what 1 season finishing trophyless in i don't know how many years does to certain fans. viewtopic.php?t=434564

what 1 season finishing trophyless in i don't know how many years does to certain fans. viewtopic.php?t=434564

Quality, when you read the signatures.

I can't believe my eyes.

Just showed this thread to my pal who is a saints fan, who is hugely embarrsed by this petition.

You can't make like this up.

as am i

That is very funny!

That's made my day.

look's like they're all following the example of dummy spitting and crying set by James Graham.

Rugby League supporters are becoming bored by the 'smash and bash' tactics used in Super League over the last few seasons, and even more in Super League 2009.

Roughly translated...... 'we didn't win anything in 2009 so even though Rugby League is a collision sport which obviously involves smash and bash tactics, we don't like it so are signing this petition which will achieve nothing except highlight our complete humiliation for being bad losers.'

To be fair there is a grain a truth in this and some validity in this argument.

I would love to know the percentage of tries now scored from attacking kicks in the 20 compared with attacking, attractive, running play.

I'd venture any finesse the game had (which admittedly wasn't that much in any case) has now been distilled and honed to "get within the opponents 20 metres through percentage play then kick and either score or get a repeat set from a dead ball and attempt same". Then repeat ad infinitum.

It may be effective but it doesn't make it attractive (in my opinion). Which I think is the point of the OP.

made me day haha

I remember not so long ago how they laughed at young Kevin Penny and his Exciting brand of rugby League yet hailed Francis "cant stop him from two yards out" Meli as the best thing since bread and dripping..........

Seems they want nothing more than to win everything and play exciting rugby......they can dress it up all they like its still brilliant cry baby stuff of the highest order....

An Entire Season and 12 superleague teams dont go bad just because Saints dont win anything its mind blowing arrogance beyond anything that Wigan Fans have ever come out with.

I love my Rugby League and this season has been fantastic,
I hope Saint Helens and their filthy ground and their grubby buck toothed fans and crap Rugby team dissapear into oblivion.

You are obviously going to say that when you've seen your club win something for the first time.

But can you honestly say this season has been 'fantastic'? Has it? Or did we know since the final whistle at last seasons grand final that Saints and Leeds would be back again? Have there been any of the usual edge of your seat games on Sky? During the entire season I can only remember the Wire-Kr semi final, the Leeds comeback at Wakefield and the Leeds-Catalans play off as entertaining games to watch. I lost count of the amount of games I turned off because they were so boring.

The Heineken Cup is more entertaining than Super League at the moment. They have gone too far in slowing the play the ball down and have turned it into such a dour sport.

So you would rather see fast play the balls where a hooker can pick up and run, than skillful half back play which is required to unlock defences?

Quote ="The Punisher"what 1 season finishing trophyless in i don't know how many years does to certain fans. viewtopic.php?t=434564 '" I think this thread shows what one season winning a trophy in i don't know how many years does to certain fans. I'd take your point if I didn't flag up the issue during 2006, 2007 and 2008, when we won a total of eight pieces of silverware but I did. I enjoyed the years without winning trophies far better than I did those three. I don't agree that the slowing of the play-the-ball is the cause of all the ills but there is no doubt that fast, free flowing rugby is a thing of the past. Length of the field tries are out and weight of pressure tries are in. I loved Rugby Leage and hardly ever missed a game from 1987 to 1996, when we won neither of the big trophies and Wigan creamed the lot. I don't love it now because I think the product is boring. I would rather Warrington won the treble next year and Saints won nothing as long as I got to see entertaining rugby with the emphasis back on attack rather than defence. Warrington have been quite lucky in that they still have speed of movement of the ball and a bit of pace and just so happen to be one of the less boring teams to watch. You are few and far between. Take out Leeds, Wire and possibly Wakefield and it's five drives, a kick, 25 handling errors and abject boredom.

Quote ="The Punisher"what 1 season finishing trophyless in i don't know how many years does to certain fans. viewtopic.php?t=434564 '" I think this thread shows what one season winning a trophy in i don't know how many years does to certain fans. I'd take your point if I didn't flag up the issue during 2006, 2007 and 2008, when we won a total of eight pieces of silverware but I did. I enjoyed the years without winning trophies far better than I did those three. I don't agree that the slowing of the play-the-ball is the cause of all the ills but there is no doubt that fast, free flowing rugby is a thing of the past. Length of the field tries are out and weight of pressure tries are in. I loved Rugby Leage and hardly ever missed a game from 1987 to 1996, when we won neither of the big trophies and Wigan creamed the lot. I don't love it now because I think the product is boring. I would rather Warrington won the treble next year and Saints won nothing as long as I got to see entertaining rugby with the emphasis back on attack rather than defence. Warrington have been quite lucky in that they still have speed of movement of the ball and a bit of pace and just so happen to be one of the less boring teams to watch. You are few and far between. Take out Leeds, Wire and possibly Wakefield and it's five drives, a kick, 25 handling errors and abject boredom.

