Relevance?

It is relevant. Long's been a great scrum-half for us, but I'm not sure I'd suggest that he's the guy I'd turn to for a cool-headed and rational assessment of what's going on at the club. He's got a track record of being impulsive, short-sighted, dumb and selfish off the pitch. Not all bad characteristics for mercurial scrum-halves, but chronically bad ones for pundits on management.

Players on their way out of a club (regardless of sport) are usually unsure of their 'role' within the team - mainly because some other bugger is often required to pick up the pieces and needs game time to help him do so.

And if I've heard one story about a St. Helens coach 'losing the dressing room' I've heard a hundred. Rugby players - like the rest of us - enjoy routine. Changes frighten them. If a new coach doesn't push a few of the established players' noses out of joint in his first year he's a good candidate for an early severance package.

That said, dressing rooms and coaches can and do part company. Not as often as the smoke-signallers on this site and RV like to claim, but it's a possibility. And when they do diverge it can be impossible to reunite them. Bad blood is spilt and in the heat of the moment things get said that - for some players - are impossible to forgive or forget.

Potter is in an onerous situation. Unlike Bomber, Hanley, Millward and Anderson he can't rely on a core group of exceptionally talented playmakers at the top of their game. Unlike Bomber, Hanley, Millward and Anderson he does not have a quick, creative or gamebreaking backline at his disposal. And I'll hazard his budget is a good bit lower than those of the four names mentioned, too. If it's a choice between spare cash being spent on the new stadium or the playing roster there is only one rational decision. I'm sure he'd love to have at his disposal some of the crazy money that was thrown at Newlove or Scully. But we all know there's no chance of that.

The truth is - given the resources available to us this season we have almost certainly exceeded rational expectation. And even irrational expectation couldn't drop below 'made target'.

I mean, seriously - with our backline (Gidley excepted) where did some of you figure we'd finish - ten points ahead of second place and the CC by sixty points to nil?

We were six points ahead of second place not that long ago this season, so that bit might have been possible given a few better performances and less experimentation with where players were playing (either side of the injury crisis, I mean).

I'm easily pleased.

I want to see the team play with 100% desire, and a decent amount of flair.

The result is, to a degree, secondary - although if we do the above, I can't help but feel the results will look after themselves.

What I can't tolerate is leaving my beloved Knowsley Road bored out of my skull - and that has happened far too many times this year.

Here, here.

Entertainment is definitely more important than winning/losing to some fans, including me. However come the play offs I know we'd all take a win at any price in every match with a flukey drop goal from a prop forward in the 80th minute after a dire 'five drives and a kick' type performance. But let's be real there is no way that five drives and a kick is going to get us over the line in the play off matches. Over to you Mick, what have you got for us???

I was told by someone who works at another super league club that potter will be leaving at the of the year.

He said potter told sir mac that he's happy to leave at the end of the year.

He also said saints have lined a coach from the storm in the NRL.

I'm not sure if it's already been posted on here or how true it is but I'd like potter to stay and prove how good of a coach he is.

he's already proved it. What ever you guys think has happened this season isn't purely at potters feet. As always though, its easier to replace 1 coach rather than 20+ players

The challenges of getting a lower to mid table side to punch above their weight are different to those of coaching a top side though.

Think Allardyce v Ferguson in football.

Potter is undoubtedly a good coach, just [imaybe[/i not the right one.

i do see your point.

However Potter is in is first season with a squad has just taken over. A squad that wasn't his, hasn't had time to groom and arguably a squad in the decline.

Good leadership starts in the dressing room and is rounded up by the coach.

Having said that you finished 2nd and will likely make another GF. Don't see how he did much worse than Anderson.

Agreed, which is why I won't be brandishing a 'Potter Out' banner just now.

I realise that to non Saints fans, finishing 2nd in the table to Leeds and reaching a CC semi to be beaten by a fantastic performance on the day by Hudds isn't a season to be ashamed of (in fact, every team bar Leeds and arguably Wire would take it), but for Saints fans the real worry lies in the performance of the team rather than results.

We have been dull, predictable and scrappy for the majority of the season - some fans could live with that if it resulted in trophies (there were times under Anderson where we played simple percentage rugby rather than the off the cuff stuff we're reknowned for, and he's considered as some kind of demi-god by some speccies), but it looks unlikely to do so this time.

