Happy we conceeded nothing, listened on Wish FM and even they couldn't understand why Silverdud blew the pea out of his whistle.
I for one am looking forward to the playoffs as I'm hoping it is where Saints show the eternal "realists" on here that they are fully focused on a 7th consecutive Grand Final appearance.
Win, lose or draw I'm a Saints Fan and will never ever say that I don't want to see us competing for trophies. The In-laws support the Dire and it is gut wrenching watching them parade round like they have been the best team in Super League since it's inception in 1996.

Every team in the top 8 has a chance! at the end of the day it's knock out Rugby for 5th - 8th from week 1 of the play offs then the rest join from week 2 (depending on their week 1 results).

Abolish the Club call though as it is an absolute Farce that you can choose who you play to try to get to Old Trafford.

Here, Here!

All for that! but I would go one step further & make it simply a knockout competition just with the top club going through, no second bites of the cherry! whoever came up with that is beyond me, lose a cup game but go on have another go? it should the simply the Sky TV Knockout Trophy and the Top of Super League are the Premiership Winners!

We have got to start holding on to these players! we can't just be looked as a feeder club, three good players in Sarginson, Dixon and Caro, I think players living together in club houses helps, it builds up good moral as many of the London lads would come from a large area of the Capital which can take two hours to travel across.

I used to take the mick out of people who go to games and do everything but watch them. But I became one on Friday night, despite the fact that the Chelsea updates were loading at a slugs pace on our phones. I even looked at the clock expecting time to be up, and was gutted when it had 10 minutes left.



Doesn't surprise me if he's on the blower to Daniel Anderson every week. So obsessed with completing sets that we almost look shocked when we fall over the line. I just hope that this isn't the long term plan that Brown has in his ear and they are just steadying the ship so to speak.

On another note, Dixon has been called up to the England Knights squad. Well deserved judging by that performance.

If we play with the same style of play as we have done recently and for the majority of the season we don't stand a chance. Warrington, Wigan and Leeds would find it easy to defend against us and we wouldn't be able to overpower them. If we play like we did in that game against Leeds at Langtree Park earlier in the year were we offloaded the ball and played with pace at the ruck, who knows.

I won't be holding my breath though. Our recent performances are worrying.

My top 8 comment was a generalisation and I hope that Mike Rush gives the squad freedom to play expansive rugby like we did in the Leeds and Warrington games at the beginning of their tenure.

I'm seriously hoping we can make a good go of the play-offs as it seems to be when we are at our most clinical (until the Grand Final)

And this is where a lot of us differ.

a) It won't see us bring the trophy home because Warrington and Wigan are miles better than us, but it could see us progress quite far - albeit ultimately ending up failures yet again.

More importantly though -

b) I pay my money to enjoy my evening. I pay to be entertained. Whilst we all accept that sometimes you have to grind out the odd result to achieve your goals, when that starts to happen every single week, then I cease to sympathise with the attitude.

I've seen Saints teams lose many more games in a season than this but enjoyed them much more. Winning isn't everything to me. If all I cared about was the result then I'd watch the game on the BBC score updates page.

I was that bored that I watched about twenty minutes of the game on Friday. I probably spent more time looking at my phone. If it wasn't for modern technology, I'd have been forced to watch it all and that would have been a punishment too far.

i really don't know why some of you on this forum, bother to go watching saints.. All you ever do is complain, you would probably complain if you won the lotto, if you do win it please don't buy saints off mac, we would all be slitting our throats reading the chairmans comments in the programme

Oh. My. God.

Compared to the previous game he has a point!

I think they truely are defense and error reduction minded coaches. It went wrong against Wakey and so they went back to reducing errors and making the defense solid.

In a way we really need a 3rd coach to go with these 2. These 2 can work on defense and a Sean Long type to give some ideas going forwards.

It's always a balance between chancing your arm and accepting that you will turn the ball over more often and playing it so tight that it's more like 1980' England Rugby Union where territory and possesion are everything.

You're right, of course. But for an all St Helens coaching team, St Helens chairman (and a St Helens captain!) to endorse our current playing style is sacrilegious. You'd think they'd understand as well as any fan...

Both Wello's and Eamon's programme columns made me laugh as well. McManus clearly actually believes this squad is capable of winning trophies and that it was Royce's fault we didn't.

Wello on the other hand used his column to try and justify his contract extension. He mentioned Warrington's old guard of Briers, Morley and Hodgson getting new deals and hinted that there are no talented players available anywhere in the world so why not keep them? He so closely paraphrased a couple of people on here that I'm convinced that one of the pro-Wellens camp on here is actually Paul himself, all I need to do now is work out which one.

