ratticusfinch wrote:
No they don't rate him....NOW! Were he to cancel his move to Hudds and stay put he'd suddenly be WORLD CLASS again.
That's just not true at all. Fages has been marmite to the Saints fans ever since he joined. A lot like his tenacity and his defending but others expect more from a half back. Lewis Dodd clearly has a better kicking game, passing game and running game than Fages. Whether that makes him a world class player in the end remains to be seen, but giving youngsters with potential their chance is the right thing to do. It may work, it may not. Again Saints fans are split on that, but most are in favour of trying it. With Welsby and Dodd being given starting shirts next season most sensible Saints fans would expect us to drop away a bit, but hope we'll still be in contention.
As for the game itself the referees performance was shambolic, as was Saints. We didn't do enough to win the game but Thaler dictated a lot of the play for both sides with big swings caused by his ego. Cas' try at the end of the first half came off the back of them doing nothing and getting two penalties and three set restarts, most of which weren't the correct decisions. He reversed the succession of dodgy and pedantic decisions at random throughout the game and neither side really started playing, the game never got into a proper rhythm. It was a bizarre game, but I think an awful lot of the games Thaler and Hicks do are like that. When you sit there discussing what the three set restarts you've just got were for you've got an idea they're not great calls and it was happening all night. He gave about 200 penalties and still managed to miss the only two blatant ball steals there were in the game by Lomax and Bentley and two of the three worst tackles of the night by Watts and McShane. Contrast that with last nights game between Hull KR and Wigan. A proper referee and the game looked clean and quick and there was some brilliant rugby played.
Cas were rightly giddy after winning, but if Coote dummies and strolls over the line and we win, Powell would have turned purple again and vented at the ref like Woolf presumably did.
