For me we as fans needed to see where the side is when compared to the current best in SL in saints,they are no point moaning about it they are compared toast season wigan have improved but are a long way away from them,the stupidity of prolonging the Lam era has given them time to canter away I can easy see them winning the lot this season.

Miski always was an odd player to sign taking a quota spot (I'm right in thinking that aren't I?)then they,for me have to be Bob on the money from.the off he looks way off and is fragile under the high ball but he will have to be given time I suppose.

But can they stop the NRL come a calling that's the question I suppose for Saints in the medium term if they can they will rule the roost for a good few years yet

We’re not too far off but were definitely beaten by the better team, the best team in the competition. We matched them for the first twenty or twenty five minutes but, after that, our intensity fell away (not by much but enough to not have a chance of winning the game) and theirs just steamrollered on.

These last few seasons, I’ve looked at Saints’ players and they’re all big, athletic lads in most positions. They’re physically well built and they look like athletes. Welsby, Makinson, Percival, Walmsley, Lees, Batchelor, Knowles, Lussick and Wingfield all fall into this category. They, also, have great engines.

If Saints were to look at buying any of our players to fit the above mentioned attributes, I could only see them considering Havard, Hardaker, Ellis, Smithies, and Pearce-Paul. In reality, they would probably only go for Havard and Pearce-Paul. The rest of our lads, whilst having plenty of plus points, simply don’t fit the type of player Saints seem to either develop or recruit.

When we lost to Roosters in 2014, the remit was then to go for size. We’re still not there yet.

I feel like with the state of the pack we'll never get the best out of Havard. He’s got a great engine but lacks physical dominance in defence, which I wish he had. In Saints’ side or an NRL side he’d be world class.

You’re right there Danny. He’s still young, though, and has time (hopefully) to bulk up a fair bit.

He’s definitely carrying a bigger frame this year and he’ll continue to grow, I just think he’s lacking something to make him go from a raw Jamie Peacock style player at Bradford into having the extra to make him stand out. Like you say, there’s time but I hope he has a bit more belief in himself to go and be a great.

You matched saints for 10 minutes. That was it. To say otherwise Is laughable. As I pointed out on the VT you had about 5 play the balls in saints 10 all game.

You were dominated, even with saints being decimated by injuries. You are miles away from saints. But…it’s fixable, and you will fix it.

'Decimated by injuries'. Get out of high school and take up a hobby.

what? you saying he didnt?....

Saints shut down Field out wide which nullified our attack. Field has papered over the cracks of playing players out of position and not having at least 1 strike centre, so when Field was taken out and it was left to the other backs they looked bang average.

Powell out of dummy half is slow and predictable, never scoots always passes.

Our props were running up 1 out rugby against a team with quick line speed and never changed their tactics, just kept 1 up rugby all game and got hammered.

Re. Miski and Bibby, lots of endeavour but they looked like they were dragging a fridge behind them when they had open field in front of them.
Hopefully Marshall isn't far off and maybe it's time to have a look at Halsall in the centres, assume Hardaker will be back on Monday

Hardakers hardly express pace either though is he?

He’s got a good fend and decent upper body strength even if he doesn’t have the same size as the others. Streets ahead as a player.

Wow. Is he really that good?

It’s only the pandemic that’s kept him here to be fair or he’d be in Melbourne. We don’t have the starting forwards or size in the back row around him to support him. He punches holes constantly when not on the front foot, I can only imagine what he’s be like off the back of a carry from a Walmsley/Welch type.

Lost intensity after the first 15/20 mins and after that we where never in the game. 2 tries from Saints which, for me, where pretty much identical but 1 disallowed and the other given...

He looks like a young Fielden to me……

The only thing laughable on this board is you, you schizophrenic pea brain.

Decimated by injuries? Really?

As I said, before you interrupted a sensible discussion, we were beaten by the better side. No complaints.

Not got the same mean streak in him at the minute but there’s tons of talent.

Not watched the game back just going off memory.

Thought we played well first half and was disappointed to be 8 behind.

Going 4 points up plus Knowles going off with their current backrow absentees I thought we had a real chance.

Just couldn’t live with the intensity, left edge of Cust/Bibby/French got exposed big time by Lomax and crew.

Second half was no contest and sheerly outclassed.

Must be awesome to be a Saints fan currently, it won’t last forever though!

One positive after a tough day - Peet interview on WiganTV is spot on.

I was dreading him being made up we competed for 20-30mins (Lammy would have been buzzing with today’s performance).

He acknowledged we were way off and needed to keep up the intensity for 80mins and be clinical with our chances.

Very honest in his assessments and been really impressed with him so far.

Think we’ve got the right man to take us forward.

Yep, just seen his post match interview, straight up answer about Powell and realises exactly where we are in the scheme of things, reckon Lam would've "Arsene Wenger'd" the Powell question and then just given some "proud of the effort" platitude about the game itself

I was also dreading Walmsley tearing us apart but I thought we kept him pretty quiet too. I think just one decent run and PTB that led up to one of their tries.

Let's not forget when Leuluai went off the score was only 12-4 and should've been 12-10. After that we had to do a complete reshuffle and Saints took control.

What I found odd was that we moved French into the halves that required 2 more changes across the backline (that was already having a poor game), rather than just bringing Shorrocks on, who has played in the halves last year.

I thought we handled Walmsley pretty well but Paasi was a different kettle of fish, absolutely battered us (pardon the pun) his error at the start of the 2nd half apart

Unfortunately for us Passi changed the game when he came on. We had nothing on the bench anywhere near his level.
I’m disappointed but not totally down.
At the moment it reminds me of the 1983/1984 years.
We’re getting there after some grim years but need that one player to make us click and move us on.
I’d love us to sign a Graeme West or a Dean Bell to compliment additional quality signings in the centres and the forwards. Easier said than done but I’ve got good vibes that the foundations are being laid.

The squad is totally unbalanced but we need to give Peet his way for planning for 2023. IL and KR need to leave the recruiting to Peet and his assistants.

I hate to say but Saints are a quality team but at least we know where the bar is set.

Just got in after being out all day after the game. Quite pleased with that overall.

Much will be made of Wigan’s injuries and rightly so but we had Sironen, Matautia, Grace, Hopoate missing then lost Knowles early which was a huge blow and also meant we were down to 16 players and one less sub. We then lost Dodd for the last 15 too.

Never for one minute did I think we were going to lose that game and we were quite poor in attack. Makinson was outstanding as was Roby and Lomax and Bell went really well too.

Apart from Fields try we kept him quiet and had a couple of VR decisions go against us (not watched the game back yet so don’t know how it looks)

All in all I think we will be much better for the SF and nothing I saw today has me worried for that game.