Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sat Sep 29, 2012 11:51 pm  

SomersetSaint wrote:

After what appeared to be a write off of a season, Rush and KC have put some real pride back in the redvee, particulalrly with what is generally considered to be a squad lacking in quality. Time to look ahead now, with confidence, to next year. Come on you Saints.

Absolute rot - we have a squad oozing with quality by contemporary SL standards. We just simply haven't had any coaching worthy of the name to utilise what it's capable of - 3rd in the table, a semi and a quarter final are the very, very least you could reasonably expect any half-baked coach to have been able to achieve with them. This has been a season of massive underachievement for Saints and there's no glossing over the fact.

Anyway, I'm perfectly happy to put Rush and Simmons behind us and consign the last 4 years of waste to the scraphead along with mercifully the now broken 5 in-a-row. I have an unhealthy amount of naive hope that Brown is the man to finally get us clicking for next season and am looking forward to 2013 a darn sight more eagerly than I was 2012...

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 12:12 am  

I think it's fair to say we have underachieved. There's a lot of revisionist guff about with fans claiming they had very few hopes at the start of the season. Yes, we had suffered a massive loss with Graham. But Laffranchi and Hohaia were highly regarded in the NRL and with Soliola fit, a bunch of talented kids on the verge of blossoming into good SL players and no great signings made by our main rivals we had every reason to think we could win it.

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 1:08 am  

Mugwump wrote:

I think it's fair to say we have underachieved. There's a lot of revisionist guff about with fans claiming they had very few hopes at the start of the season. Yes, we had suffered a massive loss with Graham. But Laffranchi and Hohaia were highly regarded in the NRL and with Soliola fit, a bunch of talented kids on the verge of blossoming into good SL players and no great signings made by our main rivals we had every reason to think we could win it.

Hear, hear! We actually had comparatively few injuries this year too for the first time in aeons, so there's been even less excuse. Anyone who wants to congratulate Rush for anything needs to have a think...

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 7:00 am  

Northampton_Saint wrote:

Absolute rot - we have a squad oozing with quality by contemporary SL standards. We just simply haven't had any coaching worthy of the name to utilise what it's capable of - 3rd in the table, a semi and a quarter final are the very, very least you could reasonably expect any half-baked coach to have been able to achieve with them. This has been a season of massive underachievement for Saints and there's no glossing over the fact.

Anyway, I'm perfectly happy to put Rush and Simmons behind us and consign the last 4 years of waste to the scraphead along with mercifully the now broken 5 in-a-row. I have an unhealthy amount of naive hope that Brown is the man to finally get us clicking for next season and am looking forward to 2013 a darn sight more eagerly than I was 2012...

A side oozing with quality? Are you watching the same team as me? We ain't a bad team but we certainly not oozing with quality!

I think most saints fans will agree that we over achieved this year. The current squad is possibly the worst we've had in the super league era but as the standards of super league have dropped its kept us competitive.

We went into this season with no halfbacks, one centre and two out and out props. The balance of the squad is all wrong.

The more I read your posts the more I agree with most posters on here, your a complete numpty

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 7:25 am  

As an outsider (Wire fan) I think you have overachieved this year given the make up of the suad and fully agree with Ninja in his analysis.

I said in another post that to win we would have to stop Roby, Soliola and to some extent Puletua.
I think we did that for the most part, however you were clearly the better team in the first half, but our defensive effort was awesome. In previous years we'd have folded. I was relieved to go in only 2 points down.
Going in 8 points down wouldn't have exaggerated your dominance in the first half.

I think Rush and Cunningham have done a good job given the position after 5-6 games this season but clearly they were only a stop gap solution.

Brown has done wonders for Hudds but they've had their blips. It'll be interesting to see how he goes, but for me the halves have been a problem. Having 2 younger guys there is a big ask. Hohaia (?sp) has been a disappointment given his reputation.

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 9:17 am  

fez1 wrote:

As an outsider (Wire fan) I think you have overachieved this year given the make up of the suad and fully agree with Ninja in his analysis.

I said in another post that to win we would have to stop Roby, Soliola and to some extent Puletua.
I think we did that for the most part, however you were clearly the better team in the first half, but our defensive effort was awesome. In previous years we'd have folded. I was relieved to go in only 2 points down.
Going in 8 points down wouldn't have exaggerated your dominance in the first half.