It's nice to see a voice of reason every now and again.

There should be a balance. If the attacking player wins the collision and drives forward or makes a half break, then he should be able to get a quick play the ball. If what used to happen with players dropping into tackles to speed up the play the ball happens, they should then use the 'dominant' call and allow the defenders a reasonable time.

They slowed the play the balls down as part of the post mortem into the world cup, but they've gone too far and completely closed games down.

Everyone has noticed the issue. Some like you mention how good it will be for us developing half backs. I agree to an extent, but if you look at the NRL they allow teams with good go forward to exploit that with quick play the balls. In Super League last season the lying on was almost limitless and caused the terrible viewing spectacle there undoubtedly was.

That's all well & good, but, it's a results business and you more than most push that on us on here.

Cullen had the philoshophy of playing free flowing, entertaining rugby, and we were long heralded by all & sundry as 'good to watch' but it delivered nothing, and you were one of the most vocal in wanting his demise, way, way before it actually came, you had the vision.

It's a results driven industry, fans, coaches, players will all take scruffy wins as oppose to beautiful losses, we must have had 50 of the latter during Culls regime, you'd come away after a 38-26 defeat thinking 'we scored some beltin' tries'.

Of course I agree it's a results business. I would just like to see the balance restored to more free flowing RL rather than the tactics I outline above. This could be achieved by a rule change and allowing more advantage to the defending side following an unsuccessful kick which goes dead.

Also the recent change in "player held up over the line" restarts has made barge over tries more attractive to the attacking side sadly.

The Cullen critique was because we consistently leaked points and lost more games than we won.

But you could argue that Cullens problems came because he wanted to attack. He encouraged expression, free flowing rugby and all that, but I think it's what cost him in the end. You could say that we put that much energy into our attacking, our defence suffered on the back of this, no doubt Cullen also spent large periods coaching attacking plays, and spent less time on the defensive aspects which in the end became too much.

Our success has only come because Che has reigned in our attacking threat, we play closer to the ruck now, exploit Monas etc, and tightened up our defence. We've become boring to win almost, which is cool by me.

Not sure I follow that logic. Didn't it use to be a scrum on the 5(?) with feed to attacking team hence a new set of six. That is more advantageous to the attacking team than going back to the 10 and continuing the tackle count.

General question (not having a go at you wired71) when was this golden age of fast flowing attacking rugby? I've been watching the game for 30+ years and the standard of rugby now is better than ever. I've got classics like the 86 Premiership final on DVD and if you are complaining about the game being slowed-down now you'd hang yourself after watching the games from the 80's.

Depends what you define 'standard' as.

Defensively, it's obviously better than it ever was, in terms of ball handling skills, passing ability, offloading and trying to score by skillful passages of play rather than by blasting a hole through the wall, then it isn't.

The complaint is that free flowing, passing, rugby league with exciting passages of play have been replaced by five simple drives and a kick. The unpredictability of what will happen in a set of six has been replaced by a monotionous, repetitive pattern of safety first football purely based upon gaining territory.

Maybe it was just us, but the game was a fantastic product at the turn of the 21st century and it has gradually declined over the last few years to the extent where off-loading, risk taking and the ability to score tries from all over the park has been almost eliminated.

Of course, you are spot on.

This is the unfortunate problem. Coaches have realised that predictable boring play has a higher percentage success rate in gaining metres and territory and so that is the way all teams are going. Entertaining play is risky and if it's only got a 45% chance of coming off as opposed to a 50% one by sticking it up the jumper then the latter is what will happen.

It's fine if winning is the only objective but, after a while (and I can definitely relate to this) you come to learn that it's not the be all and end all of everything.

It's the same mentality as in football where teams try to grind out a 0-0 draw and a 1-0 win. The teams themselves might be happy with it but it's exceptionally boring for the neutral. Now I could accept it, if one or two teams tried this tactic but when it's happening virtually across the board, it's going to end up in a situation like the game ended up in around the late 60s, when the fans walked away from a product that had become hideously boring. It took the game the best part of twenty years to recover from it.

Unfortunately, for the first time in all the years I have been watching the game, the entertainment spectacle has been destroyed as dour coaches choose to grind out results and care not about the spectacle that is being produced. Unless something is done, I seriously fear for the future of the game.