Fages to miss Catalans and Warrington with hip injury picked up against Hull KR.
Fages to miss Catalans and Warrington with hip injury picked up against Hull KR.
So Does Danny Richardson come in?
The competition for places has worked brilliantly with Fages and he's responded superbly, making the No7 shirt his own. Holbrook has operated the 'competition for places' ethos perfectly and, if Richardson responds as well as Fages has done, we have a great 'problem'.
Exactly. Richardson should have huge motivation now to go out and win that shirt back. That doesn’t mean he has to go out and try and win games on his own and forget the structure but he just needs to do all the little things well in attack, kick well and obviously his goalkicking will take some pressure off Coote too. His defence will be the biggest thing under the spotlight though I feel so he needs to get that right as much as anything for me.
NEVER WRITE OFF THE SAINTS
Just watched the hit on Fages after his pass for the second try, two weeks running he has been hit late and hard and nothing gets done.
Danny has been great for us, but happy for him to be back (hopefully) in a Saints shirt once again this weekend. Also he took over from Ridyard as our goal kicker, so he's not out of practice, if needed ! Coote or Richardson....a nice quandary !
Holbrook has confirmed Richardson will be given an opportunity.
Bad blow for Fages, he's been playing well for us this season and we fell apart a bit when he went off on Friday. He's much better at 7 than he is at 6 where he can link the play at 1st receiver and direct the forwards. lomax and Coote have got better vision so it works better with them at 6 and 1.
Big chance for Richardson though, he's got 2 pretty big games to prove a point especially at home to Wire. Holbrook could have a dilemma going into Easter if Richardson takes his opportunity.
Originally Posted by Despondent Dave
It'll be interesting to see if he changes the system slightly to accommodate Richardson. Our attack has so far relied on Fages taking the ball close to the ruck and going straight at the line to fix defenders (and usually taking a whack in the process). I'm not sure Richardson is robust enough to do that.
Shame but gives Danny a shot.
We have been naming the same squad pretty much week after week so been fortunate with knocks this far so we can't grumble too much.
I think Fages has been great for us so far. Disappointing for us that we’ll be without him for a couple of games because he’s been in really good form and as has been said, he looks far more comfortable at scrum half than at stand off. Taken to that role really well and has been a big reason why we’ve been unbeaten so far IMO.
For me the difference between them so far is that Richardson, at times, went away from the team effort and tried to force things, even if it meant going away from his role. Fages has impressed me because he has been prepared to do his job for the team as well as he can and he’s stuck to it and the team has benefitted because of that IMO. He’s done his job and he’s done it very well. If Richardson wants to stay in the team, he could do a lot worse IMO than look at how Fages has approached it. He’s obviously came up with some nice invividual moments but on the whole, he’s made his tackles, he has distributed the ball well as Dux says above, he’s directed the team around the pitch well, he’s kicked well at times along with Coote, he’s controlled the forwards and he’s allowed the likes of Lomax, Coote and Roby to flourish on the back of that
I’ve always thought that a good scrum half is someone who will do those basics really well and a great one is someone who has individual brilliance to go with that. Obviously Richardson is still young but Fages has shown he’s able to do that pretty well and has got plenty of praise off Holbrook because of that. Richardson needs to prove he can match Fages in those areas IMO.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
Might work well in our favour, Richardson will want his shirt back and he will probably have 3 games to impress Holbrook and give him a selection headache. I should imagine Richardson will take the pressure off Coote by kicking the field goals.
I said all last season that we should be protecting our half backs and its not changed much because Fages has been clobbered in quite a lot of games this year, in saying that I don't think we could have stopped J Tomkins with the late hit, he knew what he was doing and it looked he was out to injure Theo.
Two games for Richardson to save his Saints career.
I hope Richardson plays well and takes his chance but I haven’t been convinced yet. Sometimes he seems like he isn’t quite in the top drawer
Shame for Fages. I think he has done well but Richardson was bound to get another go. I wonder what happened in the off season to drop him behind Fages in the pecking order?