Nicely moving into position, albeit teams below us have games in hand, Catala only can overtake us this weekend but we could hold 3rd to the end of the season.

Nice

Its just shows how bad the superleague standard is at the moment, our Saints Team is probably the worst ever since Superleague 1 and yet we manage to be in 3 rd place.
Next month should decide if we stay in the top 4, beating Catalans, Wire and the Giants and we are challenging for 2nd spot.

We won super league 1 plus back to back challenge cups so the team wasn't that bad

What I really meant, was that our present team is the worse one since superleague began.

I don't think its the worst team, generally they are all very good players just not clicking.

I reckon we are doing better than expected with inexperienced half backs and prop forward shortage.
Just looked back at the saints team from 1996 to 2011 to create an all star team for the era of superleague, can,t put any player in there from this season with maybe the exception of Wellens, even Roby would be cancelled out by Cunningham.

The results in the next few weeks will be crucial. In a way wigan have gone away from everyone else. I'm expecting we'll lose to them but then I'm expecting our competitors to lose too. I think we may nab second but more likely to finish third.

As a 'team' it's probably better than most. What we don't have is the elite players we once had. You had Long, Cunningham, Sculthorpe and Newlove in their prime into this team and we'd dominate.

We now only have Roby who can be considered a top player, the rest are all thoroughly replaceable.

Sadface is spot on here + we are desperately in need of a game organiser on the field a la Dobson last night - controlled everything for the last hour.

We will slip back into fourth place if Catalans beat Wakey but I think we could well finish in third at the end of the season. If the top two stay the same would we rather finish 3rd or 4th. Fourth would mean away to Wire and third away to wigan.

3rd 4th or whatever sadly there will be no silver to be polished.

...and so would anyone else. Widnes would be doing the double with those players. Nobody has those kinds of players anymore - this is just a ridiculous and pointless point to make. In terms of personnel we have glaring weaknesses and deficiencies but so does every other team in the league in the current talent-starved era. In real world comparative terms the current Saints squad is every bit as good as most from the SL era.

You mean like Lance would have done and has been doing? I am afraid that Gasky faded away dreadfully and JLo was in definate need of his number 6 to take the pressure off.

I know that this is not a popular view but we missed Lance last night.

Awaits a rant from Saddened...And everyone else who cant see further than their own opinion.

We have quietly slipped back down to 4th.

He didn't 'fade away'. Wilkin took over duties. Gaskell didn't kick once in the second half, for instance. It was all Lomax and Wilkin. Looked to me very much like a coaching decision.


I have to say that is tosh. We were wonderful for the first 30 minutes last night. Coincidentally, perhaps, we were wonderful until the heavens opened! But aside from that, we have looked exactly the same at times throughout the season regardless of who has played at halfback. Remember Widnes away in the CC or Wigan at Magic (or indeed at any time this season)? Or perhaps Hull FC away? All of those had Lomax and Hohaia in the halves. We didn't exactly shine in any of them did we?

This instability in the halves will be our downfall. We,ve seen very little of Gaskell this year because of The presence of Lance. What i've seen of Gaskell he looked better last season when he got a run of games, he looks less effective this year don,t know if he is under orders from Rush. Its just not the Saints Way, 6 and 7 had more free roles, off the cuff rugby, bossing the show, we are running out of games, we just don,t have the gunnery to win a grand final.

Unlike you obviously.

4th would mean Wigan away.

1v4
2v3

5v8
6v7

In the end to win someone will have to topple Wigan, but the easier route will be in 2nd or 3rd.

4th is the worst spot as it means more than likely it would be the same as last year which is Wigan 2 times in the playoffs, before a final.

Because we let him.

I'd have settled for being in this position at this stage of the season on the day Royce was given his p45.

If only we had anything even close to Newlove and Gibbs in the centres, the teams tactics would totally change. No team is even in the same league in that department.



Exactly, he should have been annihilated out of the game as per the first half hour until Flannery came on and started the rot.

He did, actually. Quite a few times (if you were in the West Stand, you may not have noticed as he was generally kicking when we were pegged back deep; I was in the South Stand, about on a line 10m from the east end tryline)

Ah, that is why then. No, I only saw Lomax and Wilkin kicking. My bad.

You should take up coaching - I didn't realise that the sole purpose of the standoff was to kick the football - that probably where Fittler and Thurston are / were going wrong. Personally I thought they were there to guide the team around the park - silly me.

As for tosh - Widnes in the CC when we fell apart, was after Roby was sent off and Lance went to hooker. As for Hull Gasky came on for the last 20 minutes and Lance went to hooker again. Apart from the Wigan games we have on the whole been performing very well in the halves - despite the fact that Scapegoat 2012 has been playing stand-off for the majority.