Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 11:33 am  

I know a lot of fans bemoan our lack of power in the middle, but looking back at the game, I think the lack of real pace in the backs really held us back. Roberts especially had a chance in the 2nd half that I think a winger like Marshall, Johnstone, or Ashton finish in the corner, we're creating lots of half chances out wide, but i never feel confident we're going to score unless we get a walk in.
Martin is always solid wherever he plays, but we really could do with a pacy centre who can deputise when Newman or Mom are injured. Has Simpson recovered from his injury yet?

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 11:39 am  

The Reaper wrote:

Thought you guys were great to watch last night. After 20 minutes I thought we could be on for a morale destroying drubbing. Not sure how you didn't end up further in front, but our scrambling defence was excellent which it had to be! Really looking forward to round 2 next week

Thought Ackers, Croft and obviously Miller were brilliant and all look like really good signings. Sangare is an absolute monster as well, if you can get him more involved and running at steam with some aggression then he'd be really hard to stop. Think you've got a good base to build with now, which is not how I saw your team last year. Think you will improve and I think your team is probably the top end of the chasing pack to us and Wigan. Do need some more beef in the pack though

Very fair comment.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 12:02 pm  

From what I’ve seen Jack Smith has more toe than Simpson; Max is more a Keith Senior type player who will be a big physical thing when he fills out.

Mom should be relatively quick we just haven’t seen him show it yet.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 12:07 pm  

We’re clearly a much better side than last season, which is what fans wanted but looks like that still isn’t good enough and the usual lot will moan regardless.

We showed that we have attacking structure with the try, we also created that same opportunity a couple more times but they weren’t finished. We just need to show it more when in their half.

Saints defence was outstanding, and apart from a poor read from O’Connor, so was ours. Bentley seemed to be in every tackles, crazy that people can’t see what he brings to the team.

We defs miss Fusitua in yardage out of our own half, as Roberts was pushed back pretty much every time.

Frawleys kicking game doesn’t seem great, always gets caught on the full. He does seem to bring the organisation and defence that Sezer didn’t.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 12:32 pm  

I'm not sure we're a MUCH better team than last season.
We're probably marginally better.
We have better players.
And defensively we look more solid.
We have won some games that we would have lost last year.

But there's still a lot to work on to compete in the top 4.
We still look very disorganised at times.
The attack is very unstructured.
We make far too many mistakes.
We haven't yet competed for 80 mins.
We need more on field leadership.
And we're lightweight in the pack.

I still expect us to probably finish 6th.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 12:43 pm  

I know he’s been injured and ill so far but I want to see more from McDonnell as the year goes on. Falling off too many tackles for my liking. Thought he was our best back rower for chunks of last year.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 12:45 pm  

Simmo71 wrote:

I'm not sure we're a MUCH better team than last season.
We're probably marginally better.
We have better players.
And defensively we look more solid.
We have won some games that we would have lost last year.

But there's still a lot to work on to compete in the top 4.
We still look very disorganised at times.
The attack is very unstructured.
We make far too many mistakes.
We haven't yet competed for 80 mins.
We need more on field leadership.
And we're lightweight in the pack.

I still expect us to probably finish 6th.

Very very early in the year and lots will change. I think what we’ve seen so far indicates we are a top half team now, which was kindof minimum expected.

For me, the key is the stupid errors. If we don’t make three or four daft errors last night I think we win that game, Saints looked gassed when we played tight and clinical on them for half an hour.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 12:46 pm  

The defence has gone to sleep 3 times this year costing soft tries against Salford, Catalans and Saints. Those errors have to be cut out along with the kicking out on the full.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 12:58 pm  

The game changed when the ref stopped applying the laws of the game and allowed Saints to slow down the play the ball , now don't get me wrong Saints do not mind giving penalties and an odd six again away as they trust their defence , very much the same as Wigan . We are not at that level to be able to do that . We are as everyone knew short of a couple of big forwards and some pace in the backline . Can we beat Saints next week ? The answer to that is a big NO , are we better than last year ?, then yes probably . Are we going to get a top four spot ? Probably not .

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sat Mar 16, 2024 1:05 pm  

ploinerrhino wrote:

The game changed when the ref stopped applying the laws of the game and allowed Saints to slow down the play the ball , now don't get me wrong Saints do not mind giving penalties and an odd six again away as they trust their defence , very much the same as Wigan . We are not at that level to be able to do that . We are as everyone knew short of a couple of big forwards and some pace in the backline . Can we beat Saints next week ? The answer to that is a big NO , are we better than last year ?, then yes probably . Are we going to get a top four spot ? Probably not .

Of course we can beat saints next week, typing no in caps doesn’t make it true

Im not sure where this lacking pace in the backline is coming from, miller , mom, Newman and of course Handley are all quick.

Don’t think any of us expected us to be in the top two this year, and we won’t.

We have far more pace in the backline than Saints for example.