The importance of Pryce and our defence : Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:16 am  

How great was it to see Leon Pryce back in a Saints shirt last night? The fans lifted and our performance lifted when he came on. He had a hand in all of the tries when he was on and we didn't concede also as he gave us a calming influence in the organisation of the side. I've never seen Shenton stroll through a gap like last night and that's because Pryce and Eastmond created the space for him which all Centres need. He's not ready to start yet but in a months time, SL better watch out if Leon stays fit because he'll be revving up going into the business end of the year.

My 2nd point is our defence. It is probably the most important thing that will stop us challenging for honours unless it dramatically improves. We're getting caught out far too much on the fringes (and in particular the right hand side). Maybe we have too many naive youngsters defending the fringes - Makinson - who looked a bit out of his depth last night IMO and Gaskell along with Shenton, but either way our defence was really soft last night and if we don't defend better structurally and more aggressively we can kiss our hopes of challenging Wigan and Warrington goodbye. They won't allow tries like that in, certainly not in the big games, so we must improve dramatically in this area and start dominating in the tackle.

Re: The importance of Pryce and our defence : Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:21 am  

I've noticed teams target shentons side and when we come up against class teams we get caught out.

Re: The importance of Pryce and our defence : Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:38 am  

ive posted it elsewhere that for me the problem is with Shenton not the young kids.

Reason being is that whoever plays two out from the wing gets exposed.

If we go back to the Wigan game at the DW. Wigan ripped us apart down Shentons side and we saw the same thing tonight with Les Cats.

My impression is that teams run big mobile men at Shenton who plays 3rd man out. This causes Shenton to back off on the slide. This allows the attacker to get either over the top of him or around him.
Then because Shenton is backing off, the other outside defenders also have to slide with him so they back off. As a result the player second man from the wing whoever it may be, ends up having a 3 on 2 situation or maybe just a 2 on 2, but finds themselves off balance running backwards. The end result being they find it hard to effect the tackle.

Last night it didnt matter who was positioned second man out, they still failed to handle Les Cats.

Now that Pryce is coming back into the team, i would look to have Pryce being third man out and have Shenton just second man out.
Ultimately it may be that Shentons best position will be on the Wing were his height allied to pace will be an asset.

Re: The importance of Pryce and our defence : Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:45 am  

I agree CM and also posted it on other threads about shenton in defence. Could it be he's not used to defending 3rd man out? At Cas he was always just outside his winger. I've also noticed teams attack him.

I've been thinking that shenton might be more suited to the wing myself.

Re: The importance of Pryce and our defence : Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:07 am  

The Chair Maker wrote:

ive Now that Pryce is coming back into the team, i would look to have Pryce being third man out and have Shenton just second man out.

That's how they were lining up by the end of last night.

Another real bugbear I have is our line speed is too slow. There are times when we have only 1 real prop on the pitch, so our line should work faster to compensate, but last night was another week when the defence of the opposition was moving up a lot quicker than ours.