Well we've played Leeds and Wigan in the midst of our "all over the place" phase of the season and didn't concede bucket loads.

Plus it was almost the same score line as last year's Magic.

I must say Saddened that i have been concerned on more than one occasion this year at how the defence has opened up at times. May be if we can get the attack in order then the defence can be worked on ,but didn't Saints have an ethic of ignoring defence at one time, being confident of outscoring any opposition.

Your missed calling as a politician is much to the country's detriment, Saddened.

"Our unemployment figures/NHS spending/financial growth figures aren't where they should be, but they're so much better than the previous government's were".

Just give us our deserved credit, mop your tears, and move on. Don't be bitter.

Although still backing in the glow of a great win there is some merit in what Saddo says regarding our defense. We leaked some soft tries and I have to confess to be briefly being a little apprehensive in the second half having visions of yet another 'entertaining' defeat.

Still, great win as it was we need to back it up now against Wakey and Leeds

Welcome back Benny !!

Saddened is right, we still have not beaten any of the big teams this season, it shows how far our expectations have fallen celebrating a result like this against a team we would have expected to put away with ease in the past few years!

I reserve full judgement until I see the game back on TV, but my initial thoughts are that we were much improved both offensively and defensively; 20m to goal line defence great and no penalties in possession!

But, I agree with Saddo to an extent: we opened up in the middle of the park very easily at times and allowed a few breaks. Luckily, nothing was coming up for Saints and we got away with it.

Well, it's nice to get the win, particularly as it was Saints. And the level of effort was very good, combined with an unusually low error count. We should take a fair bit of confidence from that. But we still have weaknesses in the pack - England and (benchman) Asotasi were just 'ok' for me but I was very impressed with Westwood considering his long holiday, and even more with Harrison who seemed to get through a huge amount of work. Waterhouse too, was good. But we still need to fix the pack to be top 4 again.
The defending was criticised, but we have some young kids that are still learning, plus Saints were very good at moving the ball wide to open up the gaps, so I am not too worried about that atm. Ormsby oozes arrogance, even when he makes cock ups so I hope TS perseveres with him. His catching is now looking very solid, defending is improving, but we still get the odd daft error.

I think Ratch would be my MOM

Why can't we have that level of enthusiasm shown at the start game in game out?
Bennie coming back was the real lift we needed but Michael Monas had his best match for a very long time and I was surprised he didn't get MoM.

We're a long way behind Leeds and Wigan - who are the 2 form teams.

We should have won more easily but did the usual thing of giving Saints the possibility of coming back. The first 30 minute was almost vintage Wire. Just got to turn that into 80 - just !

Different forum, same old Saddened. He's like this in the football thread too.

Just one of the reasons I rarely look on there, along with LGJM.

Talk about blinkered

LGJM has a Napoleon Complex, probably comes from the fact that his brother is more famous than he will ever be.

Nathan Brown has made some comments on the Saints website which are quite chilling for Saints fans.

"I very well know why we were not good enough but I'm not making it public. I told the players at half time what I honestly thought we needed to do to beat Wigan, Leeds or Warrington in a big game".

"I don't think it is coincidence Wigan have been dominating Saints for the past four years, let me say that. I know why it is, I have told the players"

My appraisal: much better, not perfect.

Let's enjoy the win for what it was: an 8 tries to 4 stuffing of a team that has made most of our lives hell. Does it mean we're OT bound? Probably not, butwe all enjoyed ourselves. Surely that's why we watch this game.

Best players were Benny, MMonas, Hill, Harrison. And a special mention goes to England, who I thought was terrific and far better than we've seen before.

Hill did the business today worked hard all the game with no breaks for a breather... well done mate

So If I can get this right:

The standard of superleague is very poor

The team that could have gone top today are the worst side in the league

Luke Walsh has gone from Man of Steel "nailed on", to man of

Wire Thankfully are still rubbish and have a defence second worse only to London.

And Leeds and Wigan would put a hundred points on us now just like they did early on in the season (12-1icon_cool.gif (4-12) when we were even worserer.

I love Saints fans, proper students of the game....

Good performance from your mob. Fair play.

Are you now going to stop calling for the head of Tony Smith for a least a week?

That was a brilliant performance yesterday, the crowd was fantastic and the players really stepped up.

Agreed. I was concerned until Ratch's drop goal which seemed to knock the stuffing out of their comeback. We need to shore up our defense as TS said post match - but let's not take anything away from the players who provided us with a magnificent end to the weekend

Now I was drunk and need to see this again but Russell made some fantastic decisions in defence and he's a nippy little bugger too

I don't recall anyone calling for his head. Merely questioning what's going on and asking each other the questions "is he to blame?" "has he taken us as far as he can?"...to which many, including me, said it's too early to be talking like that.

Well there's something new!!

Ignore him, it's just a poor attempt at trolling.

Looking at the stats, Saints actually made 12 breaks to our 9. Fortunately we had the skill and ruthlessness to finish our breaks off, but 12 breaks wasn't that strong from us.

That said, Saints pretty much had to throw the ball around to get back into the game and they became dangerous as teams often do when they have to play like this. Conditions were perfect for attacking Rugby too.
We should also remember that whilst our structures are looking better, we still have new partnerships all over the park. Evans and Atkins, Monaghan and Ormsby, Bridge and Ratchford, plus a few of the forwards are still finding their feet.

With the ball very good, without it, more work to do, but as JB says, we should certainly enjoy an 8 tries to 4 victory, which could have been much more comfortable had Bridge had his kicking boots on. I suspect their heads would have dropped sooner had we got the extra 8 points from kicks and we could have gone on to score even more.

That supports my point. At the half hour mark you had 70%+ possession, with your only blip being the 7 or so minutes of the first half that Gene was off with his yellow. Similar pattern at the start of the second half that wasn't broken until about 55 minutes when we had a bit of ball and scored a few. You completely dominated large portions of that game in terms of territory and possession, yet we could easily have scored 30+ with a bit more composure.

I thoroughly enjoyed it as I didnt expect that sort of performance. Still a lot of work to do defensively but at least we seem capable of finishing off moves!

On a side note I was dissapointed with the tackle on Monaghan!