Your right in the real world there is no black and white. White goes grey over time and black eventually fades to grey as do some peoples memories.

Long was not fit in 2007 which also had a major impact on the game. In 2008 and 2009 the same pattern eventually emerged, the lack of pace was not rectified.

The 2002 team was a better team.

Some of us are grey. I'm a grey Saints fan

In fact you can now pick your avatar according your Saints perspective.

White Saint

The Saints can do no wrong type.

Black Saint

There's always something wrong type.

Grey Saint

The modern rugby league type

Just awesome!

Greatest post ever

My own view re coaches is that you can tell what they bring to the team by the attitude of the players in DEFENCE.

As such i rate Anderson highly as he made us into a very tough nut to crack.

Similarly if you look at what Mcguire has done at Wigan and what Tony Smith has done with the teams he has coached you always get the BIG D.

When you have players of the quality that Saints do possess then its pretty easy for them to play attacking RL.

Where the coaching comes in is building the iron mentality of fighting for every inch.

I have not seen this from either Potter or Simmons teams.
Simmons teams in particular have been cruely exposed against the superior organisation of Wigan and Wire.
As a result we have found ourselves smashed off the park, before coming back from a late rally, as the opposition takes the foot off the pedal due to knowing they have our number.
Some Saints fans then have fallen for this thinking it shows we are in the games, but the reality is that its no different than when we play lower standard teams, get up a big lead and then end up winning a match 40-20 with most of our points being scored in the first half.

i dont think anyone on here would have dropped Gardner and put Lomax in at centre - a position he has never played before or since in his career - when it was obvious that Meli should be centre, with Gardner on the wing.

I presume you mean the grand final team, which was very odd, and it was difficult to understand just were lomax played in that game, despite being named on the wing outside meli. Which I agree was bizarre. Going through the heritage site, he did play Gardner pre playoffs, so I can't recall if he got injured or not?

What did happen though was when foster came into the team he took Gardner's right wing spot, Gardner came back in, with meli in the centre

I 've enjoyed debating it with you and I'm happy to agree to disagree. Save ourselves going around in circles.

Lol, ok.

It was going to be extremely hard to increase the defensive intensity after Anderson though, I don't think Wigan now are more intensive than we were then, they just use different tactics. Smith and McGuire came into teams that didn't defend as well and the improvement is easy to see with those two teams. Our intensity has been slowly dropping ever since Anderson left though, his failings for me were elsewhere.

Fully agree with this.

ok I'llake this one on.

Smashed off the park. Really? We have played wigan four times this year and Wigan blew us off the park in one game. The other three where more competitve than you give us credit for. DW we were even leading.

Warrington we have played twice and been shashed once. In terms of the last game against wire they hit the lead but our come back was way beofre half time and which can hardly be put down to the foot being taken off the pedal. There was some good attacking play to score those tries.

I would not argue we are as consistently good as either wire or wigan. but neither do i subscribe to us being light years behind them. We are there or there abouts and I see no reason why we will not improve next year. Judging coaches seams to have got more and more short term.

Milward was a spent force after five years. Anderson had peaked after three. Potter after two and simmons is being replaced before his first season is over.

For me that way lies the way off wigan and there years of merry go round coaches and not being a force as a team. Simmons may not be the next great coach but he should at least be able to have a run in the playoffs.

Did you know that out of the top four we have the worst record against teams in the top four and also against teams in the play offs? Huddersfield have a better record than us in the same circumstances.

[url=http://mcclennan.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/super-league-xvi-qualifying-finals/Head-to-head records included here[/url.

I understand we could go ifs and buts over everything.. but in two of those games, we really could've been murdered.

Had wire scored at 18 0 when they bombed a certain try, and had Joel Tomkins not had an absolute brainfart in the semi, it could've been two hammerings.

That said we deserve credit for our fightbacks in those games, and the magic game. The other two we were comfortably beaten

I just find it hard to bag a coach beforee his first season is even over. The previous coaches fair enough. But I do think simmons has had it tougher than the rest on so a like for like comparison is tricky. ie Eastmond and Pryce v Lomax And Gaskell. Gidley v shenton. etc

