Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:50 pm  

I enjoyed the game, it was a real arm wrestle that could've settled differently.

Leeds edged the territorial game through a combination of two excellent performances from Peacock and Leulieu going forward and a better line speed in defence. Clough got some good yards and Puletua caused trouble, but we're lacking that Nick Fozzard/James Graham who'll just hit that brick wall for you when you're under pressure - perhaps Walmsley will grow into this.

We had our chance to take the game in the early stages of the second half when we (soliola in particular) were having a lot of luck up the middle. I thinkwe could have got some more penalties for Leeds holding down, but hey ho.

There were some good kicks, but just as many last tackle plays when we didn't look like we knew what to do. I think the pressure Leeds applied caused Wilkin's playmaking real problems today.

Compared to Leeds, we just looked a little unsure as what to do next, which saw some wasted plays with our guys getting it at half pace and being tackled on the spot.

Fair play, Saintsfan, Meli was poor on the whole tonight, perhaps the only player that I'd really criticise. I think LMS and Boof could certainly have done more in the forward battle, though.

Wheeler's injured again (siiiiiiiiiiigh). Does that mean Gaskell will come back in, or will he do something wild like play Turner #6?

Lomax took his try well and threatened on occasion, but he was pretty faultless fielding kicks, which is promising.

Young Percival? Smashing, just smashing. Fair play to Walker as well, who probably isn't quite ready for starting a match aginst Leeds.

Felt like the right team won, but it was 3 tries all.
Kicking is something we desparately need to address. Why they've had wheeler doing it when we know he struggles to string games together, I don't know.
Who is the best kicker at the club? Neither Wheels or Turner on tonight's showing.
I guess Gaskell will take over if he comes back in.

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:54 pm  

I thought we were an utter shambles, no leadership, no game plan , no creativity against a Leeds team who were really not all that good.
Positives.........Mark Percival, we can also put some of the blame on Bentham for allowing Leeds to be offside for 99.99% of the game
Negatives........still no half backs, gutless pack, one man brain dead rugby, looking like we will struggle to make top 8, another potential 22 more games of this rubbish.

This at the moment is probably the worse saints team since the mid 1980's.

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:59 pm  

Judder Man wrote:

I thought we were an utter shambles, no leadership, no game plan , no creativity against a Leeds team who were really not all that good

Leeds played a tactical game after last weeks bruising WCC. It stopped Saints go forward completely. Great play.

Judder Man wrote:

we can also put some of the blame on Bentham for allowing Leeds to be offside for 99.99% of the game

Then I read this and realised you probably don't really understand the game in too much depth.

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:01 pm  

Roy Haggerty wrote:

I'll give you Soliola - he was the standout forward after Puletua tonight. Really worked hard and made both yards and breaks. But battling alone when TP wasn't on the pitch with him.

As for Gardner, he's never been great under bombs, but he did run the ball back much better than Meli or Makinson have been doing. Not just in terms of impact and yards, but also the speed of the PTB after the tackle. I thought he was worth his place.

Meli's second try took a lot of scoring from the point where he got the ball. It was a wonderful piece of skill. It was also the only real positive contribution. He even nearly fluffed his first try by overrunning it. As for his workrate - shocking.

I think looking at the game without the hurt of the loss, people will see we scored as many as Leeds and missed all our kicks. We made good progress down field, I will be very interested in the Stats.

I thought Ade did run well, just a pity he did not clatter Hall if he was going to let him catch it. Meli did do well to score the last try, but I'm not sure he has the work rate in him?

If I was going to score them out of 10.
Lomax - 7, Meli - 5, Turner - 4, Percival - 9, Ade - 7, Wilkin - 6, Wheeler - 5, Laffranchi - 6, Roby - 7, TP - 7, Sia - 8, Manu - 6.5, Clough - 6.5, LMS - 5, Walker - 6.5, Greenwood - 6.5, Jones - 7.

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:02 pm  

Willie manu is a second rower who would be devestating out wide and for the life of me I cant understand why Brown is playing him at 13 .... As for Turner well we did warn you

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:02 pm  

The Chief wrote:

Percival was outstanding....biggest disappointment for me was that he didn't have a winger with pace on his outside who could finish off the breaks he made. Had we had someone like Hodgson or Hall, we'd have scored two more tries off his breaks.

I think the reason he almost overran the pass for his first try was because, minutes earlier, Percival have left him for dust.
On tonights performance, I wonder whether Turner would be better utilised on the wing, with centres being picked from Jones, Percival and Meli? If he ever runs from dummy half, he always seems to make yards and he would have had the pace to keep up with the breaks better.

Not a bad performance from us, by a long stretch. Better than the HUll game and against much stiffer competition than Bradford offered. We're also getting to try a lot of differnt players out.

You're right about a half back, though. Very important. I wonder what we'll do?

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:28 pm  

The Chief wrote:

Percival was outstanding....biggest disappointment for me was that he didn't have a winger with pace on his outside who could finish off the breaks he made. Had we had someone like Hodgson or Hall, we'd have scored two more tries off his breaks.

We do have someone like that. He's called Makinson and he was cooling his heels somewhere unknown instead of playing outside Percival instead of that wastrel Meli. Makinson can fly AND finish. What a great pairing those two would make. I'm sure Makinson could learn how to play on the left edge ...

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:34 pm  

I have to say I was expecting the usual over reaction on here but most people seemed to have taken this loss well. It was a disappointing performance tonight, I didn’t think we would win but we looked lost for most of the middle of the game.
The positive was Percival and Lomax, for the first time in a long time we had two backs that looked dangerous. Jones looked good in the pack and Walker put in a lot of effort on his first start.
The negative was the one man rugby we played due to lack of direction/leadership/a plan. This seemed to make us try for too many interceptions and our defence looked very poor at times. Our insistence to let people who can’t kick goals kick at goal defies belief, with Wheeler and Turner no were near good enough. I can understand not putting too much pressure on Percival but what is wrong with Lomax kicking?
The thing to remember is that we have not had a good coach in 4 years and a lot of the senior players are just not pulling their weight. Brown has a lot of work to do to get the team up to speed and he is going to have to do it with a lot of the salary cap in the stand for this season, if he wants things to improve. In the end they have 27 rounds to get it right. Last week we sorted out the fullback position, this week it was the left centre, so in 15 weeks we should have a good team

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:37 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

We do have someone like that. He's called Makinson and he was cooling his heels somewhere unknown instead of playing outside Percival instead of that wastrel Meli. Makinson can fly AND finish. What a great pairing those two would make. I'm sure Makinson could learn how to play on the left edge ...

I have to say I was thinking that during the game. Meli got shown up by Percival in both game awareness and pace tonight. Makinson is fast and can finish. You would think they would make a good partnership.

Re: Saints v Leeds - Verdict : Fri Mar 01, 2013 11:45 pm  

Wilkin to 13, Manu to second row, but who to 7?