Absolutely agree.
Far from a great performance by us, but agree 100% about the reffing.
And yet again a very skinny 10m with no enforcement of offside. Every one of our PTBs and the 1st receiver had 1 or 2 Wire defenders in their face because they'd started charging forwards a couple of seconds before the ball was played and none of the officials were arsed.
Their last try - wasn't heading the ball ruled a knock on after John Harrison headed it to George Mann to score twenty-odd years ago? All made worse that it was off the head of a wife-beating arsehole who should be suspended pending his court appearance.
But we should still have had enough to beat that shower of shite.
No plan B, no dummy runners creating doubt in the defence, no cute set plays.
I like Fages, but he's a 'paint by numbers' scrum half. And Lomax has been very average this season. Our halves have been very mediocre, unless against disrupted/demoralised sides.
The result puts me close to nightmare territory, with my 3 most despised teams in the SF and the other one being crap.
Hate this game at times.
We were awful yet again against Warrington in a knockout game. I’d say the below sums up my thoughts on today and the last month or so.
- James Graham is finished.
- Matty Lees is one of the most overrated youngsters we’ve had. Yes there’s potential but he’s been garbage for a long time now, before his injury as well. He needs to bulk up because he’s impactless and offers nothing.
- Fages is a decent utility player to have around but he’s a bang average scrum half. We get away with having him because the standard of scrum halves in SL is as bad as it’s ever been but he offers zero creativity and his kicking game is rubbish. We’d be much better off with Benji Marshall for a year before playing Dodd every week.
- Our attack is diabolical. We rely on Alex Walmsley barge overs, quick ptb’s generated by him and individual quality. There’s zero shape and we look completely clueless in the 20 of any half decent team. We are much worse than last season in attack and Woolf has to take responsibility for that. It’s easy to say now and I didn’t think it at the time but it’s becoming increasingly clear that Watson would have been the better choice. Woolf’s time with us can only end in two ways, either him leaving for the NRL because we’ve won trophies or him getting the sack. Obviously won’t happen but we’d be better off thinking about bringing Watson in.
I think someone should tell Woolf we are not Tonga and we haven’t got a pack like Tonga. It’s just a bit predictable with him, even in the last couple of minutes we still went down the middle. Although looking at some of that Saints pack and its getting old, Roby 34, Taia 35, LMS 33, Amor 32. Lees plays like a 50yr old, he offers bugger all apart from the expected stupid penalty.
There are again a lot of fingers being pointed at players which, in my mind, are bollocks. The game plan failed in the first after Percy left, and we just made too many mistakes in that second half.
Was Percy fully fit for this one? I thought Dom would have been a better option, but they thought him fit? Hamstrings are a nightmare to predict as the Broncos have found out with Milford.
Today was a collective FUBAR it's not on any man.
Don’t understand all the hatred for Matty Lee’s all of a sudden, embarrassing.
Our pack wasn’t getting too old on here when we di**ed Leeds a few weeks back but now we are old and crocked but in the 4 over 30’s players you have picked (Could have been 5 with James Graham BTW) our other pack players are Bentley 23, Lee’s 22, Knowles 23, Smith 23 & walmsley 30.
Age is but a number and can be spun either way, we were turned over in a closely fought game against the better side on the day.
Hate to say I told you so, but that outcome was very predictable. We're shocking in big games and we simply won't beat them in a meaningful game. Our only chance of winning SL this year is not getting them in the semi or final.
I'd love to know what happened just before lockdown. The team played so freely, looked so sharp and fit. Today we looked like we were playing in thick mud, we looked slower man for man than they did. And their fitness was way better than ours, which is worrying.
Ultimately now I've calmed down about the refereeing (Which was shocking. If I were Saints I'd request a meeting about it to review his decisions, several of them were just shockingly bad in terms of the consistency of his application. He hammered us and let everything go for them. He definitely refereed the game differently depending on who had the ball) and it is clear we lost the game primarily because of Percival going off the field. We ended up with Bentley and Knowles in the centres it seems and we were struggling from then on. But we still had to make errors for them to score. The tackling for Ashton's try was pathetic, Charnley's try was ridiculous as well. They were tired and just gave up at that point, players like Lomax and Coote just standing and watching the most blatant inside run from Charnley. He's so slow these days it's really frustrating to watch him slice through our line and walk in without anyone laying a finger on him.
We need to be better than that. It's that simple. Work to do on recruitment for next season which I don't think we've got the stomach for at the moment given the hit to the finances Covid has provided. I also think we'll have to sack Woolf at the end of the year.
Unfortunately we have a one dimensional coach who has no plan B, I'm not sure there's a credible plan A. He only understands one way to play and it doesn't suit the players or the fan base. He shouldn't be at the club, it was a poor recruitment decision.
I'm sure that the idiocy of Makinson came from his frustration building of being given no ball over a period of games. Speculation of course but you can see it building across the squad. KW seems to have no ability to play as a Saint and he never will. The players know it and we know it, nothing will change. Beaten today by tries from wingers and centres whether the rules were broken or players shouldn't be playing. We hardly put a ball out wide. There's no intent to widen the game out because the coach doesn't understand it so he seems to want no part of it. We've seen the same old moves week in week out, down the middle, more wrestling creeping in , no kicking game, no game management, nothing. Things go wrong in games, it's his job to manage and mitigate the effects.
Yes it's easy to whinge when we've lost but he's losing much more than a single game today, he's losing direction, he'll lose the players and also the fans. Some think he's a very talented coach. I'm certainly not one of them. This will be a calamity on the scale of the KC tenure and there won't necessarily be another JH to set it right.
