I have been trying to work out what distinguishes Saints from the rest, and in particular us.
I can’t help but think the ownership model at Saints is part of it.
I don’t doubt for one minute the commitment of our owners’ nor their wish to succeed. They are both very successful in their own filled. But, they both have large successful businesses of their own.
At Saints, as far as I can tell, McManus has no other significant business interests. He can devote his full attention to Saints working hand in glove with whoever his CEO and Coach happens to be.
He can’t afford a bad season as it would impact his personal income. That is why he makes relatively quick decisions when he has eg sacking Cunningham.
I’m not saying that alone accounts for their success, nor am I in any way criticising our owners. Just think i’’ts food for thought.
(Ps this is NOT about KF in anyway as I think most people’s views on that subject have been well aired).

I think it's more to do with having a balanced and settled squad, with complete trust in any academy products coming through and playing in the first team.

1 to 17 know what their job is, both in attack and defence, whoever they may be.

Isn't Saints' dominance, while impressive, just an indicator of how poor the quality of our league now is?

The motto in most sports is that the successful teams don't stand still, they continually look to improve, but for Saints, it's not like they have had to invest and improve over the last 4 years - they simply continue where they left off and inevitably take the top prize, while everyone else continues to go backwards.

I mean, that Leeds side last night, while they did a great job to make it to Old Trafford, was, in reality, a very average side - Richie Myler wasn't great for us in a very good side, Blake Austin was mediocre for us and, from what I saw, was still peddling the same old clueless half back game, which is to boot the ball as high as he can into the night sky and then cross his fingers for an error.

So, while you have to applaud them for making it to the final, you have to question the actual quality of our league that they made it in the first place - if they are the second best side in the league, then the league is in a bad place.

And so while Saints' 4 in a row is a fine achievement, just how good are they in the grand scheme of things - I saw Wellens pre-game building them up as the best of all time, but that is just him doing what a coach of that particular group would do, when, in reality, they are just a very good side in a very poor era - bit like when Klitchsko dominated the HW boxing era, nobody questioned his dominance, but nobody would ever have him near the best of all time.

Personally, I refuse to believe that any side containing LMS should be anywhere near being classed as the best ever - his longevity is all the evidence you need of how poor the quality in the SL is nowadays.

I mean, it’s worth noting on this there are only 6 players who played in both the 2019 grand final and the 2022 one. Makinson, Percival, Lomax, Roby, Knowles and LMS. I’m sure there’d be a few more due to injuries (Walmsley jumps out) but I definitely don’t think it’s fair to suggest we haven’t improved or changed over 4 years. Woolfs approach is very different to Holbrooks, and I have little doubt the 2022 team would beat the 2019 one, the mental fortitude alone is unrecognisable. This 2022 team could have responded to the adversity of the 2019 CC final without panicking for example

Nostalgia makes you feel all fuzzy about teams of the past. When you look at the teams with Jamie Lyon in, they had players like Tim Jonkers and Mike Bennett in. The Lesley Vainakolo sides had the likes of Matt Cook and Ben Harris. Those sides would get physically battered by this Saints team. If you watch the last 10 minutes of the Grand Final again, look at the intensity of the tackling. The likes of Matty Lees, Sione Mata'utia, Curtis Sironen and Iggy Passi are just teeing off on Leeds, so many impactful hits. We definitely don't attack with the class and fluidity of those sides, but who is stopping those mentioned from getting downfield and who is stopping Lomax and Welsby when we're within range?

In 10 years Saints fans will look back on this team as if they were armour plated cyborgs that couldn't be beaten.It's how it is with sport.

As for your thoughts on LMS, you're way off. He's a superb player, so fit and enthusiastic and fights for everything. He's outstanding defensively and still one of the quickest forwards around, even now. We're meant to lose when Walmsley isn't around and we're meant to drop off when he goes off, but it doesn't happen.

I would fancy the Saints teams who lost 5 GF in a row between 2007 and 2011 to beat the current Saints teams who have won 4 GF in a row, but the fact that, in an era where there is less talent available and it's harder to bring in elite Aussie players, Saints are still the ones at the top, tells us something.

I don't know whether its the ownership model or just the personnel in charge at the top being better, but they are a more effectively run club, and they win for a reason.

Isn't McManus involved in hedge fund management ?

He's wealthy personally, but not in the same league as Moran or Middleton, I think he worked for HSBC in Hong Kong prior to coming back to St Helens and running the club.

I'm not sure if he is the owner as such though, isn't there another guy Mike Coleman or something who is the money behind it, but very much takes a back seat and allows McManus to run the show?

Absolutely spot on this. Yes this Saints team isn't great but they're still doing the business. Super League is a shocking standard at the minute and we're finishing 11th ffs.

These 2 paragraphs absolutely confirm what I said about this Saints' team being a good team in a very poor era.

The fact you are talking of an average Joe like LMS as a 'superb' player just shows how poor the quality of this league is - He wouldn't have made our squad in our (and a few other club's from that era) 2011/12 sides, as a large number of the 34 players who were on the pitch on Saturday night wouldn't have either.

This present SL period really is the Klitchsko era - One very good, well organised competitor taking on a load of mediocre opposition and being made to look unbeatable and invincible by them, but in the overall scheme of things, though you can never ever prove these things 100%, deep down everyone but their most blinkered fans know that they aren't this 'best of all time' that is being thrown about.

