Not only are you in 9 th position in the table you have played 1 or 2 more games than the teams just underneath you and i would argue that warrington,catalan and bradford have played poorly so far just like yourselves and that if the play to their poential they would also be breaking into the top 8.Imo catalan and wire are better than wigan

Much depends on if we can now be consistent. Wire and Bradford have found it seems some consistent good form, I think Wire may well be bolters up the table in the next few weeks and the Wigan game for them and us will be huge, Bradford also have put together 2 good performances and are clearly better than there league position suggests.

If we can maintain form rather than these odd one off's then there is no reason we too cannot push up the table at a fair old rate as well, if we return to the inconsistent form we have shown to date we could be a major casualty of the top 8, i think one traditional "bigger" club will miss out.

You're entitled to your opinion, but it was also your opinion that Wigan have a threadbare squad, which was proved wrong within about ten seconds of your posting it, and which I now notice you no longer want to talk about.



So pardon us if we don't take your opinion on other Wigan-related issues too seriously.

Close call between the 3 IMO, but at their peak I'd back Wigan against both.

Any truth in the rumour that is going around about Justin Morgan coming next year heard it from a very strong force.

of nature?

Don't know, suppose you could ask him for clarification if the force be with you.

None unless he wants the assistants job

Again I would have to take issue with some of this. We have played well against Bradford, Saints and the last 3 in succession. However I take your point that consistancy has been the issue but as I said earlier, maybe it's taken the signing of Gleeson, the settling in of Smith and Phelps and our front row finally putting it in to get to the point where we are. Those things have only just happened and so maybe it's the consistancy from here on in that is the relevant point?

That being the case I'm sure you're extremely worried about your own team given we've outplayed you on both occassions we've met this season!

Of course Justin Morgan will be coming to the JJB next year.
Who else will be HKR coach when they play their League game here?

we won the 2 prior to Saints we did not play well in my opinion, there is a big difference.

The important thing being 'in your opinion'. You stated it as fact in your previous post. In my opinion we played some outstanding attacking rugby although were perhaps a little too flamboyant at times and could have respected posession a little more. If you consider 40+ point hauls to be playing badly, then I have to say our definitions differ. We also played well in defeat in the previous Saints game, so once again I would dispute your 2 games. All opinions of course and you're as entitled to yours as I am to mine.

Do we really have to post in my opinion after everything we right?! Clearly as i made the post it is my opinion, if we put in my opinion after every point we made it would make for very busy reading indeed.

I agree our opinions must differ we should have put 60 on Celtic who were garbage, and Wakefield are a team at the moment way off form. We are improving or have been for the last 3 weeks but I would not say either the Celtic or Wakefield game were good performances, the Saints game though was an excellent performance and one i would not expect us to repeat week in week out as it is not realistic to expect this but we should expect good to average performances every week with the odd poor one and the odd excellent one peaking towards the end of the year. Instead we have had 2 excellent ones many poor ones and the add average one, i think our current league position with a game in hand over the rest of the league is an indication of this.

I concur.

(in my opinion)

No Jon, of course we don't have to put in my opinion after everything we write (sic), but when you post something as if it's fact then the distinction needs to be made...as indeed you felt the need to do in your subsequent post. I think it was fair to reflect this in my reply.

As for the rest, to say we should have put x amount of points on any side does you an injustice and to be honest is not something I would normally expect you to come out with. therefore I'll let that ride. Suffice to say it was a good performance where we did what was needed to win and win handsomely. Secondly, I think you'll find that Wakefield were actually going well when we played them and could have gone 2nd in the table had they won! Hardly poor form! In fact the Wakefield fans were confident about turning us over if you remember and their poor form has been since and including that defeat. Also you keep ignoring the 1st Saints match for some reason. Do you not feel we played well that day?

As for our league position, that reflects a poor start to the season, not how we have played over the last 4 or 5 games. In fact I would say our points difference in the light of sai position is more indicative of how we have been playing recently with over 120 points scored in the last 3 games!! Playing badly...yes we'll agree our definitions do differ. Please feel free to give me your view of how many points would have constituted good performances though. I'd be very interested to know!

Brian Noble is a very nice man. Not a ruffian. He was a policeman before he started coaching and he was always a gentleman as far as I can tell.

But Ian Lenagan is a very shrewd chairman. So I trust his judgement, which for now is that Noble is doing his job but Noble's position is uncertain.

We have to wait and see.

If we had performed well we should have scored much more vs Celtic, instead we were fairly poor but did what we had to, maybe that was a reflection on the opposition not us to be fair.

Wakefield were going very well up to playing us, the Wigan and Bradford performances show they are in a dip, by there standards that they have set this year they were poor.

I think we judge good performance differently, which is fine. I just by performance not result. I think we were poor vs Celtic, the display that they put on was (in my opinion) arguably one of the worst put on by a SL team in recent memory.

I agree the Saints first game was a good performance.

