2 buggers - the one in the dark blue top too. In fact, I'm sure he kicked one of their penalties before shefellover and ran off.

What a sideshow that was - obviously deliberate and intended to distract - coaching onfield blatently and not more than 10 swigs of water actually administered to anyone. Exposed the ref's naivety and inexperience in all it's nakedness - he failed to nip it in the bud after the first 10 minutes of -taking then didn't have a clue how to address it. Thought orange-and-blue shirts would accompany him and the touch judges asthey slunk off in a huddle... they certainly had a good go in joining in the other scrums.

I thought Roby dished a fair bit of the naughty treatment out tonight. Not a player I'd really associate with that kind of thing but quite indicative of their tactics.

Agree 100%.

I had a change of heart and attended the match and for what it's worth didn't feel overly and bitterly disappointed at our performance for a change and actually believed we should have won.

The effort is still there this new found expansive rugby although far from the finished article players occasionally still looking lost or wrong last tackle options coupled with unforced errors it was at least encouraging to see.

For me Sneyd and Yeaman still big disappointments with Sneyd still poor in the kicking department and rarely taking the line on and some wayward passes thrown out and Yeaman again for contributing for 2 of their tries from either not blocking or contesting the kicks.

Saints were very average and kicks aside struggled to break our line.
Had it not been for their kicks and a couple of odd refereeing decisions towards the end it could have been a very different result but still well done to all.

Disappointed tonight, felt if we had valued possession more we would have won the game but on another note that wasn't a referee it was an RFL experiment which failed miserably.

Did he? I thought he just looked exhausted after putting in 2 huge stints for us. The amount of big hits he and Sa got through tonight will have the Saints players feeling it until after the bank holiday.

Thing is personally I don't think most our errors did come from the way we played as such. The expansive plays stuck mostly. It was meat n drink balls in simple areas of play that went wrong. Then we doubled/trebled up and couldn't recover due to the nature of the reffing. We got ourselves in a hole and his ineptitude of controlling offsides and the ruck didn't give us decent chances to put right our wrongs and earn territory and control position. Saints did and played the ref much better.

Rubbish - Gollum commentating tonight?

We had a lot of unforced errors but deserved to win, played entertaining rugby (Mini's break, anyone?) and had more spirit and determination than Saints. Unlucky to lose, and I'm grateful for the splendid entertainment and hope gained. I'm guessing you missed a good match?

Not sure. Hard game to judge. If we continue to expand the play he might go well. Does the hard stuff well. Kick was hard. Makinson is exceptional in the air and the ball was dropped right on him so hard to defend. I'd like to see more kick pressure. Why give a kicker time and then look upset when it's gone straight to hand of the jumping player. 1st try had multiple kicks. Hit him god dam it!

I agree. As I say, it was frustrating that we didn't execute better, but I can't personally be disappointed with us now trying to play rugby instead of what we've been seeing for the last 18 months. Talanoa I picked out, too. He was disappointing (although very dangerous at times, too), but not the team IMO.

I think Scarrie is spot on that we fans need to decide what we want. If we want to minimise errors then accept the pants rugby we've been offered for months. If we want to be entertained, make peace with the fact that sometimes it will go wrong (especially until we improve the squad further).

I agree with Scarrie too, and will accept the latter, ta.

Todd Byrne Mark II, IMO. Will fill in a few positions and do a job without making a mess of it, but will not worry opposition and I question whether we needed to shop overseas for what he offers.

Came away from the game disappointed but atleast I'm enjoying it again. If we are going to play that way we are going to make errors but a couple in the first half were basic schoolboy stuff from talanoa and rankin

Played well and hard tonight but agree. Overseas spot a waste

There were some poor unforced errors fielding kicks, but I thought most of the spilt balls in possession were on things like crash balls or trying to pass the ball long to the centres to get around Saints' massively offside defence. When those balls stuck we were getting some real success at cutting through Saints. Much better to keep trying that than to try and plough through the congested middle like we've been doing for long enough with no joy.

Sums it up perfectly for me

Sounds daft, but we were the best side, tonight, bet we made miles more yards and breaks than saints, but fair play to Saints, they played the basics and got the win, if we made half the mistakes we did, then we would have won comfy, some real basic errors tonight. Talanoa had a really strange game , made some really poor errors, but caused so many problems with his running game. Played some really good rugby at times an very strong defence. Need to deal with kicks better as we looked poor under the high ball mainly the wingers, Lineham must come on for Micheals.

Enjoyed the game and some real positive moments , but disappointed with the defeat.

One last thing we must improve our backing up particularly when Pryce runs.

Pryce is quality.

The Saints players may feel the hits but they still got the 2 points and that's all that matters, think many on here are overrating our performance it was better and more entertaining than the dirge we've seen at home so far, but its still a long way off where we should be

Outstanding tonight. Constantly probing, and the best half back on display.
No lack of effort from Sneyd either.

They got the points but imo that saintteam tonight was dull and unimaginative, two kicks beat us, strange decisions to kick for goal in the second half after 3 sets attacking our line

Shows just how far off the required standard it was that it has probably improved tenfold but still has plenty more to do.

.....refs have been robbing us for forty years....pathetic. The reality is....

The 2 points are not all that matters. They weren't all that mattered after the Salford game, either:


IMO, nobody is rating our performance as anything special. People are just acknowledging that the team are at least now trying to play rugby, which is something plenty of us (including you) have been complaining about. It's movement in the right direction, so surely that's a good thing?

Clamouring for a better style of rugby and then complaining when the team try to provide it and don't instantly produce champagne rugby is unrealistic and unfair, IMO. There's bound to be teething troubles with such a dramatic change.

Frustrating yes, but certainly a more entertaining brand of rugby to watch.
Maybe I'm been over critical but does anyone think we actually won the forward battle tonight?
Yes they played the ref very well and layed offside but thought saints had better defensive line speed and aggression in the tackle for most of the match. We only seemed to step up to their level in the last 10mins in this respect. For most of the match we found it very difficult to make the hard yards down the middle. Credit to saints they did their homework on us and snuffed out Paea's usual effectiveness with their tactics. I think in some respects we were forced to play a more expansive game down the edges because they won the battle down the middle for 75% of the game. We are still lacking a bit of size and nastiness when up against the top teams even though you couldn't fault the likes of Ellis, Mini, and Sa tonight which makes the result tonight disappointing as you couldn't fault the effort on show.