I'm worried that I'm turning into Saddened but I'm shocked at how poor we played today. I just wish I could post something positive for once but it's hard to find many positives in respect of the last couple of weeks.

Our tactics are so boring and predictable. We have two halfbacks who don't want to take on the line or have the ability at the moment to deliver a killer pass. Our attacking structure and shape is the worst in the league and our inability to get the ball into Percival's hands often enough is absolutely criminal. It's not as if we have one the best HBs Super League has seen on the coaching staff is it?

How we can play against 12 men and not take advantage or adapt our tactics to suit? We carried on playing one up rugby and it wasn't until late on when we actually started to promote the ball and we looked ok (I use the term loosely)

I hate to pick players out (I'm not in a great mood), but seeing Matty Dawson embarrass himself with the 'finish' in the corner was the final straw for me. How he has been given a contract extension I will never know. Please let's hope Makinson is back soon.

As an aside: it's interesting to note that I was at a fans forum a couple of weeks ago and Cunningham was slagging off Potter and Simmons saying that they had no personality and was explaining how their decisions damaged the club (short and long term). But from where I sit at the moment this brand of rugby we are producing is reminiscent of the Potter days and I feel that Cunningham has a much better squad thanks to Brown.

This +1

With a added suggestion to stop the penalty count our lack of discipline is killing us?

We played much better rugby than this under Potter and Simmons... we are rudderless

I said from day one thst Royce simmons wouuld set this club back years due to his coaching and retention/recruitment. Word from inside the camp was thst his training methods was dull, repetitive and boring.

When we brought Brown in i said we would win a trophy during his time at the club. we had plsyers saying they love going to training and he's brought fresh new ideas to the club etc. His retention/recruitment put us back up there in the mix. His tactics was spot on. He didn't a halfbacks for vitrtully the whole time he was here but he adapted our style to compensate this. It might not have been pretty but it couldn't be helped with the massive injury list we had. He won the grand final With flash and wello as our halves!

Now under KC I fear we going back to the Royce days. We look poorly coached. We look bored. We don't look up for games. How he uses the interchange is baffling me (I see we used the Royce method of not using a bench player and rolling with 16 players). We play boring one up rugby. Our only plays are inside balls or the short ball to Greenwood. Our recruitment/retention looks like it's from the Royce simmons handbook of signing crap.

Looks like the work Brown put in could be blown away in two seasons.

I like KC as a man and a former Saint legend but he wasn't ready for the job. It's come to soon. We should have brought a experinced coach in for two years to give KC more time. It's like he's learning his trade on the job and it's killing us. It might be a short time pain for long term gain but next year with the players going and what we brought it I fear it's going to be a very long pain.

As we are in the present and not in the past, In the grand order of things, for curiosity where would you place the least experienced rookie coach in super league.

Mc Dermott
Wane
Powell
Anderson
Smith (T)
Frayssinous
Radford
Chester
Betts
Harris
Smith (B)

Cunningham.

The league places him 3rd and the league does not lie.

You've gotta take into account the squads at the coaches' disposal though. Someone like Betts has done well with what he's got and Widnes often punch above their weight, and what Powell has done at Cas is brilliant. Are we fulfilling our potential? We have the 2nd best squad in the league IMO but we often look not as good as Wigan and it wouldn't surprise me to see them get to the grand final instead of us.

In theory we are the second best squad on paper but we have had long spells with a very long injury list causing quite a lot of disruption more than other teams. We,ve been ticking over in the 1st 3 for most of the season now, I don,t think any of the other coaches would have improved us position wise.

Leeds obviously are hitting top form at the moment but can they keep this going for 2 months, Saints were pretty decent form wise in the first 5 games, if we can return that level in the last 4 games then we are pretty much back on the bike.


PS. where is Mugwump, is he going to hit us with a "War and Peace" version of opinion.

He's probably on some Australian cricket forum telling them they can still win the ashes.

I read statements like this on here regularly but what does this actually mean? Whenever I see these statements my immediate reaction is 'Says who?'

I think one of our biggest problems is that Cunningham's hero status makes him almost unsackable.

He's been writing his post since 7pm Saturday night trying to list as many injuries as possible and how much harder it is to play against 12 men than 13.

You think results this year make him sackable???

Semi final and 3 points off top, with 6 games to go.

Hardly what you would call sackable status.

Its usually the sky pundits isn't it, don't think these days saints fans take much notice of it due to our regular annual injury crisis negates it.

With Cunningham there is always going to be a transitional period between retired legendary hero to an experienced proven coach. He started off well early season but this was very much based on a team with few injuries hitting a bit of form and still influenced by the Brown effect of last season.
Second part of this season both coach and players are struggling for performance consistency, KC has not got big game coaching experience yet, so I don't know why people moan so much about it, if he gets us in the top 4 then he's done a reasonable job in his first season as coach.

I had nightmares about the Catalans performance last night. Just the wrong time of the season to have your pack exhausted and your form capitulating.

It's a good job we weren't good enough to reach the CC Final. I reckon we'd have lost that to KR had we got there.

To coach at Saints there's usually 2 targets you must meet with the fans but obviously only 1 target with McManus.

