I've said a number of times throughout the course of this season that in addition to being thoroughly disenchanted with the style of rugby that is now the norm at Saints, the disrespect shown to the fans by some of the comments from both Cunningham and even McManus (remember tub thumpers?) and the apparent lack of ambition from the club in a number of areas (recruitment, retention etc) I have been increasingly disillusioned at the whole overall management and running of the game.
We have the incompetence of the senior management of the game, with Big Nige et al proving themselves wholly unable to develop and run the game as a national sport should be.
We have the ludicrous fiasco of the disciplinary process which is completely unfit for purpose.
We have a broadcaster whose coverage of the game is akin to a child's cartoon series on Ceebeebies and as biased as only a bunch of pie-eating non-entities can be.
And then we have officials in charge of matches who are at best incompetent at worst, for want of a better word, bent.
For some time now, I have thought that the game is being "managed" to achieve certain outcomes.......in other words it is corrupt. Never have I felt this so strongly than over the past few weeks.
Two weeks ago, we had some staggering decisions in the match between Wakefield and Hull, followed the night after by some equally outrageous decisions in the Warrington Wigan game........the outcomes of which being that the League Leaders Shield went to the final game.....
Tonight, I firmly believe that the outcome of the game was preordained to be a Warrington win. It was wholly corrupt. Some of those decisions were clearly, obviously, managed to achieve a certain result, Warrington to be in the GF. They were so blatantly incorrect as to be beyond question. That's not to say we would have won.........the ineptitude of the head coach was again apparent for all to see, together with some truly awful performances, including a very uncharacteristic shocker from Roby and the usual lazy input from Vea.......but there was no way we were going to be allowed to win that game, simple.
It will be interesting to see how the game tomorrow is managed.........I can't bring myself to say officiated, as that is not the way things happen in the world of the Sky/RFL scheme of things.
Unless the powers that be realise that tonight's game has all but laid bare the way in which the game is manipulated, and consequently wary of such another blatant televised travesty, I fully expect Hull to claim their place in next week's GF so that a new name is added to the only 4 winners so far.........
The upshot if all this is that after over 50 years of watching this game of ours, I cannot see me going to a single game next year, or indeed beyond that, until fundamental changes are made to the way in which the game is run.
I feel totally disillusioned tonight, and that a part of my life which has been so important to me and my family in so many ways has been damaged perhaps beyond repair