Originally Posted by
Tez the Saint
I understand both sides of the Coote thing to be fair but the club live and die by these decisions. Barba leaving wasn’t unexpected, they had the time to figure out who to sign. Coote will bring to Saints what he’s brought to the Cowboys and they were the best team on the planet with him in it. He did a lot of kicking down the left for them, he’s tough, he’s got good hands, he’s got good feet, he’s got acceleration. We could have brought in another full back but had that been the case, we’d have needed a scrum half and to be honest, Lomax was brilliant last year and I think Richardson deserves another shot as well. If you sign a half for three years, if Richardson turns into Andrew Johns by September, what then? If the idea is that Richardson is more of a running player, this season he’s got Naquima on his shoulder who more of an attacking threat than Morgan (so in terms of strike in attack, you could say that’s an upgrade), he’s got Peyroux and Makinson there as well and he’s got Coote taking pressure off him inside him. A good running player should be able to prosper in that company.
Also, an important thing for me is that if worst comes to worst, Naquima and Lomax have played at full back for their countries. Coote can, and may even start the year playing in the halves, there’s options to change it if needed. I don’t think there’s a need to worry really because of that.
I also think that with the interchanges and the rule changes, kicking the ball becomes even more important. Having a left foot/right foot option is really good and a lot of successful teams have that that, we had it when we were successful. Cameron Smith/Cooper Cronk is arguably the best example in recent years when it comes manipulating a back field and the effects that can have. Back three’s can’t set as early because there’s always an option of a 40/20 on one side of the field and Coote is good enough to exploit that.
In terms of Saints as a team, I’d like to see us be less structured with the ball. Last season, I felt we were too predictable in that towards the end of the year, you could predict where the ball was going, we were very fixed in terms of where players were standing. Barba got some stick and rightly so at times, but everyone in the ground knew when and where he was going to get the ball. That’s down to the coaches so this year I’d like to see our halves have a bit more freedom to roam around the field a little bit more and I’d like to see more plays in attack rather than having two leads and going out the ball all the time.