Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:13 pm  

Seth wrote:

Whose claiming that? Smith has overseen a couple of bad performances in the last couple of weeks and there's some areas that are very concerning. Results I can see through, but the performances have been poor. That's not me writing him off by the way.

Flyingscottydonald.

Our squad isn’t good enough, we’ve had a couple of poor results against two of the top sides in the comp.

We are where we are, Smith needs time

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:14 pm  

Seth wrote:

Whose claiming that? Smith has overseen a couple of bad performances in the last couple of weeks and there's some areas that are very concerning. Results I can see through, but the performances have been poor. That's not me writing him off by the way.

Smith needs to be given another year before judging much. People hoped he would be great , mainly because he’s a Smith. He has zero first grade experience, and is working with some garbage in the playing squad. Think he may come good but we went for the long term approach, and any improvement will indeed be long term……

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Thu Jun 23, 2022 10:25 pm  

chapylad wrote:

We were very poor but I have never seen such a blatant one sided performance of a referee since the days of Holdsworth.
Maybe 5 tries at least debatable for them and 50/50`s going their way every time.
I hope this ref is punished for that performance absolutely shocking.
Leeds defence pathetic, half backs look like they have never seen each other let alone played together.
Our front row the worse performance of the season.

Absolute shocker of a ref. Been in charge of our last two home games. Complete pancake juggler

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:52 pm  

Our front row is laughable really. So many other problems come from there - we're backpedalling in defence as we cannot handle big guys running up the middle, and when we have the ball can't create momentum for ourselves. I include Oledzi in here as well - he's not going to be a genuine top prop unless he starts to impose himself against the better teams.

The Warrington game showed Smith will make our attack function far better. The subsequent games have shown that this will make no difference against the top sides because we'll be on the back foot the entire game.

If anything these games coming after Warrington are good in the sense that it means nobody can kid themselves about how far off the pace our squad is. While selection is Smith's responsibility, the squad is not his. Its going to be 2024 at the earliest before we can say this is 'Smith's team'.

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Fri Jun 24, 2022 3:48 am  

Lost easily. Who could have possibly seen that coming?

It’ll be 2040 at the earliest before Smith can be judged.

20 year plan.

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Fri Jun 24, 2022 4:03 am  

The stats make grim reading for Leeds’ props (Prior 41, Oledski 44, Tetevano 47, Walters 59). Bentley was also a real standout with 5 carries for 13 metres.

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:17 am  

The scoreline IMO doesn't reflect the whole game.

The ref was appalling and he needs to be looked at and reviewed.

However how long have we said our forward pack is weak? It's beyond a joke now.

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:59 am  

christopher wrote:

Flyingscottydonald.

Our squad isn’t good enough, we’ve had a couple of poor results against two of the top sides in the comp.

We are where we are, Smith needs time

Absolutely. We all know this squad is well off saints, Smith has improved us but needs time to shape the squad. It’s not a quick fix. Tetevano needs to go end of the season no ifs no buts he has to go. Complete liability.

The score line was harsh on us imo. There were a huge amount of calls that went against us that were plainly wrong. That had an effect on the score line no doubt about it.

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:22 am  

I thought Bentley was keeping his discipline well as the game went on in difficult circumstances for him. Was willing him to get to the end still on the pitch and hoping it could be a pivotal point where he starts to turn a corner so really disappointing to see him walk for such a stupid, petulant moment. Think it would have done him the world of good to get through that game. Tet's was just infuriating. Absolutely stupid especially given the game was long gone by that point.

Best team won and no complaints about the outcome but was absolutely blown away with how bad the referee was from the very start - heavily weighted in Saints favour (was it 4/5 questionable tries?) but I think it was coincidence - he was equally poor for both I thought (Zak's high tackle anyone?). It's a shame because if you take away the scores coming as a direct result of clear refereeing mistakes there could have been a really good game in this. Newman looked fantastic and hungry and how good was that passage of play where they made 80 metres with the off the cuff play? Some positives in there if you dig deep enough. Ultimately another disappointing night for lots of reasons.

Re: RD 16 | St Helens (A) : Fri Jun 24, 2022 6:26 am  

Good post. Agree