I know its the off season but... : Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:40 pm  

Only one thread on this board has been posted on in the last 2 days, and the thread below that hasn't been posted on since Monday (by me).

Have we fallen out of love with the game already?

Re: I know its the off season but... : Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:08 pm  

Im jaded with RL and Saints.

This seasons Super League was as poor as I can remember.

The RFL seem happy with the status quo.

And I think we have been on the downgrade since the Millward era.

Perhaps I expected too much of the new stadium to spark us up.

New shirt out tomorrow - Nathan Brown - New Players will get the board moving.

Re: I know its the off season but... : Wed Oct 31, 2012 5:17 pm  

It's like this when I get banned as well. I've been busy recently, so haven't had time to post on here much

Saints are just boring. We don't push the boat out with signings, we don't try to improve. The team now has only Roby who could be argued to be an elite player, and he's a more robotic sort, with none of the personality of the likes of Long, Martyn, Cunningham or Graham. We play boring rugby with no structure so there is very little to talk positively about. The stadium is great, but is built now and we're waiting for the cladding promises to be delivered on.

The kit design is out this/next week, but from the preview looks as boring and lacking imagination and flair as it always is.

The club just seems completely soulless since the move to the new ground.

The sport itself is in a very dangerous position. The other competitions have out performed us commercially and now the NRL and Union are major drains on the already terrible player pool. It's now at the stage where the only 'star' players in Super League are those unwilling to make the change in location or sport, like Roby. In terms of quality, any young players with any sort of quality about them will go now. The TV deal is absolutely appalling and the sport has failed to attract the investment other sports have. It's quickly becoming like the bad old, pre-Super League days, where a few thousand care passionately but the sport has absolutely no impact on the national sporting psyche.

Other than that, it's great. I'm sure the usual tree huggers will accuse me of being negative, but I'm right.

Re: I know its the off season but... : Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:22 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

It's like this when I get banned as well. I've been busy recently, so haven't had time to post on here much

Saints are just boring. We don't push the boat out with signings, we don't try to improve. The team now has only Roby who could be argued to be an elite player, and he's a more robotic sort, with none of the personality of the likes of Long, Martyn, Cunningham or Graham. We play boring rugby with no structure so there is very little to talk positively about. The stadium is great, but is built now and we're waiting for the cladding promises to be delivered on.

The kit design is out this/next week, but from the preview looks as boring and lacking imagination and flair as it always is.

The club just seems completely soulless since the move to the new ground.

The sport itself is in a very dangerous position. The other competitions have out performed us commercially and now the NRL and Union are major drains on the already terrible player pool. It's now at the stage where the only 'star' players in Super League are those unwilling to make the change in location or sport, like Roby. In terms of quality, any young players with any sort of quality about them will go now. The TV deal is absolutely appalling and the sport has failed to attract the investment other sports have. It's quickly becoming like the bad old, pre-Super League days, where a few thousand care passionately but the sport has absolutely no impact on the national sporting psyche.

Other than that, it's great. I'm sure the usual tree huggers will accuse me of being negative, but I'm right.

(Unfortunately) This.

Re: I know its the off season but... : Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:40 pm  

There has been plenty of stuff to talk about, but being the offseason and not even pre-season it's understandable that there is little Saints wise to talk about.

I'm sure some would rather have the drama of having to rebuild a side from administration, or the novelty of having to fend off verious winding up orders like some other more exciting clubs. Of course we could be under pressure to keep our best players from being tapped up by the NRL like Wigan. Or be disappointed like Hull at missing out on our key signing and his back up in Prince and Miller.

Maybe we would prefer some of our lesser names to be fleeing the club in favour of playing part time in Oz, like a certain Bradford player. Or just have a combination of these issue like Hull KR who have lost players to Hull, to Oz and have had money concerns as well to boot.

Oh for the joys of the drama. How I dislike the stability the likes of Warrington and Saints are enjoying. I'd much rather be in a team that finished bottom or 2nd to bottom and be making more exciting signings, maybe not signings that will challenge the top 4, but signings to get us out of the bottom of the table.

It's less than a month since the GF, what were people expecting?

Re: I know its the off season but... : Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:57 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

It's like this when I get banned as well. I've been busy recently, so haven't had time to post on here much

Saints are just boring. We don't push the boat out with signings, we don't try to improve. The team now has only Roby who could be argued to be an elite player, and he's a more robotic sort, with none of the personality of the likes of Long, Martyn, Cunningham or Graham. We play boring rugby with no structure so there is very little to talk positively about. The stadium is great, but is built now and we're waiting for the cladding promises to be delivered on.

