in my humble opinion we have declined our strength somewhat in a number of positions in the last 2 years or so, we need more muscle in the pack and I'm sorry to say but the backs are the slowest Saints have ever had the misfortune to play.

starting with the backs, Wellens who in my opinion is still a great player should move to the 2nd.row where his pace would not be such an issue.

Gardener should go! the guys just not fast or good enough to wear the shirt, he couldnt beat my granny.

meli must go [ enough said

we then need 2 more props , [should have picked up Carvell

with all the youngsters we have verging on 1st team football plus the 4 recruts ive mentioned , i believe would put us top of the pack again

There are flaws in our team, but there are flaws in every team. You have to work within a salary cap, its like playing fantasy rugby league. There is only so much money to spread around.

The facts are we are top of the league, because although we are lacking in some areas we excel in others. Gardner isn't the most talented or quickest winger in the league, but outside Gidley he can do a decent job.

We did lack a bit of biff in the forwards, but that is due to the injuries to Cayless and Faasavalue. You can only have so much depth in a squad, every team will have certain positions were they have to rely on youngsters to fill a gap when injuries come along.

The lack of pace is worrying, and won't be helped by Gilmour leaving next year. When Meli goes it would be good to get somebody with a bit more pace...

I am not sure about moving Wellens into the pack though, it gets mentioned here alot. I understand the motivation, to get more pace at fullback but I doubt Wellens would be good enough to play in the second row unless we have injuries. If that is the case, he is hardly the impact player you would want on the bench...

As for losing against Huddersfield, they outplayed us in defence and attack. The players we put out there were good enough to win, but Huddersfield played to their potential and we didn't.

Potter really needs to work on our attack when we are in the oppositions 25. We need to have a proper structure for what happens on the last tackle, and we should be looking to score or force a drop out much more often. The return of Long will help a bit...

Our attack patterns need to be varied a little as well. Against opposition that are solid in defence and are controlling the speed of the PTB, its all a bit telegraphed.

The biggest problem I see is the sort of game we lost on Saturday and in the previous Grand Finals only pop up a couple of times a season. We don't seem to have an answer yet.

knee jerk reaction personified!...

We need more muscle in the pack? I know, put Wello in there.



Look we've lost a game, all be it an important one. The thing not to do is go pushing panic buttons. You don't become a bad team over night.

It'll take a good team to beat us in the playoffs, if they do fair fecks to them.

Just buy some pace and were sorted.

we're top of the league and you say it's time to go.

unbeleivable.

seriously, plenty of Saints fans understand the problem at the moment, we are under-performing, but even so, we are still top of the league.

so imagine what we'd be like if we where all firing !

get us firing

yeah but unfortunately, we'll all a bit knackered, fans as well as players, it's been a long decade of success.