Not goal kicking for once, but territorial kicking. THE key issue for us in the off season. We need someone who can turn a winger around, rather than just find him.

We lost tonight because Leeds consistently put us on the back foot and we consistently found the marker or touch.

I think you're preaching to the converted there, ski.

Maybe now that Long has gone we can open up our other kicking possibilities more. I don't know whether Kyle can kick in field but perhaps he can learn if he hasn't done so previously. Other than that, the only additional in field kicker we have access to is Matty Smith, who is rather good at that. Perhaps he needs to return as well as Scott Moore? I just don't have the confidence in Potter to make the best of what we have now never mind bring on our young players.

It wasn't just the kicking that got to us tonight though. It was Meli's old fashioned brain fart over their tryline and knock ons and Gardner going to pieces. These were the reasons we lost, dodgy last try call or not.

I also think you are overplaying the issue. Leeds did kick well, but we returned it very well, bar Meli's balls up. Our kicking was poor, but it didn't matter as we didn't concede the ground Leeds needed to get any long periods of pressure in our 'red zone'.

What lost it for us was our lack of an attack. We could have played until February and we wouldn't score 20 points.

Both those sides are perfectly equal. Our forwards are better, their backs are better. They cancelled each other out to a large degree and having watched the Sky+ of Smith's clearly-no-try-try it should have been a 2 point game to reflect that.

I think that is spot on in all aspects.

He has been working with Tommy Martyn recently

Kicking game has been sh*t all season.

Question is, why has nothing been done about it? ? ?

Saints have had an alarming disregard for the kicking game for four years now. Kicking for touch, kicking goals, kicking 40/20s. It's appallingly unprofessional and it's cost us time and time again (ditto our baffling faith in Francis Meli).

Whilst the coach must assume some responsibility, I think the Chairman has failed to assume leadership over these failings, which are obvious to just about every RL supporter.

That said, for all the ups and downs it's not been a bad season at all. I didn't expect us to beat Leeds as they have the cutting edge which has been absent from Saints since the departure of Lyon. To be there or there abouts with a transitional team whilst clubs all about us are improving both their squads and their tactics is not a bad show at all.

At the end of the day we're still looking down on Wigan.

Your kicking game was poor tonight.

Why constantly hoof high balls to Webb, none of which had any effect at all?

Longy and/or Potter can answer for you. Sure as heck the fans can't - we haven't a clue why Longy repeated a failed tactic over and over again. But much of Saints' performances of late has been a mystery to the fans.

Wanted Webb under it due to this injury Brent has, the full extent of which hasn't been made public and also down to the first 3 or so kicks been left to bounce.

IMO it wasnt too bad first half.

Yep that was definitely critical last night as it was the year before. Leeds' kicking game probably wouldn't have been as strong if we'd have a full back that it wasn't so easy to kick past. Wello's pace, again, was exposed by Leeds. Of course, because he's a modern day Saints great we'll politefully ignore that point and blame Meli for the loss instead.

It did in the first half. The problem was that our chase just disappeared and Webb was put under zero pressure by our chase in the second half.

That's a very good assessment. Wellens gets lots of praise and some Saints fans had him down as your m.o.m. (wrongly imo)

We repeatedly hear of his great positioning yet last night Leeds caught him out. His "effort" for the 40:20 was abysmal.

Leeds manged to get the ball behind him so often, and his lack of pace gave Leeds an extra 5 - 10 metres on many many kicks. It was obviously a big part of their game plan.

The modern game requires fullbacks who can return the ball quickly, I'm afraid this is not in Wellens armoury.

Wellens was our best player.

I don't remember Wellens gifting Leeds one try and helping them on their way for another, which could be why Wellens gets my vote as one of our good players last night and Meli does not.

Just about every time Wellens got the ball, he ran a maximum of 15 yards and then tried to offload it.

Rubbish. He never give up and gave a lot of effort but effort, in his position, is not enough anymore.



What about Wellens' pace for that try? He was in a good position but his pace let him down. Same with the 40/20 that Sinfield kicked. Wellens was outpaced by the ball and didn't even look like he was aware that it was a 40/20. Wellens used to be perfect but over the past two years mistakes have creeped into his game and he was exposed last night by Leeds in the same way the Aussies have been exposing him at international level.

Personally thought your best player was Puleatua who made some good runs when the other forwards struggled at times.

You know, people talk about Wellens' pace as if it is a new thing. We have always known about Donk. But that doesn't make him a poor player because he isn't a poor player. He worked his butt off last night just as he always does and he saved us from a try by holding the man up single handedly, among many other things. You can pick on his lack of pace all you want, he's won us far more games than lost us and he is still the best defensive fullback in the British game. He was great last night and I just wish some of our other players had played as well as he did.