Irrelevant. Look at our big game results this season.

Huddersfield in the cup - Extremely lucky to get a result. On another day Brough's DG is given. We were well gone until Ferres was sent off.
Warrington away - Decent result but in a poor season for Warrington, this was arguably their worst performance
Leeds hone - Great effort with kids willing to give their all for the jersey.
Wigan home - Outenthused by a team who on paper weren't favourites to win the game. Not for the first time against Wigan and certainly not the last.
Castleford away - Didn't turn up for 50 minutes. Great effort to come back but Castleford contributed to the win by freezing as the winning line drew close.
Leeds away - Forwards didn't turn up, comfortably beaten
Warrington - As above.

Other than Warrington away early doors, we couldn't argue if we'd lost all 6 of the other games. I don't particularly blame the backs although Turner has been poor. Our senior forwards need to take a good hard look at themselves. They've been disgraceful.

The worrying aspect for me is Amor has missed the majority of those games. He played in the 1st Warrington game, went off injured against Huddersfield and missed the rest. When he doesn't play our forwards go into hiding.

We need more players like him in the pack who are wiling to take us forward and do the hard work.

It's embarrassing to be reliant on one prop forward.

Of the backs, only really Turner hasn't shown up. Lomax, Jones, Swift, Makinson (and to a lesser extent Percival) have all shown up for us.

Having said that, Lomax needs some serious defence coaching. I don't doubt his commitment or bottle, but he doesn't throw himself under balls on the tryline in the way, say, Hardaker does at Leeds. His defence is likely to stop him developing inot a genuine top player unless some serious hard work is done.

Look at it another way. By common consent Leeds are the best team in the comp. Only two teams have beaten them. Both similar scenarios. Lots of youngsters in due to a host of injuries.

At the moment Wigan are stronger due to Good Friday - but that can change in June at the DW derby.

I for one am not writing Saints off. I think that Wigan/Leeds/Saints with possibly Huddersfield have a decent chance at winning the GF.

Yes things need to be changed - but you are starting from a position of strength. You have the players - it's the attitudes that need work. Nothing else.

For me Lomax has gone backwards with respect to Defence, he doesn,t show that realibilty and confidence in taking an akward ball be it a high or bouncing ball.
His biggest problem is reading the game play making sure he is in the right position, I,m suprised Brown has not tried a few games withLomax in partnership and learning off Walsh with Lance back to his natural position of full back.

I see where you are coming from but this attitude has been in place since Sculthorpe finished playing. We've lost Graham over that time and Wellens isn't palying the full 80 any more but there's not one leader out there for us. Roby and Wellens have always lead by example rather than by their words which is fine in itself but it's always nice to have a player bawling the lads out behind the sticks if things aren't going well. You'd always get that with Sculthorpe/Graham/Long/Kieron. When was the last time our lads had a scrap on the field? Again, I'm not saying it's the right things to do and it was nice to at least see some of our lads run in yesterday when it looked as though there may be a bit of trouble but the last time it kicked off, the majority of our lads turned their backs let Walmesley get on with it. Can you imagine Leeds or Wigan lads doing that?

It's not all about trophies but we've gone into 4 Grand Finals in that time as favourites and won none. We've not reached a Cup Final since 08 losing plenty of big quarter/semi finals to Wigan along the way. Whenever the pressure is turned up to it's fullest you can almost guarantee we're fully behind the 8 ball at 12/16-0 down after 20 minutes. Other teams want things a hell of a lot more than we do and it's high time that changed. That defeat yesterday could turn out to be the best thing that's happened to Saints for years if we start to learn the lesson.

For me, Lomax is the player currently playing furthest beneath his capabilities. Yesterday, we actually made several breaks. The job of the fullback is to be backing up those breaks. He was nowhere. One of the reasons the ball-carriers ended up throwing silly passes was because there was no easy pass to give, because Lomax wasn't backing up. When Warrington made breaks, they had men (including their fullback), in support.

That is very telling in my view. The difference between a confident team playing well, and a low-confidence team playing badly, is the off-the ball running, both in terms of support/dummy runners, and defensive scramblers.

Yesterday, when we broke, we had no support. We struggled even to muster a dummy runner sometimes. One of the reasons we made so little ground in our sets was because you could tell who was getting the ball for a one-up hit before it was even played. Likewise, in defence, when they broke, all our players were jogging and watching to see if the fullback was going to make the tackle, allowing their ball-carrier an easy draw-and-pass to his support. When we broke, there were blue shirts everywhere, running full tilt to block options and cover potential support.

Lomax is really not playing well at all. And that's before you even get to the awful kick-offs both in attack and defence.

Can't disagree with that at the moment. He's a bit of an enigma Jonny in that he seems to be rated so highly by the staff at Saints and the majority of fans. He's been excellent fleetingly throughout his career but you'd have expected him to have kicked on a little bit more by now. I wonder if he struggles with confidence issues? He's obviously got all the ability in the world and he isn't one of the players under scrutiny for not giving his all....if anything, it looks as though he's trying a bit too hard.

