I do find this thread a bit embarrassing. Woolfe, whichever way you dress it up, got us to a Grand Final and yes we actually won it, against our greatest rivals. With a fair wind behind us we should win the Challenge Cup. I see a lot of good in what he has done. Justin got out with the Grand Final win against Salford, superb yes, but in reality we didn't win what we should have with that team at its peak. Justin lovely guy, great personality, bottler?
Totally agree. Maybe it's just being from afar and not getting the full picture but blimey, last season has to be put down as a good season. I agree that the performance last week was disappointing but it's a bit surprising to see how people have gone for the jugular when the slightest thing has gone wrong.
Nobody has "gone for the jugular when the slightest thing has gone wrong", we are continuing a criticism of the style of play that we have had raised time after time since last season. This isn't about results, it's about performances and the way we play. We are all aware that we won the Grand Final, we are all aware we could and should win the Cup, that isn't what we are talking about.
Understand that (style of play) Gray and also felt we were a little clueless last week but the criticism seems a little over the top to me. As I say, sometimes it is difficult to get the full picture from afar. For the games I've seen so far this season, they'll be there or thereabouts at the business end of the season. Don't get to watch all games, they're not all screened. Have watched some pretty dire Saints teams over the years and what I have seen of this season is ions ahead of that.
Edit. I would add that if people are asking him to pack his bags despite the success, then that is 'going for the jugular'.
Last edited by singe; 21st June 2021 at 00:24.
Everyone understands that and agrees in part but there are other factors that come into play outside the coaches influence, thats been explained but the "Jethro Tull" fans here seem to stick their head in the sand and the criticism goes OTT over Woolf, its getting like a stuck record now, sometimes its embarassing and looking as though there is some sort of Holbrook secret "love in" going on.
Well, I can't speak for others but to be honest Holbrook doesn't really feature too much in my thinking day to day. It's a shame that we have to see him as an outlier amongst our coaches post-Anderson (in terms of style of play) but I suppose that is why he draws so much praise on here. It's not because he was a supercoach or didn't make mistakes, because he made several and had his flaws, but I think it's more because since Anderson we have had Potter, Simmons, Brown, Cunningham, Holbrook and Woolf, and of all of those coaches the only one who seemed to enthuse us was Holbrook. He benefits from the poor coaches appointed before him and the perceived negativity of the coach that has come after him, so it's natural he is looked back on fondly. 20 years ago he'd have been just another coach who was here for a while who did a decent job but wasn't perfect, like McRae maybe.
Honestly, I have no idea. Maybe he takes a back-seat to their players with regards to attacking and allows them free reign but he treats Saints as 'his project'? It's not like off-loads are an alien concept to us as a club, is it?
I have been trying to figure out where the disconnect comes in, and why.
Whatever is happening, the brand of rugby we are playing is ugly, slow and boring.
Yes, I agree with that. My mantra is that perhaps we don't have the players now at their best and Woolf struggles with the spine of the team, we only have Lomax to create anything this season. I don't defend Woolf all the time, there are 2 areas he has not looked at because he wants to play percentage error free rugby similar to Cunningham.
He should be looking as already mentioned at an off loading game and a better kicking game, the teams that adopt those tend to give the opportunity for a bit more creativity.
I think WWW mentioned it on another thread, our lateral movement from left to right is really poor as well, highlighted on Thursday with the few times we tried to move it out towards Naiqama and Makinson, it was slow and really badly executed. That kind of thing shouldn't be difficult, it's a fundamental thing in RL to be able to shift it through the hands and commit defenders to create space and an overlap out wide, but we really struggle. I think the coach has to take the blame for things like that, and if he is getting stick for a route one style of play the easiest option B is to be able to give the outside backs a bit of ball from 6 or 7. We have completely overdone the right to left option to the extent that teams sit and wait for it now, but IMO a top coach who wants us to have a few strings to our bow should be focusing on basic fundamentals. When we have a genuine world class finisher in Makinson it is criminal to feed him scraps most weeks. He still scores tries in really tight windows, but I feel we leave points on the field because we cannot execute the fundamentals, or at times don't even try them.
I can't is the simple answer.
It's a puzzle and in some senses adds to the frustration.
Is the Tongan style Woolfs creation or does he just let them play to their preferred style?
If that's the case then some questions need to be asked of the rest of the Saints coaching staff and seniors pros.
It's like chalk and cheese the contrasts in style.
Struggled when slowed down which has been the case since 2018. It's why we always struggle against Warrington. They slow us down and our one key play (that seems to be the one play everyone in SL runs) struggles massively against an organised line with time to set.
Lack of trying something different really frustrating. I thought we did go out wide a lot but with the same move on the back of a slow ruck making it consistently unsuccessful. The fact we just tried the same play 15-20 times across the game hoping for a different result made it frustrating to watch. Our general lack of pace is concerning and means when the game is slow we do not have someone who can create something from little to no openings rather than Grace or Lomax. Been said on other threads but huge 2 year window in terms of recruitment. Dufty would be a great start and hopefully Dodd can offer a running threat that Fages doesn't.
Those saying it is the worst for ten years etc must have been in a coma during 2016/2017. Hull battering in the cup 2016, Cas humiliation in the cup 2017, even Catalan bouncing us in the 2018 semi final all far worse than losing a tight game at home to Warrington. Need far more ideas in attack yes but I cannot fathom anyone thinking it is worse now than it was then.