www.superleague.co.uk/report/11959 Very low metres from us to win the game courtesy of a scrambling defence and defending the line after repeated sets from the goons. When did this new goons ruling come in, player knocks on flaps his arm and gets a penalty, happened a couple of times in the match.

www.superleague.co.uk/report/11959 Very low metres from us to win the game courtesy of a scrambling defence and defending the line after repeated sets from the goons. When did this new goons ruling come in, player knocks on flaps his arm and gets a penalty, happened a couple of times in the match.

Fairly sure that happened once. When Roby had his hand on the ball and pushed it out of Mossop's hand.

We missed big Alex go forward last night. I worry about us making meters and seems every week we struggle to get out our own half. This is why Imo we are desperate for prop next year.

To be fair, offside or not Wigan have pretty good line speed and I think Walmsleys metres might have been less than normal. Amor and Vea did OK but the rest of the pack were mauled a bit because we were playing a lot of one man rugby, Roby at post match said he could,t see the opportunity to do any runs courtesy of the Wigan Pack.

Isn't a worry that our pack struggling to make meters every week now? The Wigan pack was much better than ours last night and it's happening most weeks.

We 100% need a prop for next year as the kids ain't up to the week in week out high performences that's required yet.

Vea will make big difference and when big alex is back he will add go forward but can we depend on the same lads every week to make meters?

We are far too compact and as every saints fan has mentioned the drop off pass is so predictable, Vea was going out wide and making a few metres but LMS and Greenwood were getting tackled as soon as they received a pass.

To be fair, Wigan tackled well. Give credit where it's deserved.

They always seemed to be half a metre in front of the ref every set & then charged forward to tackle us, were as we seemed to wait in a line for their forwards to come to us. Having said that in the last quarter of the game they seemed to tire & struggled to get back after Walsh kicked the ball to their back three sometimes only getting back on the third tackle with a few forwards with hands on hips. And Saints after a magnificent defensive effort seemed to have more petrol left in the tank at the back end of the match.

There was an incident when Swifty retrieved the dead ball and tapped out on the 20 metre line, he only made 3 metres because the wigan forwards were quicker in making up the 7 metres, slow as a cart horse that Swift!!

We,ve being inviting the opposition to come at us most games this season, think we made around 950 metres to Wigan's 1550 metres, we don't win many collisions. Defensively we are scramblers not dominators.

I was happy with the front six. Sure, we really needed to be playing the ball quicker - which would have put them under enormous pressure.

But to be fair - the ball was in play an awful long time. For guys as big as ours to still be trucking the ball forward on the 78th minute that says an awful lot.

The Wigan fans are consoling themselves because they feel they were the better team. But we're long overdue giving them a good thumping.

To be honest I think they were, we won due to us playing the "Don't Right off the Saints" card. We are not exactly dominating anybody at the moment, a good thumping 80-0 against Wire would be good but those days are long gone.

How's Haggarty played this season?

I think a lot of our conservatism can be explained by Cunningham. When push comes to shove - he's a rookie coach. Sure, he could order Longy to devise some kind of all-action gameplan. But that's fraught with danger. And head coaches don't get too many opportunities to fail.

I like the fact that he's adopted a pragmatic style. We aren't a team filled with lean athletes (such as Wigan) so it's important we don't waste our pack's energy reserves.

Our backs don't get a great deal of ball. But what Long & Cunningham have done is emphasize the importance of taking the few chances they get.

As has been pointed out - both Swift & Makinson have terrific strike rates. Turner too.

And yet we won. In fact in the last 2 weeks we've beaten the 2 teams above us in the league. I'd be more worried if I was the coach of a team that played much better than the opposition and still lost, or the coach of "the team that's going to win everything this year".

This was different to the previous two wins though, we were not dominated by Leeds or Cas; they were more end to end games. If the defence hadn't been so good we would have been mullered by the goons.

I am guessing that the stats show the worst meterage difference for us than at any game this this year, such was the goon pack dominance.

I'm really struggling to see this weakness in our pack. I mean, had our poor figures been solely the result of Wigan (or some other team's pack) mullering us every set I'd see a point. But very often our position, possession - stats etc. are bad for no other reason than silly, stoopid mistakes and sloppy play.

Sure, a 500 meter defecit can mean a pack was physically dominated. But it's just as likely to mean the team kept dropping the ball and making mistakes. For a champion team we don't half make some stupid errors.

What I will say is what I've said all along. With a strong side and the pack playing well I'm as confident as I can be.

Besides, some of Wigan's forward play this season has been utterly abysmal. Just look at their chief yardage makers. The match stats are embarrassing.

Sure, I get that Wane is trying to play a different type of football. But maybe that's just vanity on his part. There's a reason almost no-one in either the NRL or SL has gone down such a route in decades of rugby.

It was different, in that we were good in defending our line, but we don't half make it difficult for ourselves. As posters have already mentioned we invite the opposition to come at us so they gain extra metres on each play, when we have the ball we struggle to get out of our own half to put in a pressure kick. If there is a stat somewhere for the team who has to kick out from under the own posts, I can bet Saints are high up in this stat.

The goons were 50% (500 metres) better than us for gaining ground, usually this is with getting the ball to the backs but there was some good metres made by the goon pack in this match. Our pack metres one of the worse this season.

I,m not agreeing with Muggers theory above with dropped ball, mistakes and errors costing us metres, Saints are one if not the best team for the least amount of errors, I think the goons made almost twice as many errors than us in this game. The one thing that stands out like a sore thumb is our discipline especially around the 5th tackle, there is a slight improvement but its still not good enough.

Defending our line won us this game which meant we were only chasing for a one score lead, the win was even more sweeter because Wane thought this game was in the bag for those 75mins, don't write off the Saints must have been ringing in his ears.

Can you really not see that we struggle to make meters? Only big alex offers any real go foward.

It's clear as day we don't make any real go foward and teams know this. We are at our most dangerous when we are in their line and teams no if they pin us back we struggle as we play a one up rugby style.

The loss of Vea for most of the year hasn't helped as he does offer go foward but if you look at the rest of the pack we have Amor, Richards, Thompson, Mose (he can on his day), Geeenwood, flash, Wilkin and Lms who couidnt break thru a paper bag most weeks and not great in making meters. Sav is still hit and miss due to his age but some weeks HES making no meters either.

I know you have a soft spot for the pack and that's your opionon but in mine it's nothing more than the normal run of the mill pack.

If we don't get a big tough meter making prop in next year to help alex and robes then we will struggle more. It's clear saints feel this as we have been after every prop and his dog for next year.

We made almost double the amount of errors you did...

We have made less meters than any of the top 6 this year.

Is that an actual stat, mate? If it is then that goes some way to dispelling the myth shared by some that we have this amazing dominant pack.

I agree with you, we need another big forward. It'll be interesting to see if Haggarty can step up to the plate. He's a big lad.

Yes it's true

Yes, thats true 28419 metres average per game 979, Leeds 34201 metres average per game 1180.

We were going OK for the first 6 rounds then we converted to one man rugby for the next 20 rounds. Our metres against Wigan was below average, goons kept us to 950 metres, its all Walmsleys fault for getting injured. Swifty has helped with the metres over the last 3 games but he's not a pack man though.

Jeees...

Swifty has been a godsend this season. Always willing to run it out of his 20. And looks like a decent dancer too.

Early in the year our back three of lomax, swift and tommy had made more meters than any other back three in super league.

At the moment swift is carrying the back three and doing all quinlans kick returns for him.