rolling up to last nights game I was hoping that we scored and the roosted scored less than 40 points, so from that aspect I was happy with the result.

however, on seeing the roosters lineup and the saints lineup, I was disapointed with a few basic errors as a team.

Firstly, the roosters where not as strong as Souths last year, they don't have the all star line up and looked a bit rusty.

Secondly, they chose to play a safe game, standard one out football looking for gaps around the first man in and nothing special, they clearly understood the consitions, respected the opposition and patiently waited for Saints to make mistakes.

Saints too went for one out football to start with and the first 10 minutes were bright, they made it look like it was going to be a good tough match.

Then, sadly our backs didn't read the 'tough it out' script, they pushed the ball on too many occasions, they kicked on the 4th to the full back when there was space either side, 2 restarts went out on the full, there was no patience from them or the senior members of the squad, and time after time ball went to ground or into the roosters arms due to our mistakes.

I would much rather see saints play a game of chess, and go for repeat sets on the opposition line than throw speculative passes out wide or panic pass on the last to try and score on each set.

The roosters stuck to a simple game plan, and turned over on our line if they had too, they never looked like they were pushing the ball and always had patience and respect for the ball the conditions and the opposition. They got to the 5th and the put up a high ball turning us around in our own 10 every single time almost.

It would be interesting to see the stats on completed sets and the error count. I think our forwards did enough yards, but we gave them far too much ball and not in their own 10.

I think if I want to see anything come out of this I want to see Keiron instill patience in the team, and ability to simply play out our sets of 6 early on to enable us to wait for errors and work out were the gaps and weaknesses are and to stop the panic pass football late on in the tackle count when there are many minutes left on the clock.

we have the players to compete this year, but until we get them playing a simple game plan the off the cuff stuff won't work.

That's pretty much how I felt leaving the ground last night. They did not need to do anything special to win. Our lack of respecting possession gave them the opportunities to exploit

Excellent post that. I would add though that when every one of their backs had at least a yard or two of pace over our backs, and size too, that they can be patient knowing that they can punish any mistake.

Saints lack pace. Apart from Swift, if we picked up a loose ball or interception near their (any team) line, how many of our players would you back to go full length of the field? If you match up to our forwards, play out the sets of six and have Saints picking the ball up in their own 20 consistently then you will get a win against Saints.

Yeah it has to be made note thqt the aussies are coming in after training in summer tekps and sts in winters shoite.

Thats a yard or 2 difference right there.

Saints trained at Rivington in deep mud, hail, rain and freezing temperatures, while Roosters trained on hard ground, beach with the sun on there backs. It didn't matter that we were 2 games to the good Roosters were fitter, faster and better conditioned without playing a game.

Could write a book of excuses on here to why we lost. Simple fact, they are better than us by miles. I predicted 56-6 to roosters so we did better than I thought.

Let's see how Wigan do tonight. They will have trained in mud and they will be handicapped by the NRL bigger salary cap.

People need to realise, we are miles away from the NRL.

Do you really believe that we have the players needed to be successful? No strike players, awful half backs and a pack with no backbone? We don't have the players or the coaching staff required to be a top SL side.

I said "compete."

We won the grand final two years ago, surely thst should have been a platform to challenge for trophies rather than just compete?

I don't think you can differentiate from excuses and facts, yes there are many factors why Sydney Roosters are much better than us. Sydney Roosters beat Canterbury Bulldogs in the semis last year [size=15038-12[/size does that mean we can be excused by having experienced the same outcome, no its just a factual occurrence.

The fact they flew 12,000 miles, played in cold wet conditions and haven't played one game since the end of the NRL season makes your comparison laughable.

Also they are not the same team as last year. Only Tupou was in the same position as last year in their backs. Their Captain didn't make the trip and JWH didn't make the trip .

In comparison we didn't fly 12,000 miles, we have played to super league games plus 2 other practice games, we only had percy out injured and we are very familiar with the weather conditions. In fact we had Richards and Theo who didn't even make our 17.

Nah, I'm not buying into this at all (20+ years ago maybe), you make it sound as though they have driven here in a mini bus, don't know each other and haven't held a rugby ball for months. Roosters would have been professionally well prepared for this match, fit and well conditioned, they would have used the journey over here as a recovery phase from hard training sessions and probably would have used the trip as a bonding exercise opportunity with just one single focus on the game, Robinson covered it on the Sky interview calling it removal of external distraction. They also wouldn't have been here long enough for the weather conditions to kick into there mindset.
Roosters are obviously not match fit and neither are Saints unless you think after a couple of games we hit the supreme match fitness button. Roosters played steady basic rugby and fed off most of our errors, there was only the roosters stand off who went full on as he had very much to prove for future selection.

Yes your right. Obviously 12,000 mile flight, the jet lag, the freezing conditions they ain't used to and the fact not had full contact game in 5 month worked in our favour.

We should be asking to play the next world series games in Australia as it's not fair they have the advantage of travel, jet lag and unfamiliar weather conditions every year

The roosters wouldn't have suffered any jet lag on two 6 hour flights going east to west. Jet lag is suffered going west to east as you are flying against time not with it. They will suffer it on their return to Australia as would any Brit team going to Aus for a WCC. Even then jet lag lasts a maximum of 72 hours before the body is adjusted to the new time zone.