That's fair enough and I've unusually been a bit guilty of that this season. However, I would want him to see out his contract because there have been lots of factors which have impacted on team performance this year, not least the moving to Widnes. I don't think you can underestimate how big an impact the instability and lack of a home can have on individual and team performance. Besides with Shaun Wane in charge next year we won't have to perform that much better to win

completely agree about it's hard to compare coaches, but i still feel that potter had similar issues to deal with as simmons, but at least going into the playoffs there was a quiet optimism, which i don't think is there this year.. i think we forget how bad potter had it with injuries last year:

with regards to eastmond and pryce, in superleague for the first 15 sl games both played (albeit eastmond played two at full back) for the last 15 games they started 1 game together (ironically both got injured at leeds IIRC) potter used eastmond, pryce, lomax, gaskell, moore, smith and wilkin at half back in that period.. what simmons lacks in experience at half back, he does have consistency, and the same 3 (gaskell, lomax and pryce) playing regularly there

interesting on shenton/gidley.. for me gidley was reasonably quiet last year, if you compare the tries of gidley, foster and gardner outside gidley in the regular season (6, 6, 12) for tries last year against shenton, makinson and gardner this year (8, 6 and 8,) it's very comparable, when you consider we've scored 21 less tries this year (15% less)

Utter tosh.

Insightful post

Indeed.

Potter had a number of advantages over Simmons. Firstly, he had Cunningham. While his best playing days were behind him he was a leader and motivator on the field, and we would visibly lift when he came on and look altogether more cohesive. Secondly, he had at least one experienced halfback on the pitch for his first full season and two thirds of his second. Thirdly, we were still at Knowsley Road and the team were still training at their usual place. Fourthly, he had the spine of the very successful Saints team for his first season with still enough of them left in the second to aid the newer players. Fifthly, he didn't lose his own Dad just before joining us. Sixthly, he didn't have to put up with Eastmondgate, Mooregate and Pryce having terminal white shirt syndrome.

Seventhly, while we had a few injuries for a spell in Potter's first year, we weren't decimated by them. Last year there was a couple of games when we had a serious number of players missing and we then lost Kyle and Leon. However, the number and frequency and impact of injuries this year has been far beyond anything Potter had to deal with and it has had to be handled without Cunningham on the field and with rookie halfbacks and young guys on the wing who have yet to physically develop enough to push forward with the ball.

So there is my 'insightful' post and I still think your claim was tosh.

Potter's injuries were just as bad as Simmons' I won't go into the facts, they simply were
Without sounding crass, I'm sure Simmons is blaming anything on his fathers death, so nor should you
Eastmondgate affected us for 3 games (one of which we won, one was wire)
Moore, come off it, effected us in no way
The training ground, is that a joke? Simmons has been at cowley all year
At lomax and gaskell are half backs

Ones I'll give you, kc is a big loss (although his replacement is arguably our best player this year), not being at kr (however I doubt how big a factor this is)

So again, in what department has Simmons improved us this year?
Our defence, our attack, our substitute policy, improved our youngsters greatly.. I'm not saying potter was excellent, but how have we improved this year

You don't need to because I was watching Saints last year too and I know they weren't; they simply weren't.


I'm not blaming anything on his father's death. You said Potter had similar things to cope with and I pointed out those areas which were different. Potter's Dad didn't die but Simmons' Dad did, which would have been incredibly difficult for him to deal with, especially half a world away from his family.


Really? I think your memory is fuzzy.


Really? At the very least he was due to play at Bradford and then at the last minute he was pulled, putting even more pressure on an injury ravaged side, especially considering his aggression and the awful conditions (in which his aggression would have been invaluable). Of course it affected us. He was suspended. We were already down a sizeable number of players.


Indeed. But at the start of the season the players hadn't and that will be an adjustment to add to all the other adjustments.


Indeed. Lomax had a handful of games playing mostly at wing under his belt and Gaskell had 1.5 games at scrum half under his belt before they were thrown in the deep end. Lomax had never played at scrum half before this season.


But the player bit was not what I was talking about and I made that clear. I was talking about his leadership and we have NOT replaced him in that respect. That has been very, very obvious in a number of matches.


At the very least it is one more adjustment to add to all the others.


That wasn't the point I was responding to.

I'd say he has improved the defence, even with the disruption. Although I'll also conceed the sub policy leaves alot to be desired. It's ok trying a new tactic, I'm all for trying stuff, but even with my optimistic outlook I could see the back on the bench had little if no impact by halfway since before half the season.

With the kids, well has he improved out youngsters, in the backs yes, in the forwards no.

Our attack well it's been fits and starts some weeks great other weeks not so.
He has controlled the defence though and if you can keep a hold on defence even if your attacks not firing it wil keep you in touch for most games.

It's been a tough year for Royce, for me this match coming up will demonstrate whether he has seen the light, there is no excuse for a back on the bench this week and if he does do it, then it's dogmatic rather than putting any thought into it.

The Eastmond saga affected fans moreso than players, who are used to players moving on. He was dropped after three or four matches, so how would him not playing affect the team?