Going in late on the kicker after a very good defensive set forced them to kick from their 40
Putting the nut in after the tackle on the Cas line line.
Awful attitude
I could excuse a poor performance after such a long injury lay off, but giving away needless penalties No.
Batchelor is Mr solid and nothing more. Why have you put MY in capitals? Not questioning your preferences, you can choose to support who you like but booing players wearing the shirt is a disgrace. He wasn’t offered a better deal in 12 months time, Leeds offered it to him right now. For me, any one who boo’s their own player is pathetic.
This is nothing to do with his move to Leeds, his display last night was shocking. He bounced around trying to knock players about like an idiot and just became a liability and a penalty machine. He should have been dragged off as it needed calm heads. His display wasn’t the niggling player we enjoyed earlier in the season, it was the display of a thug and somebody who is trying to develop some kind of enforcer tag in his own head.
Bentley has never offered anything with ball in hand so Leeds are welcome to him . Disgrace from him last night. Hope he never plays for us again
A section of fans boo’d him when he took to the field on half an hour. Then began to sing anti Leeds songs. Unless you have the benefit of foresight this is the Leeds reference. His performance, discipline wise thereafter wasn’t up to standard and he’ll get better over the next few games. Criticism for that is to some extent warranted.
More niggling on here than last night
LET THE GAME BEGIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Think Bentley will get a couple of games ban for the two incidents of putting his forearm into the faces of tackled players ?
If he gets banned for dropping on the untackled Paul McShane then we will appeal and win as there is nothing in it. The late hit on the kicker is late, not high and is dealt with by the referee on the pitch. There is nothing in that either. There is no ban here for Bentley.
I don’t know whether it was because he was playing loose forward or he was just over excited being back after injury but he seemed to go out of his way to try and be an ‘enforcer’. Instead of doing it like Knowles and legally bashing the shit out of the opposition he went with the ‘late hit and grubby elbows’ approach.
Forwards win games. The backs decide by how much.
Massive overreaction to Bentley I think. He didn't have that bad a game. Got a little silly but I think that was just him trying a bit too hard to make an impression. His yellow card was a bit daft but there wasn't much in it, borderline whether it's even a penalty. The hit on the kicker was very borderline too, Cas' constant professional overreactions to force the referee to penalise us were annoying. Liam Watts did what Bentley did to McShane's back to someone's face a minute or two later and there were no cards shown. McShane hit Lomax high about 4 or 5 times and again no cards shown.
My biggest problem is that Bentley (and Mata'utia, who also had his worst performance of the season last night) brought absolutely no line speed in our defence. The props were rushing up as usual, and time and again they got beat with a side step on the inside as he was 5m behind the line, they get a quick play the ball, and then theyre rolling up field. When you combine that with grubbiness, and the poor discipline, and the pedestrian attack, it probably the worst individual performance for us in 5 years. I am not sure if its hes come back completely under ready, or was over eager (or the big contract has given him a big ego boost) but I wouldnt be disappointed if he picked up a ban this week.
He wasnt alone, Coote was awful, Naiqama was making Turner look like a superstar, Batchelor is so naive its painful, Amor contributed nothing other than two critical knock ons, Lees, LMS and Thompson were anonymous and Lomax and Dodd were completely outplayed by their opposite numbers. I genuinely dont know how Makinson got a red, but we had 3 sets on their line to score a try and win, and we failed - which is on Woolf. This is a real test of Woolf I think, because we desperately need to put it behind us as a "bad day at the office".
We have 6 games left, and if the club are serious about wanting to win the LLS we need to win all 6, and even then its out of our hands now. Its an incredibly disappointing step back after some more positivity around the club in the last month or so (around our form).
Disgraceful behaviour.
There's some players who choose to leave and do so in an underhand or scumbaggy way (or choose to spurn us for the scum) and I can understand fans giving a bit of grief. But this is a young player who's moving back to his home county and has done it above board without being a tit about Saints. Coote hasn't been booed, Fages wouldn't have been booed.
I'm not sure any player should be booed in such situations (except Brett Goldspink - that was perfectly acceptable) and he certainly didn't receive anything like that from the North Stand.
There does seem to be a lot of revisionism about at the moment with regard to Bentley. When he broke his leg, he was allegedly worth his weight in gold, shored up the defence, got through a ton of work and we'd miss him. Then he signed for Leeds and he couldn't handle the ball, had no attack and was a liability who we wouldn't miss at all.
Last night could be an example of him trying too hard, but I do also wonder whether he would have put in a performance like that if he wasn't leaving. The subconscious mind often overrides the conscious mind and deep down in that head he knows that he will soon no longer be a Saints player. He's nothing to lose and I just think he got a bit carefree and giddy, losing all sense of responsibility to his club and his team mates. He was irresponsible from first to last and our group called for him to be taken off before he eventually got the yellow card, because it was an accident waiting to happen. The coach should have hooked him well before that time arrived.
For me, after that performance, he should not be considered again for selection until he proves to his coach that his heart and mind are still in it, and he's in the rest of the season for the team and not himself.
THIS YEAR LENDING SUPPORT TO:- St. Helens RLFC, Manchester City, Celtic, Alemannia Aachen, Steps 1 to 6 Non-League Football
Woolf hinted in the press that Bentley will play at Wigan next week but unless we have any injuries in the forwards I'm not sure how. Not sure I'd select him ahead of any of our props and if Knowles, Thompson, Batchelor and Mata'utia are fit, he's not getting ahead of them based on that performance.
On Batchelor he reminds me of Mike Bennett a little bit. Solid, doesn't miss many tackles and fairly quick but nothing more than that. Good squad player to have if you have other attacking back rowers so hopefully we've lined up an attacking back rower for next season which compliment him a bit
Originally Posted by Despondent Dave
I was actually referring to Bentley in my post but agree with your sentiment on batchelor.
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Bentley has always been someone who gives away a large amount of penalties, he toes the line, so will cross it sometimes, i like him because hes willing to stand up and be counted physically and not afraid to get involved, no matter the size of the opponent. That makes him a marmite sort of player, people like that about him, but others cant really tolerate the number of penalties and infringements he makes. Batchelor doesnt give the same amount of penalties away, isnt too far behind Bentley in the physicality stakes and offers similar or slightly better going forward, i can see why some prefer him.