The Mole seems to think Merrin is indeed Leeds bound.
The Mole seems to think Merrin is indeed Leeds bound.
Are Leeds becoming the New Hull with lots of overseas signings on the Horizon.
He reckons Merrin is jibbing Souths off to join Leeds. Seems odd, I must say ... they must be offering him a stack of money if true.
https://twitter.com/9_Moley/status/1057865235766239235
But Saints still have a marquee spot available don't they Dux? I think this is the point that Drake is making- have St Helens spent their money wisely?
Trent Merrin is a very good signing for Leeds and I'm a fan of Lolohea and Hurrell, they will improve The Rhinos.
The signings of Paulo and Coote for Saints, well I'm not sure they will improve this St Helens side- I don't see Coote as a better full back than Lomax for example, and Coote has been signed to play full back.
And when you hear the news from Australia that Jarryd Hayne is still off contract and if he ends up at St George as rumoured, Matt Dufty could be released to get Hayne in. He would add that speed and excitement that Saints will miss from full back. The point I'm making is that there's still some moves to be decided down there which could mean some good quality talent becomes available.
This said, the Frenchman is quite right with his comments in the Coote thread, that these are Holbrook's signings and its now very much his side. So there can be no excuses as you say.
In other news...I was also surprised to read as well today from the NRL, that Josh Maguire is signing for NQL. I think that's a big loss to Brisbane.
Regards,
STEVO
Last edited by Mike Stephenson; 15th November 2018 at 22:21.
Saints only need to find a 2% improvement, Leeds need to find probably another 50%..
You can't compare our signings to Leeds.. Leeds were 24 points behind saints after 23 rounds
Leeds are going through that transition that Saints went through when Cunningham, Long, Sculthorpe, Wellens etc. all left/retired.
They are still a very strong squad, just probably not good enough to win SL next year as new players bed in. They'll win more than they lose in 2019 and no doubt topple a few of the other top teams.
I still think they lack the quality in the pack and their halves will be very hit & miss. Myler is distincltly average and Lolohea can swing from brilliant to garbage to completely anonymous all within one 80minute game
Hethrington must be lying down in a dark room somewhere all the money he will have to shell out
I'm not really bothered about Leeds so much. They'll have a big transition next season, it's unlikely to rebound back to them winning SL. The team we should be worrying about and comparing ourselves to is Warrington.
They already, somehow, managed to beat us when it mattered last season and they have strengthened quite dramatically.
George King replaced by Jason Clark, a top NRL Grand Final winning forward
Tyrone Roberts replaced by Blake Austin, arguably the 'star' of Super League next season
Mitch Brown replaced by Jake Mamo, another top back
IMO they should be massive favourite for SL next season:
Wigan - Look to be severely weakened in losing Tomkins, Bateman and Wane
Leeds - Big rebuilding job underway, next season will be tough
Cas - Never really had the depth to back up their good season and won't win SL
Saints - Paolo for Wilkin is a slight upgrade possibly, but we might lose something off the field there, Batchelor is another squad player, Coote for Barba an enormous downgrade. Naiqama for Morgan might give us a bit more in attack, but probably lose out in defense in equal measures. Hard to see us winning SL next season if we weren't capable with a much stronger 13 this year. Walmsley back is the only positive for us.
Agree on Leeds and Cas, not the rest though. You’re being very kind to Warrington. They were very average (at best) for most of the season and were terrible in two finals. Apart from the Austin signing I don’t think the rest are going to make much of a difference: Mamo doesn’t get into their starting 13, is unfit and a very bizarre signing, Clarks stats aren’t particularly impressive and he comes across as pretty average. Austin is a great player but he’ll likely be partnered with Brown which is less than ideal.
I’m not sure Wigan will be that much weaker provided they add a couple of players and Hardaker can keep himself out of trouble. They’ve needed a change for a while even if they did win the Grand Final. As for us, Paulo is probably an upgrade, Naiqama should definitely be an upgrade on Morgan who offered little in attack and wasn’t great in defence either imo. Then there’s Coote who obviously isn’t as good as Barba but should offer better organisation near the line and I imagine we won’t be over reliant on him like we were with Barba. Walmsley back as well means overall we’ll be stronger and should be favourites. My biggest concern is Richardson though.
Without having to open a new thread , I see Jamie Peackock back at leeds
roy litherland it's happened i told you it would
Edited to share the blame elsewhere, correct me if I am wrong but didn't we keep Fages away from the bench out of the 17 in both semi finals when we were desperate for some different variety. The first semi final we could have had Jonathon Thurston playing ay 7 but the result would have been the same with the amount of dropped ball and dropping off tackles. The second semi final too many experienced players went missing when the going got tough and it was left to Thompson to put in a semi final effort on his own.
I disagree; in that match (and the other semi) we were crying out for some leadership in the halves. We needed to knuckle down, knock out some sets, get the ball kicked deep and stop turning the ball over. If we’d have done that at some point in the first half we’d have got back in the game, IMO, and that’s exactly the kind of thing you get from a game-managing half like Thurston. Instead we kept trying to score on every set and just dug a deeper hole for ourselves.
But we had a completion rate of around 40% in the first half and a horrendous missed tackle count to put the Catalans up around 28-0, we had plenty of leadership in the team who failed to stand up I very much doubt our halves had any time with the ball if the rest of the team were dropping the ball or missing tackles allowing tries to be scored. Its game control in the halves that was needed not leadership, the latter should have come from Roby, Wilkin. LMS who have experienced close encounters.
Possession wise Catalans had 30 mins and Saints had 10 mins in the first half, I don't know what our halves were supposed to do to establish game control with that miserly 10 mins............its a team game.
Last edited by STIDDY; 15th December 2018 at 13:36.
But game management is a kind of leadership. It’s about having the coolness of mind to make good - and sometimes quite boring - decisions on behalf of your teammates when panic has set into the team. If we had had this kind of leadership in our halves (which is really where it has to come from, as it is the halves who have the ball in hand at the key moments) then our completion rate would have been much higher and we wouldn’t have had that catastrophic collapse.