On another note, who are the players Brown/McManus/Wellens are alluding to regarding not putting their all in? LMS and Turner are the first two that come to mind but have we any other candidates? I'd personally put Masoe in there. I don't think you can put Walker in there, I just don't actually think he's good enough yet to be playing for Saints. What type of team are we expecting on Friday? I'd like to think that Brown has had enough and the players he doesn't think are doing enough will be dropped.

If I was picking the team for Friday, it would be

Lomax, Makinson, Jones, Dawson, Swift, Hohaia, Walsh, Thompson, Roby, Walmesley, Soliola, Greenwood, Flanagan: Richards, Masoe, Savelio, Wellens.

Whilst I'm not Dawson's biggest fan, I couldn't criticise his effort. I'd really like to see LMS, Wilkin and Turner given a sit down. No chance with Wilkin of course.

I agree about Dawson. You want better quality backs if you want to get to the Grand Final but the lad is like the Gary Neville of RL. He puts 110% in & doesn't balls up much.

Go on use LMS as the scapegoat . Is it just because he is a London lad that you all dig him out on here and his not from up north . I guess I am right. You might want to tell the whole team not to bother to come in. Do you really think The team want to lose games they go out there to win every game . 17 lads were on that field Sunday and LMS was not on there for that long however he still gets blamed. Who fault is it now oh Turner I bet.

Load of rubbish! He's getting slagged off because he isn't performing and doing Richards/Tilley/Savelio out of a game!

What twaddle - there are Wiganers in the squad who aren't getting flak for goodness sake.

Listen Louie, we saw you put it in at the back end of last year. Pull your finger back out and we'll stop giving you deserved stick. Oh, and stop trying to offload in ridiculous positions. And run your weight. And bend your back when you tackle.

On Lomax. I've always liked him as a player, he has come through a tough time. I think he's playing a bit lame at the moment. He took another knock yesterday and didn't look quite right to me.

.
Totally agree with your comments good post

Who got tonnes of credit for playing really well before signing a new contract? LMS.
Who got Saints player of the year last year? Turner.

Must be because they are from different places to LMS and Turner this year?

Lance getting credit, must be because he is a fans favourite?

Wellens credited for a decent showing even though he may not have the ability anymore, must be because he is the first name on the team sheet for every fan?

Or maybe your just trying to excuse everyone and anyone. I'm glass half full, but you are the never ending drink.

They'll have a club meeting, someone will tell them they're all in this together. End of.

Whoever decided to offer LMS and Wilkin new deals needs firing. Too many players are having it far too easy here at the moment.

Correct, and maybe run a few ideas up the flagpole and see who salutes them. Important thing is that everyone is on the same page and they all sing from the same hymn sheet!

I wonder after the end of last season how many fans wouldn't have taken...2nd place a point behind league leaders leeds at this stage in the season?
I could understand it if it were 1 point above London.

All of them. They'd probably take that for next season if it was offered. Too many Saints fans believed their own hype. Prior to Good Friday, they were seriously looking at an entire season undefeated. Just 3 losses later and some are wondering where the next win will come from.

Its feast or famine. Never anything in between!

Not at all.

It's not the results Saints fans are concerned about, it is the performances and most importantly the attitude we've shown in the big games. All of the key games this season have been farcical and over within 20 minutes. We've started them like wet lettuces.

No one would mind having lost the derby and in the cup to Leeds and Magic to Warrington if we'd really had a dig. But in all three games we've been completely flaccid, limp. No aggression and a sense that the whole team is in shock. No attacking structure, no defense worth mentioning.

Its not about the results as such, its the lack of jeart shown against Wigan and Wire. These are our two main local rivals and wins against these means more than anything. The players and coaches (all of them) didnt seem bothered that we were losing to them at all

I can only judge my own reaction. Some have been on about this since lost 1, some since before.

To me I have not been overly concerned.

Catalan I thought was an ok shift just a little easy on a team with poor form.
Wakefield away is always an unknown quantity
Leeds was amazing and unexpected.
Huddersfield in the cup, we looked a little lack luster.
Cas we were extremely lucky to come back
Wigan was pretty dire
Widnes I expect given Leeds in the cup
Leeds in the cup we just looked disjointed.
London and Bradford where to be expected, although we made hard work of London.
Warrington is starting to look like more of a pattern

We can't put it all down to luck it's a run of 11 games where performances have dropped off. Some we could coast through, but others we needed a stroke of luck to get by.

I'm not advocating sacking everyone, but everyone does have to look at themselves and that includes the untouchables.
My concern is not Brown, it is that this is a pattern that occured under a different coach with different players. Therefore we can't just put it down to old heads and player power.

I really hate cliches.



Oh; I just realised he is from over the hump.