First target is to win trophies or be within a game or two of doing so. On paper that's great and I imagine when fans from other clubs look at these boards they're baffled when we talk of sacking coaches when we're sat near the top of the table. And that's because of target 2 which is to entertain and play the game the right way. When we weren't winning much (pre 1996) we were playing really good rugby and although it was frustrating not being able to push Wigan off their pedestal, we were at least proud of the fact we played entertaining rugby. Then post 1996, we started winning stuff and playing great rugby and us Saints fans ended up spoilt rotten.

It seems that Cunningham, a club legend, is a McManus man. He's his boss so I guess that's obvious. However that means he's only interested in getting us in a position to compete for trophies and thus playing 'safe, conservative, take no risks' rugby to achieve this. Which doesn't meet the criteria of the fans.

Saints have got the players to play expansive rugby. The try against Warrington from deep is just one example of that. I hope as time goes on and Cunningham gets more experience, that he becomes more confident and trusting to let his team off the leash a bit.

That's an excellent assessment. Winning is obviously the foremost aim of any sports organization but it's a shame we've so willingly cast aside our ethos as a flamboyant team who likes to play fast and take risks. And even more disappointing that others (particularly Leeds) have seemed to take this mantle. It's something we're known and respected for throughout the game and should always be part of our DNA. It might be a misty-eyed romantic view but when you're going through the turnstiles for 15 home games, I'd rather watch flamboyant, exciting rugby every week than 'win at all costs' error-free percentage stuff, even if it occasionally costs us points.

Conservative was one of the (many) accusations levelled at McDermott. He seems to have let our team off the leash but it certainly wasn't an overnight process.

My thoughts exactly, its a pity some of the usual fans don,t see it that way and have little faith in what could be achieved, its about this time last year the "usual suspects" came on board saying we will struggle to make the top 5, won't get to a grand final never mind winning one. Brown found a way of adapting to the cards he was dealt with.
This season is harder because the coaching staff are here 12 months too soon, every club benefits from stability which takes time, but some fans want a quick fix to success. (a la Salford)

That Dawson 'effort' just about summed up our night. Possibly the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen on a Rugby field. You could have drove a London bus through the gap he had to score, the fool didn't need to dive.

At least another 2 season ahead of him into the bargain.

There is a real danger Saints will be swallowed up by three or four teams. Leeds are comfortably better, Wigan will be next season, Wire and Huddersfield potentially too if their recruitment pays off.

It's not just the lack of strike players, poor halves and awful backs holding us back. We're playing the game like London Broncos did at the beginning of Super League. Boring, percentage based RL that is easily beaten if you can get a lead. Leeds have changed the game, the quick play the balls, the determination to offload not tuck and drive like we do and the ability to throw it wide with fantastic core skills. We're behind technically as much as we are in terms of players.

Our tactics current are:
1 - Winger runs across pitch and skids into the knees of defender
2 - Hit up by Walmsley/Amor against a rampant defense
3 - Hit up by Walmsley/Amor/backrower
4 - Kick to opposition fullback by Walsh

The wingers and Quinlan need to do more to get us going, either by hurtling into the line or evading the first man. Then the first drive can be productive rather than a 2m gain under huge pressure like it is now. All our pack should be looking to offload, fighting for that rather than extra yardage like we do now. This forces the opposition to compress and opens the space out wide that the likes of Watkins, Moon, McGuire enjoy so much at Leeds. It's risky, we don't have players with the technical ability Leeds have, but it's the future and we need to adapt to it and sign players that can play that way.

Our current tactics of low risk percentage plays ALL THE TIME would be okay if we had two or three dangerous individuals who can worry the defensive line and create breaks from nothing. We don't have that.

We still make a lot of errors even though it is low risk rugby !!
Perhaps we should try something a bit more inventive.

The pack are big enough and good enough to offload but who do we have to come running through; certainly not our halves or three quarters.

It the pack don't offload then the backs soon go out of the habit of making the runs to scoop the offload up.

I'm going back a bit but when we signed Derek McVey, our backs knew what he was going to do so they made sure to be on his shoulder, much like the Leeds lads around Cuthbertson.

Our forwards rarely look for the offload. They instead retain possession, and that's clearly an instruction from the coach. Keep hold of the ball and play the percentages.

Not at all. My main point was about the statements I often see on here about having the best pack on paper, or the best squad on paper. They're just opinions dressed up to look like facts. And there nonsense (another opinion).

My other point is that K C being who he is would be a hard man to sack if it came to it. And if it did come to it I wouldn't want what he did as a coach to tarnish people's view of him overall as that would diminish his deserved legendary status as a player.

I cannot stand our tactics this season. The early kick and one up rugby is just dull, and not indicative of Saints style of play as a whole. It's even more annoying when you think how well we started this season; the Souths game really knocked the stuffing out of us, and I wonder if KC lost his confidence in the style of play and reverted to a much more conservative style?

It needs changing though, as it's not working.

Having all those injured players heading into mid season, especially the pivotal ones sat in the stands had a lot to do with it, and now with our half backs in poor form we are stuck in a bit of a rut.

Also Soliola and Manu not being replaced like for like hash,t helped either. Especially Manu who could create havoc with his offloads.

I think its all down to 1, 6 , 7 and 9 playing with form to get us playing with a bit of creativity and direction.