He also told tomkins he should have been a ref
He also told tomkins he should have been a ref
Must admit myself that the short pass from Coote to Welsby and Graces try were real game changing moments in the overall scheme of things. Catalans were well in it prior to that weren't they?? Can't remember another possible forward pass and Walmsleys was off the shoulder and lazy rather than a stiff arm straight to the jaw. If Walmsleys was a yellow then Maloney would be looking at 8 games.
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I've deliberately not read them, so I couldn't be influenced. :-)
In the end, I thought it was a brilliant performance. They went out with the attitude that if they weren't going to win the Grand Final, then neither were we, but we stood up to them, weren't intimidated by them and in the end our depleted forward line completely bossed them.
In the second half, we played some great rugby, opened up and tore them apart. There is no doubt that it was our best performance of the season. The players did everything asked of them and they implemented the plan perfectly. A 9 out of 10 performance.
BUT
I didn't see anything I didn't know before deep analysis led me to post in depth about why we could beat anyone else, but Wigan and/or Warrington would undo us on the big occasion.
Something I've said ad nauseum now since May is that we only decide to play rugby when the game is won. In the first half, we plundered it down the middle, making few or no passes. it was conservative rugby all the way. Yet the one time we did move it out wide, we scored. With the the luck of the early second half try killing the game and another shortly after, we suddenly started to move the ball about and offload, and you know what, it suits us. We are great front runners because when we express ourselves we are untouchable in this country.
However, the coach does not allow us to express ourselves until well clear. Therefore, this means that when we are in a close battle, we don't get to that stage where we do express ourselves, we get stuck in a midfield slog, and the lack of creativity from the halves near the line means that we don't have the tools to win that slog.
It's all on the coach. If he allows our backs to play, then we will win next week. However, I think we all know the drill by now. He will only allow the backs to play when we are more than two scores in front and that's not going to happen against them. To beat Wigan, you can't just plough it down the middle, you've got to use the backs and hurt them by moving the ball. Watching us all season, I know how we are going to play it, and I fear that methodology will see us lose and come out wondering what would have happened had we just been a little bit more adventurous and played to the strengths of a 1,2, 3 and 5 that are as good as any in Super League.
I'll, of course, be delighted to be proved wrong. :-)
THIS YEAR LENDING SUPPORT TO:- St. Helens RLFC, Manchester City, Celtic, Alemannia Aachen, Steps 1 to 6 Non-League Football
THIS YEAR LENDING SUPPORT TO:- St. Helens RLFC, Manchester City, Celtic, Alemannia Aachen, Steps 1 to 6 Non-League Football
I thought it was a really good performance, good game plan executed really well. The difference between that display tonight and some of our knock out performances in recent years was really pleasing to see IMO.
The Naquima try in the first half summed up what was good for me really.
There was a period after maybe 20/25 minutes where I thought their game plan was starting to take effect and we were starting to lose our way a bit. Last year and certainly the season before last we’d have been forcing it, throwing the ball into touch, running the ball on last plays etc. Tonight we just completed their sets, kicked long, defended well and stayed composed. We’d been playing pretty tight through the forwards up until then, I think Taia had just played the ball near the touchline so Catalan’s defence was really compressed, their centre was really narrow defending in line with the post and they had maybe three defenders covering an entire half of the field. Lomax, Fages and Coote spotted that so we shifted the ball and scored. Real example of patient attack and good decision making that we’ve lacked at times in recent years.
Steve Prescott MBE (1973-2013)
V
phil Clarke summed it up for me last night when he said jake oconner was like our Cameron munster enough said pathetic
Is it me or am I the only one that doesn't agree with Matalan playing sod all this season, waltzing into the semifinals and not even playing good rugby, just playing like thugs? Was Maloney wired to the moon? should have been a red card after mauling Lomax on the floor. The fact they were in the playoffs at all is a joke, just glad we dumped them out of it good style. Awesome display tonight Saints, just need to do same again next week and blow pies off the park
Turned up with a plan.
Executed it brilliantly. Defence in particular superb.
When we do shift it wide (which we did with intelligence & fast hands), we ran riot down Naiqama's side).
Thought Roby was terrific. Ball of energy & they couldn't deal with him with no McIlorum
In the period between Kyle Eastmond leaving and Luke Walsh arriving we had at least 2 full seasons (3 if you count Kyle's non event of his last season) without a proper number 6 or 7. I'd have loved at the time Briers to have had his last couple of seasons with us he'd have found that difficult to turn down I reckon.
It was a good performance. We did well not to get suckered into the dirty stuff. We were pretty conservative in the opening 15 just feeling our way into the game but once we got through the gears we played some good stuff. Plenty ball movement, blind side plays, shifting play back blind side. Defence was awesome too!!
Should be a good grand final.
screaming in the family corner, scaring the kiddies
Well done to all our lads. The Kev try we scored at an important time that from two kicks could be classed as fortunate but our deep kicking game was very good, defense brutal and we gave it back. Good to see Johnny take matters in his own hands as Maloney played thugby as bad as any player has this year against us. I hope the disciplinary decides not to pursue anything though as Knowles and Bentley rightly sailed close to the wind, which was good to see just hope they don`t get cited.