I can't wait to read Eamon's programme notes at the start of next season if we've still not signed a halfback, a prop or sorted the fullback spots out. He'll no doubt pay hommage to Wello's scintilating attacking prowess and call him the best fullback in the world like he did earlier in the year. Meanwhile the ambitious clubs will share the trophies and we'll no doubt sack Nathan Brown before the end of his second year.

I'm Paul Wellens.

To be fair, what else would you expect them to say? "We've made a series of monumental cock-ups in coaching appointments the last few years, are in a mess because of it and are now stuck with a limited youth team coach who can only play 1-dimensional, ultra dull, safety first rugby as a result, but just keep turning up and paying us to see this **** anyway please"?

Fair point. There's plenty of 'typical RL player cliché interview' ways to say that we were below par at the weekend though.

"Wasn't the best game for the fans but we did the job" etc. etc.

He could only say what he said if he genuinely believed it. And that's worrying.

I don't think its Saints that is the problem. The powers in their infinite wisdom are allowing the ruck to be slowed down. I believe in order to bring us closer to the Aussies.

Personally however, if its going to lead to seasons of dull games I say sod the internationals because its ruining a good sport.

Saints have just had to adapt as our main method of play has been made ineffective, by changes in the refing of games.

I seriously was contemplating whether to renew my season ticket this year because to be frank, not many games have been worth the entrance fee.




Well personally telling us how it is and how they are going to do something next season to fix it, may make the decision to renew my season ticket easier. But if we are going to defend this brand of Rugby well, the heart says yes but the head say keep the money.

Well to be fair LMS was the only one who looked up for the game.

I agree to an extent, but at the same time, our style of play should the ruck be sped back up would clearly be based around Roby ripping slow-retreating defenders to shreds around the play the ball. I don't think it would solve the problem of how unimaginitive we are and how unable we are to break down opposition defences close to the line. It would however result in a faster more open spectacle with gaps on the field which is the game we all grew up watching. Can see both sides really.

Your reactions are too quick. You responded in 21 minutes, it would take Wello that long to bend down to pick his laptop up.

Forget anything else at the end of the day I support Saints. The last few years with this attempt to bring us in line with the Aussies have seen the spectacle that is RL in this country dwindle. I never was a big fan of watching NRL and it pains me to see us trying to emulate them. At the end of the day when you have lots of people leaving a stadium after having paid good money walk out unfulfilled 'BTW that does not mean winning' its just not good for saints or the game as a whole.

The thing is balance. Super league was too quick when we had Roby/KC/Higham ravaging sides up the middle. They then spotted this and went far too far the other way. Teams like Wigan under Maguire and Warrington under Smith get so many men into the tackle that they can slow it down to 10 second play the balls, meaning the defensive line is well and truly set and that there is no momentum at all.

Super League just doesn't have the calibre of creative player to have the game as slow as it is now. The few close games in semis and finals are won by which side is the most aggressive and the side that makes the least errors and kicks better. As a viewing spectacle the NRL is great only because the calibre of player is so much higher. Super League is, on the whole, incredibly boring to watch now as the standard is so low, there are so many errors and penalties and the play the balls are so drawn out.

I agree with everything well except for the NRL been exciting, up until 2-3 years ago I though super league was a better spectator sport. However its a long time since I watched the NRL so maybe it has picked up.

I find the NRL is easy to watch because even though it's slower than Super League has been typically, it's so much cleaner around the ruck. They play the game in a more crisp way, play the balls are done properly, it's slowed naturally if the defending team wins the collision, it's quick if the ball carrier does and the basic skills are always executed more sharply and you see less basic errors. The NRL sides pretty much always have good kicking games, so whilst it's still defensively minded and 5 drives and a kick like Super League has become, it's done to a higher standard. There is also a much wider spread of elite players, it seems pretty much every side in the NRL has a 'wow' player, where in Super league the better players don't stay at clubs like Wakefield, London, Salford, Cas etc they move on to the big clubs very quickly.

Bulldogs - Barba, Sea Eagles - Lyon, Storm - Slater, Rabbitos- Inglis, Cowboys - Thurston, Broncos - Thaiday, Raiders - Dugan, Sharks - Gallen, Knights - Uate, Titans - Bird, Eels - Hayne, Dragons - Morris, Roosters - Pearce, Warriors - Johnson, Tigers - Marshall, Panthers - Jennings.

I bet it would be pretty embarassing by comparison to list the Super League clubs like that.