Really? I think we look a lot fitter than most clubs and came strong last 10 mins. It’s the lack of creativity that’s most worrying for me.

I disagree with that, again tonight the scrambling defence showed just how fit we are and we finished the game stronger than at any point of the match

We are lacking ball players in the middle at the moment. Hard work only gets you so far and we are miles off at the moment

I thought we were blowing for most of the game, the Tomkins try gave us a bit of enthusiasm and energy but in reality Saints knew the game was won and the match was never in doubt.

More of an issue though than “fitness” is our injury record.

We currently have 40 and 41 on the field in first team shirts.

That speaks volumes to me.

How many of them relate to conditioning though?

Burgess - Ipitch Injury
Manfredi - From a tackle
Farrell - From a tackle
Williams - During the game hurt his knee
O Loughlin - Calf injury (possible conditioning but more to age for me)
Gildart - Broken Thumb
Sutton - Knee injury again in a tackle

I dont think its to do with conditioning, just bad luck. Most sides have plenty out. Saints have been lucky this season

Conditioning is exactly that, conditioning the players for the rigours of the game.

It used to be a real strength of ours when Britcon arrived, over the last few years it seems to have become a weakness.

Having squad numbers 40 and 41 turning out doesn’t mean a great deal. They’re new signings and lower numbers aren’t available. It’s not that we’re missing 20+ players but more that guys above squad number 18 aren’t being selected in many cases. The injury situation isn’t ideal but we’ve had it far worse and I can’t use that as an excuse tonight.

Fitness wise we’re a mixed bag. We have some unbelievable athletes like Davies, Isa, Bateman and Farrell and then some lads who are blowing after ten minutes like Hamlin, Navarette and Tautai (ok I’m being generous by 9 minutes with that one). In that area I feel Farrell is a monumental loss for us. He bangs out 80 minutes every week without losing any impact and that allows us to rotate our props and Lockers around him.

No matter how fit or conditioned a player is, they can’t avoid collision injuries which the vast majority of ours the last few seasons have been. If they were pulled muscles etc I’d agree it could be training g methods but it isn’t. Collision causes injuries and we’ve been bloody unlucky with them!

Fair enough.

Seems like it’s just us that continue to be massively affected by collision injuries.........again....must be a coincidence.

Also it’s not like there has been consistency in the type of injury our players pick up...once again, must be luck and coincidence.

The player who looked fittest on the field was Hankison, and it's his first game.

The others had lead in their boots.

Ones of the worst performances in against Saints in a long time.

Wane should have gone when his ego told him to go.

C'mon Lenners, get rid of him this week to save our season.

Just for the record, Jon, how would you condition against, say, a broken thumb?

Not have the team playing full on against each other in training would be a good starter. We tend to suffer more blue on blue injuries than any other club.

Do we?

How many of the current players who are out received their injuries in training?

Burgess
Gildart
Williams
Sutton
Manfredi
Farrell
Lockers

Freak shoulder injuries, broken thumbs, wrecking your leg on a plastic pitch etc aren’t anything to do with conditioning. I’m not even sure why injuries are being mentioned tbh. Yes we’re missing a few but it’s hardly a 2016 or 2017 style crisis. We had enough on that field last night to come up with better then that IMO, especially when you consider who they’d left out.

Gildarts occurred during training for starters, maybe I should have phrased it as “training and non rugby related injuries”

Did it?
Looked suspiciously like he was trying to tackle Leroy Cudjoe at Huddersfield with one hand for 60mins last week?

Yea I thought he’d done against the giants

Before I knew Percival & Barba were out I would have expected a 20point (ish) plus defeat.
Once I knew they were out I gave us a Sniff of a chance

I thought our effort was Ok
I thought there were some good individual efforts (Tomkins/Davies/Sarginson/Flower/Tommy/Bateman)
I thought there were some promising signs (Hankinson good debut, Navarette ran Well - Greenwood looked 20% fitter and stronger)

However, our Halfbacks were awful & I have praised/defended them both over the year
Woods lack of pace was exposed by Lomax numerous times first half and 2nd half on 2 occasions Makinson (IIRC) went round him on the East stand side and made him look like he was dragging a Wheely Bin!
3 times he nearly got caught ball in hand last tackle when he tried to skip away from a defender and got bad passes away which ended up in terrible ends to sets, Richardson did the same thing twice and skipped round our defenders using pace and got good kicks away.
Powell had done ok for me first 10/15 games and IMO when he went into 9 had done pretty well however since Williams injury he's looked pretty awful (And Tommy has been brilliant at 9 last 4/5 games).
Don't want to turn it into Williams argument - But were missing him big time!