I think we can judge how far we have come from the Hull KR games and the Wire games coming up, that for me will be an indication of our chances this year.

I do not think that Celtic or Trinity games show we played well, simply that we won. Saints was an excellent performance.

Jon, I resent the inference that I judge by result wheras you judge by performance! First off, let's just say we are now up to 3 agreed games that we played well and not the 2 you first stated, so the reason for my post has been justified and confirmed. Moving along, you said that the Wigan and Bradford games show that Trinity were in a dip but prior to the Wigan game they were in good form. Now I'm just going to let you digest that statement for a while before showing it up as I'm sure you don't really need me to tell you where this falls down as an opinion! Moreover, to say we didn't play well in that game is an insult to my intelligence as, a few gifts aside, Wakefield were simply not in that game! Not only that, but we have been steadily improving since the first Saints game culminating in the Edinburough performance. Any fool can see that and to argue the Saints victory as some sort of isolated performance does you no credit. If (and I accept it's an if) we go on to have several more good performances from this point are you seriously going to argue that the start of the improvement was the 2nd Saints game, or do you actually acknowledge the fact that it's since Gleeson arrived, Smith and Phelps have settled in and the front row have been performing that the improvement has started. Now I know it doesn't neccessarily fit your agenda, but if you are trying to argue that Smith, for example, has only this week started to play well, then I'm sorry...you're wrong. Plain and simple.

LOL again!!

So when we lose its all down to us being poorly coached (according to you) yet when we win its mainly because the opposition played poorer than us. Ok Jonh,whatever you say,your becoming very boring now almost DaveO like.

Nail on the head. Add to that the fact Noble has changed the gameplan this year to please the fans with attacking rugby and it was always going to take time for it all to click together. Not according to Jonh though, its all down to the opposition being poor/out of form bar 2 games in which he thought we played well.

So Jonh has set the test for Noble. Win both the Hull KR and Warrington games. What happens if he does that Jonh,will you finally give the anti-Noble thing a rest then?

I understand what he is saying we did not play great against Celtic but won and i could see sings of improvement in our play. We played better against Wakefield and again i could see more things were happening for us and sticking. Then against Saints we played well and i could see a massive improvement in the team and i also think we can play better than that as there are still one or two things not working for us lets just see if the improvement continues lets hope it will

Just hold on to your horses.

What i said was we have not hit good form, we in my opinion played poorly against Celtic but got the win. I have been to most Wakefield games this season, and they let themselves down against us, probably there worst performance of the season at home, the Bradford game compounded the potential start of a drop in form that began vs Wigan.

The Saints game on Saturday clearly was an isolated performance as we have not played to that level at all this year, neither against Bradford or Saints in the first game, hence it clearly is an isolated performance! Unless 1 in 12 in your book is not isolated? I have also said over the last 3 weeks our form have improved but there was a huge improvement from Wakefield vs the Saints game.

If you look back over my posts i have said that a run of good performances from now will constitute form starting at Wakefield on Saturday, i am sorry if you disagree with me that the Celtic game was a good performance but if you look back over the posts at the time most agree. To say Wakefield were not in the game is an odd call given they were pretty much 1 score away up untill 60 minutes.

Im not sure where the last paragraph fits in given i totally agree and have posted this on several occasions. The bit in bold i have no idea what you are talking about given i have been agreeing Smith has been great since his return. Maybe you can explain?

Can you play poorly and win simple yes or no?

Wakefield were never in the game in a performance sense! Now given that you have just said you judge on performance and me on results (which I find condecending in the extreme by the way!) don't you think it strange that you should now change your tune and quote from a 'results' based perspective of the game? Strange that, given on one hand you're saying they were poor and 'let themselves down' but on the other hand don't recognise that they were completely outplayed? Which is it Jon?

Celtic wasn't so much a good performance but a continuation of our current form and improvement. If you feel improvement and performance is linear then, as a performance coach, I must say I have little respect for your judgement. You should know better! In addition, again as I'm sure you very well know, it's often much harder to 'get up' for these type of games than it is against the top teams. 4-0 Saints against the same team ring any bells? In fact I'll quote the same result to counter your ridiculous argument outlining just how many we 'should have scored' aganst Celtic had we been a good side. Care to quote me Leeds winning margin against the same team or would that not suit your argument either?

Well by your standards the best performance at any given time of the season, regardless of those performances surrounding it, is a isolated performance as, by definition a team 'have not played to that level at all this year'. If that is your definition of an isolated performance Jon, it's a pretty poor one! By your own admision we have played well at least 3 times, so in what way does that constitute an isolated performance unless you can have 3 isolated performances! Good grief!

Well if you agree then how can you argue that the improvement has started at the Saints Game...or as you said in this post, the Wakefield game this Saturday....or would you prefer the HKR game next week? At what point do you think we first started to show signs of improvement. If you agree it was with the introduction of Gleeson, improved form of the front row and Smith and Phelps starting to click, then like me, you'll say the 1st Saints game. In which case , why are you arguing two opposing points?