LMS wouldn't have got in our 2011/12 team but so what. Some of our fans are fixated on that squad; there's mention of us still missing Morley and Carvell in another thread, we need to move on. Every Super League Coach (probably not Powell) has the aim to win the Grand Final every year and although the last 4 years haven't been a great standard, Saints have still won it. I bet most Saints fans know this isn't the best team they've ever had but I'd be more than happy to win 4 Grand Finals on the trot even if the rugby wasn't up to much.

Saints victory comes from a long term stable approach to planning I think, a long time CEO and Chair both dedicated to the game primarily and also picking young academy players and enhancing the squad with overseas players who fit in rather than who come here to "win big things".

I think looking at players like Lussick is a prime example of this, Saints picked up this player rather than pay for a big name and he helped guide saints to GF victory in the end.

It is all about long term, I don't think there is a big chasm in SL, showing Leeds go from 11th to within 12 points of winning the GF shows that Saints are not that far ahead, but some decisions Wire make for example have been odd when it comes to player recruitment.

My posts aren't meant as a criticism of Saints. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for what they have achieved. Ultimately, you can only beat what's in front of you and Saints have done that.

However, it is meant as a criticism of the league as a whole, which is slowly sinking in its own mediocrity, and my responses have mainly been in answer to the original post that suggested Saints have done something special to make themselves so far more successful than any other club - I don't honestly think they have. They have just got themselves organised well, with regards to their academy and their general coaching and squad recruitment and I don't personally think that's 'special', because in professional sport that should be a given. Its just a shame that so many other clubs in the league are still pretty amateur in their set-up, and this is what makes Saints stand out in the end.

I don't think the quality has dropped so much, maybe we aren't getting the top brow Aussies we used to due to the £ and that reduces the quality a bit, but SL is pretty close, Wire almost did saints ealrier in the year.

It is pretty close, Saints have just held their head above the covid parapet a bit more perhaps. I expect a change soon.......

If we almost did you that backs up the argument that the 'quality' is dross. Anyway as far as Powell is concerned we actually won that game and it was the highlight of our season, whereas you lot just had your fourth SL trophy in a row to pick up to keep you amused this season.

The quality of teams across eras is always hard to judge. You say the 11/12 side you had would beat our team last night, but it's impossible to tell. There has never been a side in SL that defends as well as this team or as consistently. You can see how much they enjoy doing it too, they thrive on it. The overall quality of the overseas players in SL might be dipping slightly, but there's still French, Field, Croft, Sironen, Mata'utia (Our one), Passi etc and they would all get in most sides from any era.

What is perhaps happening is Saints diverted the more open, attacking style of Super League towards the NRL style. Our success is based on defense, line speed and aggression. That doesn't translate to enjoyable RL unless you support Saints. Had it been a Salford v Wigan final it would have maybe been a more entertaining game, but the quality wouldn't have been there.

SL needs to target the play the balls next season. Stop the incessant cheating, pushing forward, holding down, diving etc and just get on with the game properly and in a calm, structured way. That's what makes SL look visibly pathetic. The players will take the ball in, crawl forward, half stand, throw the ball through their legs diagonally then jump on the floor or throw their arms up and ask for a penalty.

The peak standard of Super League IMO was 2005. You had three teams who played at an incredibly high standard: Leeds, Saints and Bradford (when they got it together in the last third of the season). Wire finished 4th that year, it was the best Wire team of the Cullen era, and we played some great rugby we just weren't at the same level as those top three.

I honestly think that 2005 Wire team which finished 4th would have been seen today as "the great entertainers". We played fast, open rugby, had some terrific strike players in the backs and a useful pack, a rapidly improving Briers plus Nat Wood. I would fancy them against any current team in SL, and that Cullen team wasn't as good as the TS teams of 5-8 years later.

Let's stop deluding ourselves, the standard of SL compared to the NRL and SL of 10 years ago is [iabysmal[/i.

Saints wouldn't get within 40 points of the Wigan team that beat Brisbane in their own backyard, and outside of Saints and Wigan none of our comp could compete with the very poorest NRL teams.

Exactly. The fact that this present Saints side ground their way to a relatively dour victory against a Leeds side that aren't anywhere near the levels of their Sinfield-era side, tells you all about the differing standards in today's league.

Sadly, I don't see anything changing anytime soon. The decline in standard is too ingrained now and I don't think the standard of player or coach is out there in the British game to change things in the drastic way needed.

The World Cup will hammer it home to us just how far behind the English game has fallen

This is true. Looking at the Samoa squad announced this morning they will beat England first game of the tournament.

If its a fix of good hard and fast RL you want watch the NRL GF on Sunday morning from 09:00 tv subscriptions etc permitting. It wont be a waste of your time.

In my time watching RL the Aussies have always been ahead of us, there were a couple of spells where we narrowed the gap.

First was the early 90s. In the 3 Ashes series between 1990 and 1994, and the World Cup final of 1992 we were competitive, the Aussies had to work hard to beat us. They were still the best but the GB side had some great players in and we were definitely respected.

Second was the mid 2000s when Brian Noble was coach. We were competing on close to even terms for a lot of Noble's time despite the fact that on paper there was a much bigger gulf in talent between the Aussies and us than there had been in the early 90s. This was the era where SL was at its peak and our players were probably playing at a level in SL which was closer to the top international standard, and also I think Noble had a very professional set up and a lot of hard working players.

There were echoes of the Noble era in the 2017 World Cup Final where a vastly inferior England side really gave everything and made the Aussies struggle to put us away.

But the rest of the time I've been watching RL the Aussies have been miles ahead.

Yep. Actually, I would put money on Saints finishing with the wooden spoon in the NRL and they are clearly the best in SL.