The interesting thing for me is once Williams is Back do we persevere with Powell or Woods at 7 or do we move Sam into Halves and go for Escare/Sarginson at FB
The reason I say Sarge is for 2 x reasons
1 - I thought he ran the bell pretty well & hard last night and I think he could give us the momentum going forward from FB which with Davies/Marshall (A bit like Jason Robinson he's dangerous midfield)/Gildart and possibly Hankinson who beat the first man or 2 men the first 4/5 times he touched the ball last night and looked strong could get us on the front foot.
2 - Escare has been pretty awful all season - Cas away he was poor - last week at Huddersfield he was woeful. Now whether that is related to the injury from last season and or the injury at Cas which I was surprised he came back from - Or if it's to do with being asked to play in the halves (Because Sam is a far better FB than him) I don't know - But He's not the answer in any way for me.

We needed to be at our best last night to give us a chance - I thought we were ok in a lot of areas but our halves weren't one of them. That ultimately is what cost us.

To rock the boat in such a way you would need to have a player worth taking a risk on - Sarginson is not that player. Whilst slightly better last night he was still only 5/10, 6 at a real push.

I fear the season may be done. I don't get a great deal of confidence from the performance with ball in hand, body language or post match comments to think we have many gears left in us for a big finish. The weekly comments by Wane about last tackle options and finishing the sets better feels like groundhog day. Who knows, with Lockers and Williams back it could all turn around. I'm sadly not convinced though.

The way Tomkins is playing at, it fullback would be criminal to move him. He is head and shoulders better than Escare and Sarginson and needs to stay exactly where he is. When Williams is fit, he needs to come straight back into the side with Woods. Powell needs to have a spell out of the side and if he comes back in the 17 it should be as bench hooker and nothing else. He’s truly awful at 7 and should never set foot in that position ever again.

But it's our attack that is failing. And for that, the 6 & 7 need to be 'firing'. They are not.
Last night it was only when Sam moved up , probably in sheer frustration, that we really started to trouble 'saints'.

Our group were talking last night at the game about what we’d like to see changed when we have players back and the general opinion was to go with a 1,6 and 7 of Sarginson, Tomkins and Williams. He gets plenty on here as a centre but Sarginson has shown in the past that he is more then capable at fullback and I feel he suits our style of play in that position better then Escare does. The more the weeks roll by the more it looks like Escare is Just at the wrong club. Maybe things will turn for him under a new coach but I just don’t see us mixing things up to include him as more then a bit part whilst Wane is here.

In all honesty though it’ll only be injuries that’ll lead to any sort of shake up. It’s all very Brian Noble 2009 at the minute with a real stubbornness not to try anything different.

I’d go with that rather then our current set up but I wouldn’t rule Sarginson out at fullback. He turned our season around in 2016 when he went to fullback with the energy he brought to the side and he constantly got us on the front foot at the start of our sets. He was remembered for a great performance at Old Trafford but he’d been impressive in the months before that.

Either approach moves Powell out of seven, which simply has to happen as much for his sake as ours, so they both work for me. If we can find a spare wheelie bin to fill in for Tautai we may have cracked it!

Need fresh ideas now, just watched the Cas v Hudds game and Hudds played with the freedom and enjoyment we're all desperate for when a defeat for them could have put them in deep trouble regards to the middle 8's.
Their coach has worked wonders in just a few weeks.

Glad its not just me thinking the same about Escare,he simply isn't up to the required standard for whatever reason he simply looks out of his depth, time to move him on by next season I wonder?