Long was looking to protect him so he could catch it (stupidly so IMO, he could and should have been far more subtle). He also missed a pretty easy catch when jumping behind Donald at one point.

You can't be serious.

If we're talking about the same incidents, one good kick found the ground and bounced away from Wello - Meli fumbles an easy take.

The other Long is nowhere near - he's blocking runners. Meli looks at the ball for a few seconds . . . . then decides to look at the chasers instead.

He runs the ball well but the fact is when he doesn't clear up simple positions he puts us under the sort of pressure that 20 runs won't fix. The bloke simply isn't good enough to perform consistently as a winger given the kick pressure they come under. He's not up to it and a couple of decent clearing runs don't alter that.

Nice fumble on a pass at the end to put the cherry on too.

No! he is a guy that clearlt doesent need glasses!

Whatever he may have done or not done, we have no pace in our backline what-so-ever.

We need to find some speed from somewhere otherwise we are doomed.

If that's how you want to look at it then longy was shocking!!!!

Nearly every pass he threw was either in front of the plater, behind the player , to a Leeds player or had a big red cross on it!!!

I find it unreal how to mistakes by meli and he's getting bagged again!

He run better than any saints player last night.

Wello was all over the place in the 1st place when meli dropped that kick.

meli has probably been your best player for the last few weeks, nobody else is scoring tries

Can anyone explain it:

According to this forum

We have the two worse wingers in superleague.
We have the slowest Fullback in the game.
We play most of the season with one prop forward.
We play all the season without a left centre.
We have had one of the worst seasons for injuries.


Yet we finish runners up in the league, manage semi final in the CC, push Leeds close on there own ground, still looking OK for the play offs.
Based on the above we should be bottom of the league no hopers should we not.

I thought he had a strong game myself, although the couple of knock ons are still a concern. Let's hope he doesn't do it if we reach the final...

However
Meli can't catch but after that he is a top winger
Wello is slow but after that is still by far the best fb in the league
He's one hell of a prop though and we have tony p in 2nd row who is prop size.
Young players ala wheeler/eastmond/dean have done better thanexpected in centre.
Young lads have done far better than anyone could have hoped for.
Its not all bad!

That what I was thinking, I don,t slag off any saints players, everyone has weaknesses, off form etc.
After last nights game, I think the performance gave us more reasons to be cheerful.

Me too, we may have lost, but the performance was back to were we need to be. We are coming back into form at the perfect time.

It seems the problem with the "baggers" on here is that they cannot see past very obvious mistakes - they then put their hat on it and ignore all the rest of the good work or issues with the team so that they can single out a player.

Before you start singling out someone for critisism then ask why the opposition are allowed to be in that position to put up the kick - could it be mistakes further up the field that gives them better field position than they should have or some simple mised tackle or a lazy player getting back on side that the opposition exploit.
You should also think why our own attack seems incapable of asking enough questions of the opposition to give us opportunities to score, we had more than enough position and possesion last night to have scored 20+ points - yet we didnt, we dont seem to have a move in us - even the now well known sweeping back line move hasnt made an appearance for the last couple of months.

Meli is rubbish and a laughing stock. I don't know why you pick him.

I thought Long's mistakes cost us the match. Him giving away penalties led to them scoring two tries and his poor pass led to Pryce being binned.

Nah. Long did have a couple of brain farts, yes, but what led to Leeds scoring two tries was our defensive weakness at that time. Had we defended better at those moments - like their first try, why did no-one take care of the ball carrying arm?!? (seems simple play by Saints standards) - they would not have scored, even with the gift of an - as usual - unseen Leeds forward pass.

It's harsh to put two tries on one player when it's a team game and the whole team failed to stop those tries.

to be fair he has no depth perception

Meli's problem is that his brain farts invariably cost us tries, same as Gardners did. That tends to outweigh his good points in some matches.



I agree that not all tries conceded are down to the last person to miss a tackle, however you aren't going to stop an opposition player putting a kick in and him not taking kicks is down to him, no one else.



Maybe it's because we've had a very unsettled half back combination this year? We've been lucky in the last few years that neither Long nor Pryce have been out for any length of time, that settled combination has not been there this year with a number of players playing in the halves. We've also had Cunningham and Roby out for longer periods than usual. All of this has contributed to our lack of fluency in attack.

Harsh perhaps, but they were the chinks that opened up our defence.

Those two penalties (the first one being very dumb, the second more understandable) were on the last tackle. He gave Leeds another set of six in out 10-20 metre zone, good sides make that kind of error pay and Leeds are a damn good side.

Oh there are reasons for it, lack of match sharpness and as you say problems with his vision, but he's fit enough to play so he's fit enough to take the blame when he makes errors.

Disagree. Our defence failed to cover properly.

He made his mistakes, yes, but he also played some good plays, like the kick back down field after their kick out of play. That reminded me of the old Longy and it was good to see. I hope we see much more of that for the remainder.

Last night Meli dropped one pass and one bomb (okay a shocking drop - but still only one) the other dropped bomb had already been blown for a penalty by Long. Even his dropped bomb didnt cost us a try - just field position.
Its amazing that 2 mistakes, neither of which resulted in a direct try now makes his overall performance "the worst ever" - you just illustrate my point that people focus on obvious mistakes and build their own case around that.



Its a lot easier (and not usually the wingers responsibility) if the opposition have to kick from their own half or just in yours rather than the 30 m line when they will put pressure on wingers.



So in other words if we lose a player then we are unable to cover his position with another player who is capable of running training moves in a real life situation - if that is the case then we will have problems next year

wello got no where catching that kick so I take he's not enough then? Or is it ok because he St helens lad?

The wasn't only meli that made mistakes. Longy made them all night, wello dropped a kick, tony p give a pen away that put the game out of reach.

Yet meli had better game than all them but gets bagged again

do our wingers not practice catching kicks, serious question, a hour everyday would improve it surely, so do we do it? and if not, why not?

Meli has been one of our better players all season. Anyone who disagrees or slags him off is lacking in understanding of the modern rugby league game. He offers more than Gardner, who is a very poor winger, and does a lot of hard work covering for our lack of weight in the forwards.

Give the guy a chance!!!!!

I agree with everything you say mate, I'm not his biggest fan either.

He ran better than any of our backrows.