I think Rush and Cunningham have done a good job given the position after 5-6 games this season but clearly they were only a stop gap solution.

Brown has done wonders for Hudds but they've had their blips. It'll be interesting to see how he goes, but for me the halves have been a problem. Having 2 younger guys there is a big ask. Hohaia (?sp) has been a disappointment given his reputation.

Even though I agree that hohaia has been poor I also feel sorry for the guy, He's been asked to play a postion he just can't play.

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:20 am  

Ninja saint wrote:

A side oozing with quality? Are you watching the same team as me? We ain't a bad team but we certainly not oozing with quality!

I think most saints fans will agree that we over achieved this year. The current squad is possibly the worst we've had in the super league era but as the standards of super league have dropped its kept us competitive.

We went into this season with no halfbacks, one centre and two out and out props. The balance of the squad is all wrong.

More revisionist nonsense. Let's take a moment to return to the season before this one. Like this season our start to that campaign was a total calamity. We lost our star scrum half - the man we were banking years of success on - Eastmond and the team was in disarray. Then, completely out of the blue, we turned things round entirely and set forth on a tremendous winning run with two young and inexperienced halves - Lomax & Gaskell (indeed, these boards were "Lomaskell" crazy!). All thoughts of Eastmond were vaporised and we played some of the best rugby seen at the club in the last two years. Yes, we lost the Grand Final. But AT THAT POINT we had EVERY REASON to be optimistic for this season. Of course, there was the substantial problem of dealing with the loss of Graham - but in the context of modest signings made by pretty much every other SL club - Hohaia, Laffranchi and company looked like very useful assets. We could also count on a fully fit Soliola - which was effectively a new signing in itself. I don't recall too many people slagging off the signing of LMS. Moreover, Shenton looked like hitting some semblance of form (we desperately missed him in the GF) - both Makinson and Dixon ended that campaign looking like nailed on certainties etc.

NO ONE was tipping Saints to finish fourth or fifth at the start of this season. No one.

It was only AFTER our form collapsed under Simmons that suddenly everyone began to change their opinions and revise expectations. To claim otherwise is simply a lie. This is not to say a GF victory was a foregone conclusion - but if at the very start of this season someone had prophesied the breaking up of Lomax & Gaskell partnership, the collapse of the team under Simmons (who had led a team of kids ALMOST to the title) the loaning of Foster to Hull and the reversal in Dixon's form, the utter failure of Hohaia etc. etc. they would have been laughed at.

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:28 am  

This is slightly ot but I want to say thanks to the Saints fans in the pub opposite the station before and after the game. Really
descent people. I went outside to have a cig and left my phone on the table and one of them came out to tell me that my phone
was ringing. It's moments like that that i"ll never forget.

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:31 am  

Northampton_Saint wrote:

Absolute rot - we have a squad oozing with quality by contemporary SL standards. We just simply haven't had any coaching worthy of the name to utilise what it's capable of - 3rd in the table, a semi and a quarter final are the very, very least you could reasonably expect any half-baked coach to have been able to achieve with them. This has been a season of massive underachievement for Saints and there's no glossing over the fact.

.

How can we have a side oozing with quality when we have yet to replace with quality the likes of Long, Martyn, Sculthorpe, Cunningham and Graham.
We have some good players which are playing out of position but I wouldn't say we have a squad oozing with quality.
All Rush and Cunningham have done is steadied the ship under constraints, they were given a job to do that was alien to them, they have done a good job to the best of there ability and we must thank them for that.

Re: Proud to be a Saint : Sun Sep 30, 2012 10:44 am  

Judder Man wrote:

How can we have a side oozing with quality when we have yet to replace with quality the likes of Long, Martyn, Sculthorpe, Cunningham and Graham.

We needed to replace players of such quality when winning the league demanded such.

Today the GF winners of two seasons ago (who will be kicking themselves over not winning three in a row) were desperate to make Matty Smith, a guy who couldn't oust Long when he was crocked, their key playmaker.

Phuck! Any team with Long, Martyn, Sculthorpe, Cunningham and Graham on their roster today could secure a bank loan for ten future years of Grand Final winning prize money!