: Tue May 05, 2009 8:36 am  

G1 wrote:

Do Saints need a new right centre? Is that at the root of thier problems as well?

I saw many Stains fans predicting their team would struggle this year due to the age of many key players. I don't think they recruited particularly well, but there has always been the theory that they have a lot of money invested in a few players and that they are always maxed out on the cap.
Saints don't have problems at the moment. They are top of the league and still in the cup - surely if this were Leeds and people were complaining then the feckwittery accusations would be flying.
We are not top of the league, we're out of the cup and Saints look like they can beat us with one hand tied behind their back. We got hammered by Quins last week and produced one of the most dire halves of "rugby" imaginable at the weekend against a truly awful team that was already out of the game. I lost count of the times we spent 5 tackles driving the ball to the exact same spot on the pitch and then put in a cr*p kick .
Too many shots of Bluey shaking his head in the stands as well. Last guy I saw like that was Jimmy Lowes.

: Tue May 05, 2009 8:45 am  

Snake Eater wrote:

heh

you made that bet when leeds were 6 points clear the top, when they were all conquering, in fact i even think it was soon after the hull game at easter, when we were at our zenith.

No it wasn't. Check your facts. Want to bet?

As soon as the sh*t hit the fan you doubted McClennan like everyone else.

Swing and a miss again. When we were flying and all was going well I tried to temper idiots proclaiming Mclennan as the greatest ever coach after about ten games.

Remember your ''if smith was in charge we'd be in the cc final'' thread after the semi?

yes I do. Do you? Shall I remind you what I was talking about? The teams indiscipline. I talked at great length about how the team was giving away far too many penalties and how they had taken on the emotional persona of Bluey rather than the controlled persona of Smith.

I was making a point many people are cottoning onto 12 months later.

Remember the pm's we exchanged soon after the saints playoff game, where even the great g1 ''doubted'' whether McClennan could turn it round.

No. Not at all. I remember PM'ing you and asking me for your £50 though.

: Tue May 05, 2009 8:50 am  

Dave Heron's Moustache wrote:

I saw many Stains fans predicting their team would struggle this year due to the age of many key players. I don't think they recruited particularly well, but there has always been the theory that they have a lot of money invested in a few players and that they are always maxed out on the cap.
Saints don't have problems at the moment. They are top of the league and still in the cup - surely if this were Leeds and people were complaining then the feckwittery accusations would be flying.
We are not top of the league, we're out of the cup and Saints look like they can beat us with one hand tied behind their back.

Whilst I don't disagree Saints have not won the cup yet and, frankly, I don't care whether they're top of the league. They were the previous two years.

You're right that all Saints fan questioned the quality of their overall squad. Yet why am I constantly told on here that Saints have "strengthened" and have much better quality squad than us? It simply because that is a reaction to defeats and not an accurate assessment. Eccleshill says that Saints strengthened whilst we stood still. They signed 1 player. So did we (well 2 actually).

We got hammered by Quins last week and produced one of the most dire halves of "rugby" imaginable at the weekend against a truly awful team that was already out of the game. I lost count of the times we spent 5 tackles driving the ball to the exact same spot on the pitch and then put in a cr*p kick .
Too many shots of Bluey shaking his head in the stands as well. Last guy I saw like that was Jimmy Lowes.

Here we are completely ad idem. And this is the root of the problem, not team strengthening or our right centre.

: Tue May 05, 2009 9:16 am  

G1 wrote:

Here we are completely ad idem. And this is the root of the problem, not team strengthening or our right centre.

I think that's becoming obvious the more we get into the season. Any pressure on us causes problems. I wonder what would have happened if Cats had scored first (same thing in the Hudds game)?

I do believe we are significantly weaker though with Burgess defending compared to Scruton and Kirke compared to Ellis (and I know Kirke has a high tackle completion ratio - but he doesn't read the game like Ellis who was a World class defender in that respect). Burgess looks like he's running on tracks - he can go forwards and backwards but not sideways.
The squad has declined in personel quality, it's not by much but it's there. Made worse by players like JJB, Donald, Kylie etc. looking well down on last year form wise. When you add up a lot of small things you can get a big problem. Some of that is coaching and some is squad personel.

: Tue May 05, 2009 10:52 am  

Dave Heron's Moustache wrote:

I think that's becoming obvious the more we get into the season. Any pressure on us causes problems. I wonder what would have happened if Cats had scored first (same thing in the Hudds game)?

I do believe we are significantly weaker though with Burgess defending compared to Scruton and Kirke compared to Ellis (and I know Kirke has a high tackle completion ratio - but he doesn't read the game like Ellis who was a World class defender in that respect). Burgess looks like he's running on tracks - he can go forwards and backwards but not sideways.
The squad has declined in personel quality, it's not by much but it's there. Made worse by players like JJB, Donald, Kylie etc. looking well down on last year form wise. When you add up a lot of small things you can get a big problem. Some of that is coaching and some is squad personel.

Your bang on there. I said the same thing about Burgess at the weekend. He's got no lateral movement. BUT it can be worked on the lad is still learning and has a heck of a lot of potential.

: Tue May 05, 2009 2:33 pm  

G1 wrote:

Do Saints need a new right centre?

I'd persevere with Matt Gidley there if I were them. Their overall squad strength is down though and it's yet to be seen whether their juniors will see them through their heavy schedule this season. The juniors are at least making the step into the first team.

G1 wrote:

Is that at the root of thier problems as well?

No disgrace in losing to a Wigan side who are clearly on the rise following their recent team strengthening at right centre.

Graham and Cunningham's comments in the build up to the weekend would be a concern if I were the St Helens coach this week. The performance appeared to back up the view that certain players didn't want to be there.

: Wed May 06, 2009 4:46 pm  

tvoc wrote:

No disgrace in losing to a Wigan side who are clearly on the rise following their recent team strengthening at right centre.

Having centres who provide key structure to a teams attacking and defensive patterns plays no part in the famous "all a team needs is a good 1,2,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20"

: Wed May 06, 2009 4:49 pm  

i followed the sleeve and his family up the steps to the castle. his ageing mum in law slipped and i managed to catch her.
she did it on purpose mind, she obviously fancied me