Australia to Britain in 12 hours, what's that in, a Tardis?

They would have jet lag both ways. One way is worse than the other but they will still get it.

When I flew it took us 19 hours and all of us suffered bad from the flight 48hr later it hit us.

Also didn't the Aussie National side used to blame jet lag on them constantly losing the first test ?

They didn't fly in one go they stopped in Dubai. I may have underestimated each flight a little, each flight should take around 6-7 hours from take off to landing. Which is when jet lag starts/finishes. This means that on both flights the players days would experience an extension of 2 hours to their day, this is not a long enough period to bring on jet lag.

Aussie players will always have an advantage in comparison to Brit players in this respect, especially if they have a camp half way

Roosters didn't fly Sydney to the UK in one go though, they wanted to eliminate any jet lag by setting up a training camp in Dubai. They then got a daylight flight to the UK to reduce jet lag and where in the UK for around 60 hours before match play. They only had a 4 hour time zone adjustment to overcome.
Like I said Sydney Roosters were well prepared and analysed it as an easier focus option.

Quote from the coach:=#BF0040Robinson, who had taken his squad to Dubai for a training camp as part of their pre-season preparations, saw his side quickly shake off the rust against a side already feeling wear and tear from the opening fortnight of Super League.
"It's hard for the Australian teams coming over but we've only had one focus," Robinson said. "The Super League teams have to play a couple of games. I f you train a whole off season and play that game as your sole focus,
[usometimes it's easier[/u.

We really needed Luke Walsh to have got over his issues at the start of this season. Right now it looks like he hasn't (although I did think his defence was much improved). Which leaves us in a tough situation because last season Jon Wilkin was our best playmaking option. By using him in a supplementary role when Walsh isn't offering anything better we lose twice over.

I feel some sympathy with Cunningham bemoaning Sydney City's fortune with the bounce of the ball. It really is mentally tough when the opposition scores two or three tries in such fashion. That said, you've just got to deal with it and some of our players looked beaten before the halftime hooter.

I just don't understand all this messing about with Turner. He's not a stand-off. He's not a loose-forward. Yes - he can PLAY THERE. But only as a fill-in. By moving him out of his favoured position we lose the attacking threat he unquestionably possesses for no gain whatsoever. Indeed, I'd say it's a net loss. With Percival out we just can't afford to be weakening our back line even further.

As for Cunningham's tactics. I don't know what he's telling the players - but the fact that the opposition seem to gain every time we try to expand the play to a completely flat backline suggests that something is going wrong somewhere.

To be honest I'm not fussed about us keeping the ball tight. We don't have exceptional strength in the backs so it's simply crazy to think we should be throwing it about like a basketball team. But if we are going to stay narrow then it's imperative that the forwards interlink with each other - either offloading repeatedly or working little off-the-shoulder passes to the back-rowers running in close support.

Cunningham is inexperienced. But I can't imagine he's instructing his players to be this conservative. I think questions need to be asked about our playmaking unit. It isn't functioning. Which brings us right back to Walsh & Wilkin. Of course it doesn't help with Roby out. But worse still is the perennial problem at full-back. It's such an influential position and yet again we aren't offering anything. I'm not going to start bashing Owens because he's young and only has a couple of games under his belt for the club. But you have to question the sense in putting someone like Owens in such a tough spot when we have so many issues in the creative department.

The club seems to be putting an awful lot of faith in Lomax and McDonnell's abilities to overcome what are very serious injuries. I just hope that faith pays off.

I should also add - it's probably not a good idea to make too much of a big deal over being outplayed by a good NRL side. Certainly Wigan don't seem to be proving that they are capable of offering a great deal more. Indeed, watching the game now Brisbane could easily stick sixty on them if they keep the pedal flat to the floor.

They at least have the excuse of McIllorum's broken leg and Clubb's injury at a time in the game when they were competing very well.

I think all SL sides are inferior to the NRL, but we'll get similar scorelines against SL sides as well.

They made more breaks than us. But then I'd expect them to. Wigan have more options outside than we do. But if folk thought our forwards looked bad against the Roosters - Wigan showed they had the same "soft centre" which has dogged them ever since they won SL.

I mean, at least our lads were getting knocked back by some quality forwards. I've never seen as many yards made by backs carrying the ball up the middle as I did tonight. Even Brisbane's wingers seemed to be making ten yards a carry against the meat of Wigan's pack.

Whilst we have some headaches to deal with it's patently obvious Wigan have plenty of their own.

Broncos winger Corey Oats is former backrow. He's 110kg and 6ft 3 in so easy to see why he's making 10 meters a carry.

Just showed the Aussie game is years head of ours now, are we going backwards? did feel that Wigan looked more confident before the injuries set in, but no way did they compete with the Broncos, watching them move into positions to trick the defence was a lesson how to play rugby league. Not really expecting much difference tonight?

If Leeds have watched the Friday + Saturday games, you would think they would make some adjustment to make it a damage limitation one, by concentrating on minimum handling errors and not being pulled out of position too much. Saying that the best side in the NRL is on show tonight with Thurston running the show if Leeds allow it.