Potter has a season under his belt, and a full close season now to really make his mark. Next season, we'll see.

That says more about the standard of the league than anything else.

The simple fact is that he isn't on thin ice. Potter and McManus know this job wouldn't be achieved in one season and McManus isn't going to make knee-jerk decisions just become some fans have set their expectations too high.

It's going to take Saints a few years to gel the new squad together and to get them back playing the 'Saints way'. Until then it's going to be sloppy, untidy, frustrating and occasionally great, but that is the way of sporting legacies. As one breaks down another has to be built. Note the word built there. We're not Warrington, we cannot just start buying a team wholesale. We have to blood the kids and start them playing safe, sensible football as we did with Clough and Graham and to an extent Eastmond.

Whether the fans like this or not, this is the way it is and will be until the kids are bedded in and then we can revert to the way we know we can play.

Indeed. It was interesting to watch the Reserves or Academy, which ever it was, tear Leeds apart with excellent rugby league and hearing people say "The first team used to do that" and "Get these lads in later."

The simplicity of it is, there is a "Saints Way." The kids know they can do it, but they need to learn when it is right to in Super League. It is a MASSIVE step up.

Time is a great thing, just seems many of our fans have headed down the Wigoon impatience route.

Dream on.
Lets hope you are right Ski because tonight was friggin awful again (thank god we were not playing leeds).

I REALLY hope you are right.

Tonight was better.

For the first time in a long time, we talked to each other. We have two weeks to slick the machine up.

I am less concerned tonight as I was last week.

It is now down to how long the strides we take are.

Thought our defense was awsome but our attack and mistakes were poor.
We failed to put away a realy poor team tonight which concerns me (hudds were absolute s*te).
Longy looks like like no-one wants to play with him anymore and Pryce did his usual disappearing act after his try.

Our line speed was good but apart from that we were not good IMO

It was a poor game to watch.

Go and watch the Wire as your so proud to live there.........It was a tough play off game, and we are struggling with form. Get over it!!

Pryce was very good in defence during the second half because that is what the second half was all about. In fact, I'd say the whole match was attack in defence. We played to close Hudds down, using their own game against them but in the right way this time (instead of trying to play up the middle). I think our attack this week while still not right was not clueless or confused as it has been for bloody yonks. It just looked like the finishing needed attention. Get that back and we should be in with a shout. Oh, and Longy really does need to watch where he is standing. He's done this offside/obstruction thing a couple of times since he returned.

I enjoyed the match tonight and was ho from chanting, shouting support and singing. It was good to see us compete again and show enthusiasm. And our defence was fantastic. We were all over them from start to finish, which is cruelly giving me hope, again.

Who said I was proud to live in direland?
How innane are you?

Get over the fact we don't all live within the Borough boundries.

Do you think its fun to be hated by all your neighbours for supporting Saints?

Agree with most if not all of your points.
Hopefully we will kick on from here, but think with our carboard cutout manager that perhaps its all wishful thinking.

I agree with that. I enjoyed the game and thought our defence was tremendous. Huddersfield struggled to get into any sort of rythmn until a good twenty minutes or so in the second half when they applied a lot of pressure and should have come away with something.

The one thing that was more mixed than anything else was our kicking game. We'd put in a couple of great kicks (the two bombs to the corner that pinned them back in their red zone was excellent) then follow it with a kick down the kick returners throat.

If we can play like that again, particularly in defence, we will be in the Grand Final.

Now I know where you got your name from.

Huddersfield Reserves played a good brand of Rugby against us, IIRC

Saints defence was awesome last night. Not only did we tackle we was hurting them which we've not done all year.

I thought our pack was top class last night, making good hard yards and tough in defence.

Tony p and clough was IMO our stand out forwards. I'd say that was tony p best game for the club.

The attack was shocking again! Wello was good in defence and made some very important tackles.

The halfbacks are the major problem, they don't create anything for the team at all. Longy is showing that sir mac was 100% correct in letting him go.

The way I see it, if we don't sort this attack out we ain't got a chance in hell of winning the grand final. We should have put hudds away last night but let them back into it.

It's the 1st home game in a long time tho that I went home happy as saints did put the effort in and looked something like the old saints did in defence.

Why wasn't Kyle moved in to the middle for a spell?