That's because you're incapable of reflection.

Trollop would be more appropriate.

its you're perceived inability to see both sides of any argument or that there is any position other than yes or no to any subject that leads me to my conclusion. You must be on the wind up most of the time at least

And you have totally discounted any credit for the Leeds and Wire games. Like I said 2 wins from 3. So basically your arguement is based on one result against Wigan and you say I'm fiddling the numbers. Fine 2.5 out of 7 compared to 2 from 3.

If you give this team a chance then by the next wigan game they will have had 7 games same as Royce and KP. Then we can see how the results pan out.

I just wanted to capture that.

Translation: SaintsFan disagrees with me so she must be a troll. She's also willing to defend her position. Gosh. Definitely a troll.

Yes, because Leeds were total crap! They had no defence. They have lost their following two games. They could end up losing to London, something even we didn't do. Warrington gave us the bloody first half. Two of our tries came from their stupid offloads!

I kept my head when everyone around (bar one or two) were losing theirs. It looks like what I suspected it to be: the team is the problem and not the coaching staff. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Thank you as I thought, you just take the evidence you want and bin the rest. Fine.

Please please please never do jury duty. Other than that please continue with the one eyed postings.

I never said it was a change that would last from the Leeds and Wire games, but neither am I going to take one result to try and justify the opposite. You have not kept your head, you have just lost it in the opposite direction to everyone else.

Personally I'm waiting on a few more games before making a judgement on the new set up. But I'm not going to discount the Wigan result just as I'm not going to discount the other 2 results, maybe that's because I don't have a specific point I'm desperately trying to prove one way or the other.

I've been thoroughly consistent. I said after the Leeds game that Leeds offered no resistence. I said after the wire game that (a) their offloads were ridiculous and that we wobbled in the second half. I have been one of the few to see ALL the evidence, not just the pie in the sky wishful thinking evidence.


And you are taking all views into consideration?

Good for you.

And I'll say now that I wouldn't be at all surprised if we beat Cas. Do you know why I think that? Because Millward is fielding a team chock full of u20s and since their defence is not the best anyway, it is very likely the match will be another training ground exercise for us. Great if we win; that's another two points in the bag. But I won't be doing handstands if we do.

I just wanted to put my cards on the table so that I can be judged accordingly.

No. It's the pragmatic view to take.

So you have taken any credit from this next game because of the line up and you know we are pretty much going to win. funny though that given the line up for Bradford that we should of won, that's Royce could not gain the dead cert win.

Anyway I said after a few more games. So that's not just this next game it's the next few games. Royce had 7 I see no reason why we should judge the new set up before 7 games.


I know you are a die hard royce fan and whilst it's commendable to be so loyal in the end he was just another coach.

Pragmatic base on what????

We have lost one game to wigan.. So

WTF?

Not so. With Bradford their stand in players have been better than the players they replaced ... and I said so at the time! That doesn't make them a world beating side (only a world club champions beating side, obviously...), but it does make the opposition's life difficult. However, as I said at the time (and before our coach was sacked) our loss to Bradford was about individual errors, particularly those of Jamie Foster but also of lazy Tony Puletua who dropped a great ball from Wello on the way to the tryline.

I don't know who he is, other than a mate of Rogues, but his posts in my direction have been getting closer to the bone for a while.

I'm perfectly open to having the mick taken out of me for my views on certain things but that particular post was both unnecessary and entirely inaccurate.

Experience. We can safely assume Saints will either improve, level off or nosedive from herein. If we improve - great (although what happens if Brown's fortunes take a nosedive and we win the GF under Cunningham? We'd suddenly be in the lunatic position of giving Keiron the boot and bringing in a coach who has achieved less). If we level off - we bring in Brown, no problem. Which leaves a nosedive - and given the weak state of our backs, improvements made by other SL teams and an inexperienced coaching staff this is a very real possibility.

Constructing "what if" scenarios for outcomes which are possible is hardly negative thinking. Provided outcomes aren't ridiculously improbable it is absolutely the pragmatic outlook to consider such.



We have lost several games this season. The same inadequacies that lead to earlier defeats played a (perhaps even - the) significant role in the Wigan defeat. To think otherwise is delusional.

Surely that's just a straight foreward ban

Ah now that's a slightly different outlook to the original OP.

Yes we need to think about the future, but the crash is far from the most likely option, and the OP did not mention the other options you have mentioned above.

I would say most likely is a bouncing along with good performances, mixed in with the occasional loss.
Given what I have seen so far this year and in the last few weeks. I would say CC final and a top 4 finish. But like I say hard to judge with the current team only having had 3 games.


I'd be happy with that as a turn around. The next wigan game will be as tough to predict as this one. Derbies tend to be difficult to predict, hence why the youth of Wigan have done the dirty on us before when we where expected to win.