Agree with the suggestions for Smith. Bags of experience of our league, attractive style. No guarantee of trophies but who does?
Agree with the suggestions for Smith. Bags of experience of our league, attractive style. No guarantee of trophies but who does?
Let's hope West's Tigers are on the phone right now. Seeing Maguire sacked and getting rid of Woolf seems a great scenario
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It will be interesting to see how Saints cope without Jonny, Tommy, Alex and Morgan at Hull KR next week. Tony Smith will be in his element plotting Saints downfall to follow on from the defeat of the Pies. I fear the worst!
That would be a great idea!
Saints could also have Kevin, Regan, Iggy and Cootie called up for the All Stars team! Then Saints could be entitled to a postponement.
When is the Combined Nations team being named? I read that it was June 17th but I can’t find it anywhere!
Watching the NRL. Holbrook seems to be the polar opposite of Woolf at Saints. He’s great attack, awful defence. Woolf is poor attack, great defence. Gold Coast have collapsed today. Should be doing better with the squad he has.
I loved Holbrook and he was exactly what was needed for us at the time but Gold Coast are massively under performing with the players he has. He was backed hugely with transfers and they are 13th in the table.
You have to ask what style wins more trophies. I don’t enjoy watching us under Woolf but I have more confidence that we will win knockout games under him purely because of how good we are defensively.
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I mean Gold Coast are playing error free territory rugby and they’ve still conceded 10 tries so far. 29/29 sets completed but their defence is about as solid as using a wotsit as a deadbolt. I don’t know how you can coach a side that is capable of going 24-8 up at half time and then conceding 42 points in 33 minutes.
Forwards win games. The backs decide by how much.
Gold Coast haven't had any ball in the second half but why did Holbrook take Peachey off?
Their halves are awful and imo he was their only creative player.
He made a huge tactical error by tinkering
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He took on a huge job by going to Gold Coast. A team of losers that needed a complete culture change. It will take time for him to fully imbed his ideas and turn that ship around, especially with NRL being much more competitive and difficult to win than over here.
It was a great ride under Holbrook and he turned us into a brilliant side in his 2 and a half years here but he wasn't flawless, some of our big game losses were hard to stomach after being the best team for 2 years of his tenure. One thing is for sure we were exciting under Holbrook either way and you always felt we could score points. Were the opposite under Woolf and I don't feel like we will ever put teams to the sword, bit defensively I have total trust in this team. It's just not much fun to watch.
Originally Posted by Despondent Dave
Its a very difficult one, we only had one direction to go when Holbrook took over, it was entertaining stuff but for me there was always that doubt when we come to the big knock out game. When we won the Grand Final with Holbrook I thought it was more down to the players mental response to losing the Challenge Cup Final. The senior players were making noises through the play off that they could not lose another final and by the time the final came along the mindset was there, also they wanted to send Holbrook away with a trophy.
We knew what we were getting with Woolf but as McManus mentioned quite a few times he took over a busted squad pre Covid. Normally we get massacred in the World Club Challenge but with Woolf we could see that stubborn difficult to beat style which gave us a very slim chance of winning the WCC.
The problem we have at the moment is that some posters are blaming Woolf's style for all our shortfalls when in reality there are other factors which seem to be ignored, the 3 main points are:-
1. Woolf has now got a squad way past its best and lacking attacking players, the acceptable attack threat of Roby, Coote, Lees, and Percival has gone currently. Tai and Peyroux have gone and replaced by Thompson and Matautia who are less quality.
2. Superleague is now very much defence orientated with much slower play by tinkering with the rules, any creative players have very limited opportunity to get time and space.
3. Woolf has not got our balance right between attack and defence, he prefers defence first attack secondary which is not accepted by most saints fans, some have zero tolerance and want attack first defence secondary at all costs for entertainment value.
Your 3 points are spot on. However, Thompson and Matautia are his signings and so far have been pony. I'm not saying I have zero tolerance of his approach but as I've said before, when a coach comes in, they should be made aware of what's expected from the fans. That clearly doesn't happen looking at some of the coaching appointments previously.
I think Passi and Matautia were the Woolf signings, seem to remember it was Rushy who did the reccommedation for Thompson. Going by the NRL footage Thompson looked the better signing albeit it a more defensive one, I don't think we know what is going on with Thompson a shadow of his NRL version, maybe he can't settle into the UK with all the Covid issues, time will tell.
Interesting question, how do you think Holbrook would go with our current team of past their best players, would we have got to a Challenge Cup Final beating a pretty decent side in Hull.
An injury (foot) was mentioned earlier in the year when he missed a game when Bentley was fit. I wonder if he's having to play through the pain barrier at the moment because Bentley and Wingfield are unavailable? I could be wrong and he could simply be not settling or not the player he was, but he doesn't look a patch on the player I watched in the NRL last season.
Originally Posted by Despondent Dave
This maybe the case and does constitute a mitigating circumstance.
However even when his toe is right , he will still be 32 , not a line breaker , and have no passing game.
A lot of references to NRL footage last season from several posters.
I must have watched different games.
He came over as steady and little else.
There must have been some rationale for signing him.
Then again there was probably a rationale for signing Paulo.
We got the wrong Paulo, like we got the wrong O'Neill & wrong Smith
No team gets recruitment right every time, the pies & Wire have had some real puddings over the years. Thompson worked nine stop & really belted in defence, we aren't seeing that, he looks to be tentative.
Interesting regarding who is calling the shots on player signings. Rush is a failed coach who should stick to what he's good at IMO. That said, I wasn't upset about the signing of Thompson and as you say, there's something clearly not right with him, whatever that may be.
Excellent question regarding Holbrook. If you remember when he first came in we were all over the place and soon seemed to turn it around. He got the club from the get go, won hearts and minds of players and fans alike although we did still have that soft underbelly. IMO, yes we would still have beaten Hull, let's not forget until we pulled away late on, they'd battered us in that second half same as we did to them in the first. What was striking about that game was that the game was allowed to flow, the same ref on Thursday didn't allow that, in fact the opposite. Anyway, back to Holbrook, I'd take him and a bit of excitement over Woolf any day.
That was the version I was seeing, seem to remember Rushy or Woolf mentioning he makes 100 metres a game and lots of tackles and one of the main attributes was his leadership in the pack. We are seeing the tackles but not the metres or leadership and he seems very quiet and reserved as though he is struggling with the game over here for one reason or the other.
Not written him off yet, he's had 1 or 2 good games but we need that week in week out, Tai would be the opposite you would get 1 or 2 bad games but most of that time he was good and very pivotal.
Are you sure with these comments? Thompson did 20-30 tackles and 70-80 metres gained every week. He disappeared for long periods of games and offered nothing in attack. What did you see that was different?
All the talk pre season baffled me about this guy, I'm sure many of you were watching someone else.
He was below average in Oz and has done exactly the same at Saints.
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Last edited by Buddy; 20th June 2021 at 21:09.
That was my take on seeing him last year.
I saw solid but not a great deal else.
There was a lot of love from manly fans and a lot of positivity regarding his community work.
However that's not the same as form or seeing something on the field that makes you go OK that's why we signed him.