They won’t need to, he’s not playing

Nurse.... gazwire is out of bed again!

Some very harsh criticism on here. We were beaten by a better side on the night and to be fair Saints looked strong. They were eating up the ground out of their own half at times and we struggled to get out of our half.
Hardaker was flawless under the high ball and in defence and there’s no way he was responsible for any of their tries. Lockers rolled back the years and did good minutes and looked good, Flower had his best game in a very long time and Bullock was excellent in his spell.
Our issues are the same as we’ve had for a few years in that we struggle to create anything when we get close to the opposition line and we gave stupid penalties away when we were getting on top. Personally I’d say the weak link is Powell who gave a few penalties away, offers nothing in attack and missed several tackles last night.

Put Williams in for Powell and try Sammut and Escare at 6, 7.

Late dirty tackle from behind? They were face to face, it wasn't high and he was a fraction of a second late. There's no way he could have pulled out.

A 10 point loss away to one of the best teams and so far we're collectively dropping Davies, Sarginson, Williams, Leuluai, Powell and Isa. Could be a big week for our reserves! I just need a 'Lam out' and a 'Lockers needs to retire' for a full house.

Sarginson is too weak to be a centre, put Gildart back on the left and bring in Hankinson to centre. Or, bring in Zak to centre and Escare at FB.

Also, I'm really not a fan of switching Farrell to the right hand side.

Finally, Leuluai and Powell on the pitch at the same time, with hop-skip-and-a-jump Williams as our sole 'inspiration' is an absolute chore to watch. It can only get better.

I agree with your last paragraph. How on earth Williams is deserving of a marquee contract is a complete mystery to me. He’s a slightly above average SL player, no more imo.

That 6,7, 9 combo got us through the Super 8s unbeaten and won us the GF. Not such a chore to watch then. In fact that Saints away game in the 8s was the best performance against them in years.
Add to that that we would have probably gone with Williams and Sammut with Leuluai hooking had Sammut not been banned. I’ll certainly not be throwing the towel in yet.

IMO - Manfredi in for Davies if he is back fit, give Tautai a crack off the bench ahead of Navarette, with Bullock starting. I'm not a massive Tautai fan but clean slate and all that, Navarette needed to do more with us losing Clubb. I'd leave the rest as it is for now, we weren't as bad as people are making out.

Powell made 58 tackles last night, more than any other player, but it looks like he is this seasons first scapegoat. Sarginson ran more metres and made more tackle busts than any of the centres, but let himself down with that one on one tackle miss for Saints first try.

potentially Hank in for Sarge or Escare in and Zak to centre.

Also keep rotating props with the worst losing out next week - being Navarette or Clubb (if still injured) and bring in Kimbula or TT

He always works hard and his commitment is never an issue. However, he offers nothing else but lots of tackles and in my view is our weak link and I said as much last season. Last night, he missed several tackles and gave a number of penalties away at key times in the game.

Can't argue with that, the number of times he gets pinged for the same offence is an issue that needs sorting.
He's never going to be a Roby but he can do a decent job if he cuts out these stupid penalties.

Exactly my thoughts, there were a couple of really soft penalties last night for holding on too long, particularly as we had them under pressure. Someone who makes that amount of tackles is always going to miss some.

Hadn't Navarrette gone off when Club came on? I don't remember Navarrette coming back on after his 1st spell.

Ahhh maybe you're right, I assumed he had just gone missing! Presumably an injury then, I can't see us voluntarily going down to 2 subs.

I'm surprised with so much negativity on here regarding last nights game.

In context we played a very tough arguably favourite team on their own turf on the first game of the season with different players in key positions under a new coach who wants to add a new style of play to our game, we. always had it up against us.

Difficult to score players, but to point out a few...

Marshall looked scary in attack, always a threat with his pace, perfectly read interception and looked threatening around the ruck (at one point I even thought about it as a Rob Burrow style 9)
Hamlin looked a handful, strong running, battling in the defensive line, punching way above his weight.
Good debut for Bullock, that was possibly the highest level he's played at, and didn't look out of place.
Hardaker, could he be the best defensive FB in SL? reminded me of Rads, always safer under the high ball and making that last tackle.

Lots of improvement in us yet.

Roby made 54 tackles so Powell hardly massively outshone him and Roby's performance was on another level. He is average at best at a key position and unfortunately for him his flaws are more obvious when our halves have poor games as well.

Powell was 3rd man in a lot of times. when the tackle is nearly complete

I wouldn't dismiss that so readily if I were you. Whether we like it or not, a big part of rugby these days is slowing your opponent down in the tackle and turning them onto their back. A third man in late on can really help that, and will still require a high workrate as he'll need to get back into the defensive line if there are two defenders already there, rather than staying at marker

he doesnt though, just makes unnecessary contact and for me is getting false stats from it

I'm in the 'fine for a first hit out' camp. Remember we lost the corresponding fixture last season and we still ended up champions. Given we'd lost the organising half that had featured in all the preseason games, our best winger and had a forward that only did 2 mins in the new limited interchange format I thought we were there or thereabouts. Saints were the better side on the day and looked like the side continuing from 2018 whereas we looked like the side bringing in a new regime. For all that we were largely competitive and the post match summarisers were on the money when they said we'd shown enough to know we'll e there or thereabouts at the business end of the season.

Standouts were Bullock and Flower for mine with a good solid debut for Zak. More to come I reckon.

You are surprised!!! Really!!! I'm not the least bit surprised...



WANE OUT!!

I feel sorry for Sarge at times. He always puts in a shift and other than the missed tackle I thought he was ok last night. In fact, I thought he did more than Gildart.

Thought Marshall looked the most threatening with ball in hand. Zak didn’t really do much going forwards and I thought he was slow linking up at the back - but was absolutely solid in defence.

As I’ve said before I thought Flower, Bullock and Hamlin were very good. Greenwood was good again (except getting run over by Peyroux). Farrell was poor on his wrong side.

And I never thought I’d be saying this but maybe Sammut is the player we need in the team. I’d keep it same for next week (unless Manfredi is back, then I’d take out Davies).