Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 5:04 am  

One minor positive was the refereeing of James Child (how often can you say that?).
Or more accurately the rowing back on needless cards. Child himself still got a few wrong but it at least felt like sanity had been restored.

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 5:36 am  

Clearwing wrote:

One minor positive was the refereeing of James Child (how often can you say that?).
Or more accurately the rowing back on needless cards. Child himself still got a few wrong but it at least felt like sanity had been restored.

Yeah. It couldn’t go on as a spectator sport with the previous mandate. RFL have resided that the game is played at 100 mph and players get it slightly wring pretty often. Penalties are ok, but cards should only be for serious foul play.

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 6:20 am  

I don't know whether I'm glad about that or psed off that overnight they can just change what constitutes a yellow. Shows how inept the system is. Be even more of a farce if others are still giving them.

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 6:36 am  

Much better effort last night but as a few have said that really is the minimum required.

All the talk of players and positions etc is of course relevant but I think the coaching and structure is clearly the biggest issue.

Sean Long should just not be here, our attack under him is awful. The structure, the plays, the lines almost every aspect is so poor. That isn’t just players it also comes down to the structure and plans in place. To some extent the defence under JJB as well, sometimes we have decent line speed, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we try and slow the play the ball, sometimes we don’t. It’s so hit and miss in every aspect.

I don’t mind if we don’t win, I understand we can’t always win, we will have bad games, bad seasons and that is professional sport. What I do need is players putting in the maximum and us not needing to talk about it and more importantly an identity and a style of play. This new coach really should be coming in and brining his own assistants with JJB and Long gone. Then develop who we are and how we want to play. I find it hard to watch when I have no idea what we are trying to do, there is absolutely no leadership anywhere in the club.

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 6:47 am  

We need some realism too currently. When you look at the two lineups Last night on paper, it looks like a pro team vs an amateur one. I said before the game that it would be a small win for JJB to keep Saints under 50 points. I don’t think any decent coach will risk their reputation until the end of the season now, until we can overhaul the playing roster and get some quality in. We just have to keep faith and hope JJB can inspire a few wins against the other relegation candidate’s. I think he can do that, and that is the only realistic target for now.

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 6:56 am  

As has been said the committment and willingness to put in a shift was much improved and scoreline slightly flattered saints.
It is concerning reading that JJB thought we moved the ball well but lacked zip in the threequarters! I dont know what he was watching both our centres were poor but there was little blame on the wingers! We had no stucture to our attack distribution from acting half was pedestrian ( compare to Roby)and the halves were clueless passing too early or telegraphing a dummy. ( again compare to lomax) Walker tried hard but needs to work on the timing of his passes.
I would hate to see us when we move the ball badly!
To be fair the pack went ok despite as we have said lacking size. Oledski and Bentley were good and Smith much improved although again I feel he moves the ball too slowly.

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 7:10 am  

JJB's presser, if that dosnt depress you as a Leeds fan, then nothing will.

Without knowing he was refering to a professional sports team, you would think he was talking about an u8's team, some of the 'fixes' mentioned should be the absolute bare minimum for any professional sports person

If what he's saying is right, its an absolute disgrace, our squad of players, coaches and management should be ashamed at the culture they've manifested. The coach of Leeds Rhinos happy that the players finally look bothered they're being embarrassed, happy they're finally trying, happy they're talking and asking questions of each other, happy he THINKS they're going to buy in to the fortnights hard work he's got planned, f**k sake...How have things got so bad that these, what should be, absolute unconditional basics, even in a kids team, be seen as progress in one of the biggest clubs in the country, absolutely pathetic.

When we signed donkeys like Donaldson and Thompson we were fed the lines on how they set standards around training,that they're great role models around the place etc etc, clearly total rubbish, our standards are mickey poor and embarrassing, again, if JJBS presser is correct.

He then finishes with telling us that he's always rated Liam Suttcliffe as a half, my god, please just go coach Stanningley and drop Long off as far away as possible on your way.

Anybody involved in this mess needs to be as far away from headingley as possible, players included.

Sorry for the long rant.

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 7:12 am  

Rommel wrote:

Sky said Groin

Re. Sezer - I had seen chat about him needing to be dropped on here. Sky did say ‘groin’ at one point, but then JJB (I think it was) in one of his interviews said ‘hip’.

Both explanations were quite vague and obviously contradictory too. Makes me wonder if he maybe was just dropped. He has been naff but I hope it was a dropping rather than a ‘vaguely explained injury to a body part and a week off to help keep him fit for the games after’.

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 7:39 am  

I think the thing is, we as fans want the issues to be simple and easily fixed so we will focus on player A being rubbish, the coach not being good enough etc etc because that seems like an easy fix.

Unfortunately it’s usually a cumulative effect of much more difficult things to fix that’s making the whole set up look bad.

We’ve basically imo got a 5 game mini season coming up, every single one of those games are winnable.

I think realistically JJB will be there for those games

Re: SL RD 7 | St Helens (H) : Sat Apr 02, 2022 8:03 am  

Totally agree Christopher, we’re not going to get a new coach starting in the next month I don’t think. The next 4-6 weeks will either condemn us to a season long relegation battle, or give us enough breathing space to not need to worry without ever looking like challenging in the top half of the table.

We need to work on defence first, we must stop leaking points. Use the first half last night as the fourth ration and build from that. Then we can start to stay in games longer and if we take a few chances when they come confidence will increase and we will start to look more cohesive.

It’s a long road back from here and we need to start taking a few steps.