Re: Unable to field kicks : Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:34 pm  

Allez wrote:

At Cardiff we were awful and got back into the game by the grace of God or by their switching off.

What total tosh! You clearly watched an entirely different game to me! We just couldn't convert our field position into tries in the first half. For the first 15 minutes we had them pinned in their own 20. We got the momentum back in the second half but we never stopped working hard throughout that match.

At DW we were excellent but it's not won in 79 minutes - they played 80 we didn't.

Indeed. They also got a try from a forward pass, let's not forget, and we lost three players including the halfback who was running rings around them.

3 outings this year. 2 defeats and one draw. Whether you go by stats or perception we ain't close to them.

Oh yes we are. The first two outings showed that. Indeed, had we been able to keep hold of the ball in the second half last night we might have beaten them in spite of our performance.

Re: Unable to field kicks : Sat Jun 18, 2011 1:37 pm  

the wrestler wrote:

you can say that bad handling cost several tries, but the number of times the error was forced by hits/pressure i think mitigates that excuse

Not in the second half, no.

Re: Unable to field kicks : Sat Jun 18, 2011 2:04 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

Oh yes we are. The first two outings showed that. Indeed, had we been able to keep hold of the ball in the second half last night we might have beaten them in spite of our performance.

Respectfully, I don't see it the same way as you and I think you mean 'you wish we were'. We drew the first outing in the first game of the season and honest speccies will be the first to admit we were clueless that day. The second game we lost, the third game we lost heavily. That's a zero percentage win ratio - performances count for nothing if you don't win no matter how much 'cudda wudda shudda' you scream about. If the shoe were on the other foot you'd laugh at Wigan fans having the temerity to claim that they were 'close to us'.

If we were that close, having had our recent string of results then by rights we should have beaten them. We didn't even compete.

The irony in the above statement is almost comical. 'Might have', 'Could have', 'But if' - all excuses. This game is about percentages, any coach (and all the ones I know do) will tell you that. They tell you that when you play - lots of other current and ex-amateur players on here will also tell you the same thing. Play dumb you get dumb results - Simmons is a pretty honest bloke and aside from his comments about the speed of the PTB last night that's a pretty fair assessment of how we were.

We do not play percentages, they do. That's why they are better than us at the moment. They are better than us because they are better coached than we are at playing percentage rugby and dominating the key areas of the game in possession, ball control, kicking and territory, their players are technically no better; they just have players in the right positions who can control the game in those areas in every game - we either don't or they ain't doing it against the top sides. They failed to do it against the French the other week and got turned over.

Queensland are 'better' than NSW at the moment and have been for a while. Yet on Weds they did what we did and got caught in the moment whereas a NSW side were dominant in all those areas and won the game playing the percentages. Basics.

Warrington will play the percentage game next week - it's a typical Smith hallmark. And if we don't get smart and fix that up quickly we are in for another mullering.

Re: Unable to field kicks : Sat Jun 18, 2011 2:13 pm  

Allez wrote:

Respectfully, I don't see it the same way as you and I think you mean 'you wish we were'. We drew the first outing in the first game of the season and honest speccies will be the first to admit we were clueless that day.

You don't even read my post! I said we didn't know how to convert our field position into tries, didn't I? But that wasn't anything to do with Wigan being better than us. We were all over them for the first 15 minutes, we never stopped working hard throughout and when we clicked behind Roby, we scored tries in the second. Would have won but for Foster missing the kick.

The second game we lost,

You into stating the bleeding obvious? We were the better side in that game for most of it. We also lost Wheeler, Wello and Gardner for part, Armstrong as well. We suffered for our loss for about ten minutes in which time Wigan scored a number of tries. And then we showed our inexperience for five minutes of brainfarts at the end with a moment's loss of concentration for them to cross the line on the death.

the third game we lost heavily.

Yup. We were poop.

That's a zero percentage win ratio - performances count for nothing if you don't win no matter how much 'cudda wudda shudda' you scream about.

Yep, you do like stating the bleeding obvious! No-one is screeming about anything. This is a discussion board and we are discussing the performance of our team which, last night, was dire. We went backwards. But when we look at other performances against Wigan, especially that at the DW, then there is still a chance for us. It's called perspective, not excuses.

Re: Unable to field kicks : Sat Jun 18, 2011 8:54 pm  

I didn't think Wigan were that good last night.

They played with an intensity we didn't in both attack and defence and when we made mistakes in our own half they capitalised whereas we dropped the ball within 2 tackles. They did the basics well and that's all they had to do, their first 20 points were gifted to them by stupid mistakes.

The lack of intensity we showed is what disappoints me most.

Re: Unable to field kicks : Sat Jun 18, 2011 11:14 pm  

Billinge_Lump wrote:

I didn't think Wigan were that good last night.

They played with an intensity we didn't in both attack and defence and when we made mistakes in our own half they capitalised whereas we dropped the ball within 2 tackles. They did the basics well and that's all they had to do, their first 20 points were gifted to them by stupid mistakes.

The lack of intensity we showed is what disappoints me most.

Spot on.

Re: Unable to field kicks : Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:21 am  

Allez wrote:

Respectfully, I don't see it the same way as you and I think you mean 'you wish we were'. We drew the first outing in the first game of the season and honest speccies will be the first to admit we were clueless that day. The second game we lost, the third game we lost heavily. That's a zero percentage win ratio - performances count for nothing if you don't win no matter how much 'cudda wudda shudda' you scream about. If the shoe were on the other foot you'd laugh at Wigan fans having the temerity to claim that they were 'close to us'.

To be fair I think performances do count, first game very poor 1st half, good 2nd hald. 2nd game we where close dispite you stating the win or nothing senario. 3rd game poor through out.

For me that shows if we perform we can compete with Wigan. Not week in and week out, we are not at that level. But this league does not require consistency, it simply requires a run of form lasting 3 games. We've moaned in the past about being the best team all year, but lossing it in the playoff's.

Well I think Royce can get 3 games worth of form from this team, the performances are there and it's his job to get that for the full 80 at the right time. I still give us a 25% chance of winning either CC or GF. And I think we'll get to 1 final.

It's just a matter or performing on the day. The 0% wins during the season will count for exactly that 0, come the knockout games.

Re: Unable to field kicks : Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:43 am  

Billinge_Lump wrote:

I didn't think Wigan were that good last night.

They played with an intensity we didn't in both attack and defence and when we made mistakes in our own half they capitalised whereas we dropped the ball within 2 tackles. They did the basics well and that's all they had to do, their first 20 points were gifted to them by stupid mistakes.

The lack of intensity we showed is what disappoints me most.

Agree with all of this. There was a great opportunity in the second half to take the game away from them and had we had any semblence of composure (something that was lacking at Bradford too) we could have won the match, and with points to spare. Just as they played us, we should have played them. We were certainly capable of it but we didn't turn up for the fight AND we didn't maintain our composure. (Well, actually, I don't think we had any all game)