The kit design is out this/next week, but from the preview looks as boring and lacking imagination and flair as it always is.

The club just seems completely soulless since the move to the new ground.

The sport itself is in a very dangerous position. The other competitions have out performed us commercially and now the NRL and Union are major drains on the already terrible player pool. It's now at the stage where the only 'star' players in Super League are those unwilling to make the change in location or sport, like Roby. In terms of quality, any young players with any sort of quality about them will go now. The TV deal is absolutely appalling and the sport has failed to attract the investment other sports have. It's quickly becoming like the bad old, pre-Super League days, where a few thousand care passionately but the sport has absolutely no impact on the national sporting psyche.

Other than that, it's great. I'm sure the usual tree huggers will accuse me of being negative, but I'm right.

Can't argue with this to be honest. I'm not missing RL to be honest and haven't seen any of the internationals.

Re: I know its the off season but... : Wed Oct 31, 2012 9:49 pm  

Is there much happening? There appears to be no new signings on the horizon, the internationals are uninspiring and there are no Saints players in there. All the excitement is elsewhere with ancient and loyal players jumping ship in numbers...

Re: I know its the off season but... : Thu Nov 01, 2012 10:03 am  

My interest in RL isnt great at the moment due to the joke of the International set up...

England have spent time doing high altitude training in preparation for a joke of a tri-series against France and Wales (who lets face it England Knights would comfortably beat) and then for the World Cup in England/Wales next year (might be a bit hilly in Wales but dont think high altitude training is needed). The selection policy is a joke, with players such as Chase (for a start isnt English, and has missed most of season through injury and club suspension) being picked, along with others who frankly are good enough to beat Wales (something my amateur club could probably achieve) but nowhere near good enough to even contest against Australia & NZ, would list them all but would be too many to mention!! If Australia and NZ were unavailable to play this year, we should have at least tried to test ourselves against better opposition like PNG, Samoa, Fiji...or even a 3 game series against Exiles instead of 2 games in season.

The Knights team is a further joke, would be good experience for a group of young players who have England futures to be put together and blooded to the international scene by playing the likes of France, Ireland etc but again has opted to pick players who are around mid 20's and havent quite been good enough to play for England in a decent series(and likely wont be in the future) so decided to cap them with the Knights (Lunt, Riley, Gale, Broughton, Cooper etc) and have overlooked some of the brightest upcoming talents in the game who had great seasons in 2012 (such as Bateman, Whitehead, Makinson, Jones, Ben Crooks and so on).

The RFL are clueless (backed up by the fact that McNamara is employed as national coach) and seem to have no ambition to compete on the world stage and seem happy with mediocre performances against NZ and Australia as long as we can beat the others. This is the main reason my interest in RL has lapsed for the moment as, sadly, I cant be passionate about the sport at the moment as it is a break from the club season, we have no players involved and the tournament we are playing is a farce.

That said, as soon as it gets close to SL again my interest will be back because the one thing in the sport I am passionate about (regardless of circumstance) is St Helens. We have a new coach coming in next season who will hopefully bring in some new ideas and flair to the team, the prospect of arguably the most devastating back row in SL next year with Sia, Manu and TP, some good youngsters coming through and playing well...and more than anything else I love to support my club no matter what. Thats the time my love for RL will ignite again, but until then will be watching football/NFL/anything else that is more interesting than watching McBanana's England circus.

Rant over!

Re: I know its the off season but... : Thu Nov 01, 2012 10:04 am  

Billinge_Lump wrote:

Is there much happening? There appears to be no new signings on the horizon, the internationals are uninspiring and there are no Saints players in there. All the excitement is elsewhere with ancient and loyal players jumping ship in numbers...

I think because we got all our business done before the end of the season we should be expecting a quiet off-season but what Saddened and BS said is right. Im not missing SL, many i know arent either. I think it is good for the club to be sitting back and watching everything unfold around them especially over at Wigan.

We might be boring, but at least we're stable.

Re: I know its the off season but... : Thu Nov 01, 2012 11:00 am  

I must admit to becoming ever more jaded with SL - the gameplay is getting more and more one-dimensional and tedious with every passing season, the playoff system makes a complete joke of the result of 90% of all games played and sucks all the life and drama out of them all, and the quality and skills of players on show is diminishing at an ever faster rate. Saints are in a fantastic position for success next season the way the various SL squads are currently looking (we've got to be near favourites for SL) but even that hardly enthuses me for next year. I went to 4 home games last season (by far and away the fewest I've been to in over 2 decades, and most of those were just to see the new stadium really) and didn't really miss it at all if I'm being honest. I get far more excitement out of watching football these days and that's just wrong...