Originally Posted by
fishy3005
1. The forums turned into a shyte sandwich. Its been going downhill for a while. Internet gobshytes are everywhere these days. Its even worse now that the Bewsey brick chuckers have signed up!
2. Im over the cup final. As a Saints fan im familiar with losing when it matters. I feel more empty than upset or angry. Did we bottle it? Maybe. I don’t think Holbrook did us any favours throwing players into the game who hadn’t played for weeks. He should have played them in 15 minute spells the week before even if it meant forfeiting that league game. Having said that. Some of our players who had recently played did very little.
3. Going forwards we will field our strongest 17 obviously. Coote, Walmsley will get better with game time. Hopefully the lads will play well wanting to impress the new coach, who is likely watching footage of our remaining games.
We need to put the final behind us and kick on. I hope they do. I still have concerns over some of our players. Im not naming them individually because im trying to stay positive but we have a number of players who always seem to look like world beaters in the weekly rounds but have rarely done much of anything in the games that actually matter. When it gets tough some of our players lack that confidence and match winner mentality. Players who are brilliant in the weekly rounds seem to come up with uncharacteristic errors in big games, whether it be a missed tackle or a dropped ball.
If we get to the final and are in a tight spot who could you rely on to grab the game by the neck and pull us out of trouble???
4. Holbrook. This is a tough one. As some of our regular posters know, ive never really drank the Holbrook kool aid. He improved us after Cunningham but we were atrocious under Cunningham towards the end. They had enough of Cunningham, he lost the dressing room and it showed in early 2017. Holbrook took the pressure off and is a sound bloke. He rewards hard work and gives youngsters a fair go. Good on him. But his time at the club has been littered with some big no no’s IMO. Late 2017 he was undecided on his best scrum half. Richardson was actually playing well and Holbrook dropped him at Cas. Its not Matty Smiths fault we lost at Cas, but Richardson deserved to be there at the time and Smith did nothing in the game. In 2018 it was obvious that Ben Barbas indecision compromised the spirit of the team (i heard this from the mouth of a current player) yet Holbrook continued to pick him. And now in 2019 he failed to get us ready for the cup final. I don’t by any means consider Holbrook a bad coach, just nothing special by any means. We have improved inder him to an extent. But in the games that have mattered we haven’t actually looked much different from the team that played under Cunningham towards the end of his reign. Struggling to string passes together, dropping ball, basically headless chickens.