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That's a proper grown-up response.
The fact is that this side - which should be sweeping the board for trophies - has lost 4 of the last 5 clinch games where we've been favourites (3 against a Wire side that we should be easing past).
Our attack is one-dimensional and lacks dummy runners creating doubt in the minds of defenders. It's like the Cunningham era again, with the opposition knowing they just have to pile into the first receiver because our half backs seem incapable of guile and the tactics are predictable.
We're wasting opportunities to pile-up silverware and names in the record books, which is what matters in competitive sport.
And I really despise those Warrington c**ts. Arrogant, spoilt •••••••s from a town that gets everything.
In response to a ‘proper’ grown up toys out the pram comments.
Bored of fans when we lose mud slinging at players online, worlds worst player all of a sudden mentality. They stuck to their game plan, we risked an injured player, backfired and our game day tactics were exposed. These things happen, no one else’s fault but our own. We now concentrate on retaining the title.
He has a point. Percy is like Darren Anderton always injured. Get rid of him it's gone on too long.
Lee's is massively overrated.
Where is 6ft 4 built like a tank Ashworth? Hes a joke cant make a metre. Get rid
Why did we left swift go when no back up.
Mixed emotions really.
Was really disappointed with how we played in the first half, I thought we were our own worst enemies at times which has cost us in the majority of big games we’ve played in over the last 3/4 years. We conceded numerous penalties/set restarts, we kicked out on the full, we dropped the ball over the line, we conceded a soft 40/20 and seemed to spend the majority of the half defending our own line. We started to tire as the half went on and then obviously conceded the two tries before half time. Losing Percival was a huge blow as well and to come from 8 down without him was always going to be a big ask.
Was really proud of how we played in the second half though. Personnel wise we were all over the place, at one stage we had Naquima on the wing, Knowles and Bentley in the centres, LMS in the second row and Roby at loose forward. To score enough points in the second half to get back into the game given the circumstances was a fair effort IMO and they showed a fair bit of character in that regard. We could have scored another couple of tries as well, Knowles and Grace were unlucky not to score.
There’s no doubt though that we’ve got a few players who are coming towards the end of their careers and aren’t in career best form.. we’ll see a regeneration of the squad over the next couple of years. I’ve really enjoyed watching this group play over the last couple of years but to have gone all the way in two competitions would have been a big ask for them now IMO and being able to focus purely on the Grand Final now might help us come the end of the year.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
Today was arguably the most excusable of the knock out games we've lost, because it was a game of fine margins that we could have won. But, you're dead right about the last 5-10 years really. People still talk about Saints as if it were 2006, as if we pile up trophies year on year whilst playing like the 82 Kangaroos. The reality is that we have won two major trophies since 2008, and for the most part have been a pretty average team to watch in terms of style of play. Both of those things are appalling given what we have had in that time. We haven't had the teams that we had from 96-06 of course, but in the last 12 years we have had teams that should have won alot more. In that time Warrington have won 4 major honours, Wigan 7 and Leeds 8, but have they been miles better than us in terms of players?
The odd defeat like today could (and maybe should) be looked at in isolation because any team can fall short in a big game against another top team, these things happen. But we're now used to losing games like this, because it happens alot more often than not, and whilst I don't think we 'bottled it' or anything like that today, I think other top teams go into these games against us thinking they will beat us.
Evening chaps, haven't posted on here in a long time (part of a general attempt to get off all forms of social media) but thought I'd jump back onto Redvee as it's (generally) less toxic. So, thoughts on today...... surprisingly not as gutted as I thought I'd be. I've watched Saints since 1987 and been witness to some abject performances, this wasn't one of them. We got rolled on the back of an alarming amount of 6 agains against us and Warrington targeted the sudden absence of Percy very well, i'd go as far as to say neither Gelling or Charnley score if Percy is on the pitch. Bentley got caught out of position and Grace got outjumped. I attach no blame to either but Warrington took advantage of the situation very well (ar*eholes). I've not seen the replay yet as I can't face it but from an initial look the pass that hit Gelling on his head appeared to hit it on the back? Not sure how a ball can be passed into the back of a players head unless it is traveling forwards and the player it hits is offside? Like I say, only saw it the once so quite happy to be corrected. So, Grand final it is.... I fancy a repeat of last year for the silverware.... that'll do me. Good to be back and hopefully involved in some interesting discussion going forward. COYS.
I don’t know personally. They seem obsessed with his aggression and people even mentioning us having to be worried about him being poached by an NRL club. Doesn’t make any line breaks, tackle busts, no decent metres pre or post contact or any offloads. He’s been absolute dogshite this season and honestly the decision to pick him ahead of Peyroux on the bench today was awful. He’s still young for a prop and I see a solid foundation there for a decent super league player but he needs to bulk up and start breaking/bending the line as he’s just a passenger at the moment.
Forwards win games. The backs decide by how much.
We had Walmsley & Taia making yards yesterday. The rest of the pack were stopped dead. Wire's pack don't have huge metre eaters, but they seem to share the workload extremely efficiently. Cooper, Hill, Philbin, BMM & Curry all contributed to a steady go forward for them yesterday & as for Charnley being slow, nonsense. He's still quick. Gelling can pull a rabbit out of the hat at times & likes playing against us. King is a decent centre & Mamo & Ashton are extremely quick.
Then there's Austin, Ratchford & Clarke. They are quality players & if you are slightly off, they will beat you.
They've got us sussed & that's the way it is. We really struggle to maintain composure in big games. I'm just glad Wire dropped off last season after the cup win because they'd have dumped us out the play offs too. We've got to fix this problem & quickly