Why as a team are we so poor in attack???? We have no idea's near the line 34 sets near saints line no try or even looking like getting one. Even with Barrett for the past 2 seasons our attack and poits for have been poor.

Going to get ripped for this but the lack of coaching attacking options cost us the game tonight. You cannot expect to do bugger all and turn it on for the big games and expect to win.

hard to say mate but with tonights performance and barrett pulling the string would have been a different result.

I know we didn't expect Barrett to go, but our final ball whether it be the 4th or 5th tackle is just crap.

We were awesome in defence for the most, going forward we were ok - better than our average - we tried plenty of options in attack near their line - but there aren't many teams could have cracked that defence. They were on us in an instant and covering our options.

But that said, unless we come up with players and plays that can break them down we're not looking at trophies for a while yet.

You can't help but feel theres a good side in there somewhere waiting to come out but it's being held back by our tatics.

I'm not saying it's time to part company with Noble but i really do think Lenagan needs to be looking all over the shop to see if theres anybody available to take us onto the next level next season.

do we have an offensive coach? (no pun intended).

We have hit a standard now, that we have to maintain, our defence is fine.

IMO what we are trying to do in attack is clear and with a bit more practice/luck/composure we will get there. We are clearly playing a more expansive game, as Gleeson beds in, this will improve.

We don't seem to have any set moves that we can use near the opposition line or from scrums. There is no plan for what to do when we're inside the 20 apart from hope someone makes something happen by magic.

We have hit this standard a few times though, against teams that run a flat attack. Thought Saints were poor tonight in attack and was releaved Long was not playing as i feel his organisation and a bit more depth they would have hurt us.

We played an exansive game early doors and up till the point we were winning 12 to 6 then we returned to the 1 man stuff even though we slipped behind very quickly after that point.

Our players do not work off the ball, we still lack dummy runners. Its great putting the ball out wide but you have to generate space for them, and at time we still look to be throwing it out wide for the sake of it. To be fair when we did use a dummy runner we hurt them by laying it out to the flanks, generally though we ran sideways running our outside backs out of room with nobody straightening the line or running a dummy.

We scored the same amount of points as usual but just conceded fewer - our defense kept us in the game.

Saints scrambling defence was awesome. The best I have seen for a while. Against any other side we would have been out of sight by half time.

The deciding factor tonight was the "bounce" of the ball. Roberts kicks through and the ball kicks back away from him whereas the winning try could have rebounded anywhere.

I agree that we are a good side waiting to break out and I am certain that as the season goes on we will develop our attacking game and finish between 4th and 6th and have a real go in the playoffs.

I think Tim Smith will have a big part to play before the season is out. His passing opens up defences, if only he could sort out his defence

They are quality at cutting down space for attacking plays, they play more of an old fashioned type of defence where they surround players rather than a normal sliding defence and it works very well for them.

Correct.

There was a spell in the second half where we spend a good five minutes in their 20 attacking their line. Nothing.

The critical point came for me when one of the Saints players nonchalantly scooped a Wigan kick over his dead ball line. You could tell then that that was it. The Saints players simply looked at each other as if to say "These men have nothing. Let's simply drop the ball out and defend. They'll never score"

I am. He was the right man to get us out of a hole, and he's clearly a decent motivator. Tactically, however, particularly in attack, he's useless, and that was proven yet again tonight.

Simple.

We have Tommy at 7 who is a good player but not a 7, this is evident, the role is key in attack, not just for passing but for organising the attack play after play. Trent did all this last season so Tommy didn't have to.

Sam as a 6 does his job linking with Tommy running off him, but Tommy isn't good enough at doing the things which make a 7 a good 7.

Tommy has proven to be a quality 9, we need to bring in a clas 7 and move Tommy to 9.

Tommy out played cam smith there in the WC final, that speaks volumes.

Every time they attacked our line I feared they would score, and they did, they didn't attack our try line much, but when they did it resulted in 6. We had so much ball in their 20 but had no idea what to do with it.