Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sat Mar 02, 2013 4:50 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

You can also buy out of date chocolate there. I managed to get the whole of the chocolate counter cleared out last night in the Wide to West as I realised when I opened my bar and bits fell off it that the chocolate was stale - was looking peeky - and on reading the sell by date it was a week past. So I took it back, hoping for an exchange, but it turned out the whole lot of chocolate was out of date.

On top of that there were no prices on show - the red board had been ripped down (bits of it were still stuck up) and the screens weren't working. Hardly any pints had been pulled and the fast lane wasn't open.

Saints have serious match day management issues and it is a real shame. In fact, they appear to have gone backwards from last season.

It's much improved at the bar we use in the middle of the North stand - plenty of pulled pints and some decent local hotpots. Much better than those awful, awful p pies.

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sat Mar 02, 2013 6:48 pm  

I,ve supported Saints for a very, very, very long time win or lose. This could be my last year as a regular supporter, this seasons team is very un saints like and its difficult to associate with it. As for Langtree its good for the future but its no fortress, it leaks like a sieve in more ways than one.
Might start to watch the amateur game a bit more.

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sat Mar 02, 2013 7:10 pm  

I was actually bored yesterday except the last 15mins and maybe the first 10. Why was the pitch so Odsal-style sticky? Our moves are so slow and preditable. Only TP's offload excited me and the Percival breaks.

What is more depreessing is that Widnes are far more entertaining than us.

FLynn/Hanbury/Kevin Brown? Surely we should be looking to pick people up of this calibre. All would make a difference to our team. 1st two wouldn;t have cost that much surely.

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sat Mar 02, 2013 9:18 pm  

Judder Man wrote:

I,ve supported Saints for a very, very, very long time win or lose. This could be my last year as a regular supporter, this seasons team is very un saints like and its difficult to associate with it. As for Langtree its good for the future but its no fortress, it leaks like a sieve in more ways than one.
Might start to watch the amateur game a bit more.

Exactly how I feel. I really enjoyed the WCC and the Widnes game tonight, so it's not just apathy towards the sport, I just really can't connect with this Saints team.

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sat Mar 02, 2013 11:47 pm  

I came back up north the other day. Havnt been to a game for ages.
I went the other night and felt exactly the same.

The Leeds game last year was the only decent game because saints where so poor then where great to watch that day just because everyone turned up and put the effort in.

Saints area boring team to watch now, Langtree Park lacks the atmosphere because of it.
NOT GOOD

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:00 am  

After the game one thing occurred to me which I think speaks volumes.

We were all raving over Mark Percival - the main reason was that I can't remember the last time I've seen one of our centres make a break from within our own half. That's a major problem and indicative of our reliance on a forwards game that just isn't working anymore, mainly because we don't have the personnel to execute it.

I fear that NB won't be given a free reign to wipe the board clean and start over, I just can't see where we are going to get 3 props to replace Perry, Laffranchi and TP. I can't see where we will get a 7 from to replace Lomax (who I'm guessing is now our long term replacement for Wello) or where we will get a 6 from to replace Hohaia - especially as we will need to compensate him if we terminate his contract.

Koukash has got a bucket load of cash to spend at Salford and doesn't have the baggage we do - and look how difficult it is to find players of the right quality to bring in. Add to that the fact we need at least 5 players in key positions and its near on impossible.

We are now paying for some poor recruitment decisions and whilst its never easy to predict how well a player is going to turn out when they get in your side, we have made some bad mistakes it has to be said.

I know it would be hard to measure but players contracts really should have some minimum performance criteria attached to them which put the club in the position of being able to fire consistently poor players without paying full compensation. Lets face it, more real life situations would see people fired for not producing the goods so why should sports people be any different?

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 9:39 am  

What annoys me most is our style of play, like I said earlier very un saints like. Despite our lack of half backs we should be playing with a lot more committment and intelligence.

In offence its all one man rugby with very little offload, if there is a chance of offload there is no one up in support. Passing along the line is very slow and lateral and most of the time stops at centre position, no dummy runners, angled plays, change in direction, all very easy to defend against.

In defence we have very little line speed, the oppostion making a minimum of 10 metres on every play, we can,t wrap up a player which means they either offload or get a quick play the ball.
There is very little grunt in the pack which has basically made Roby very ineffective, we always had our second rows playing out wide with our centres ready to support. Soliola and Manu are basically lone rangers and we don,t create a half break opportunity.

We know superleague has changed and its become a kicking game, Saints never had a kicking game because they played with ball in hand. This has dissapeared now so we have become a team very predictable, uncreative, boring, dumb........combine this with the lacking of any visible game plan, then we have a saints team that is very ALIEN to me, something which personally win or lose I can,t accept at the moment.

Lastly one other important factor is the younger future supporter over the last 4 years there is a distinct lack of personality and character in the team something the younger supporter can identify with, perhaps we need a bit of luck and get 3 or 4 young players to suddenly take the superleague by storm, hopefully Percival will become one of those for starters.

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 12:24 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

Exactly how I feel. I really enjoyed the WCC and the Widnes game tonight, so it's not just apathy towards the sport, I just really can't connect with this Saints team.

I have to admit there are a number of players in the team I do not like as people.

Wello with has arm waving.

Wikin putting his media career before the club

Perry being a lazy Aussie on holiday.

Meli and Puletua being just lazy.

LMS and Ade are probably the only ones I would offer you buy a beer for.

The team I watched in the 80's and early 90's were a good bunch of lads that tried hard and even when they lost it was difficult to fault the effort. You just feel that a lot of the players in the current squad just don't care enough.

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 2:47 pm  

Noel Cleal wrote:

I have to admit there are a number of players in the team I do not like as people.

Wello with has arm waving.

Wikin putting his media career before the club

Perry being a lazy Aussie on holiday.

Meli and Puletua being just lazy.

LMS and Ade are probably the only ones I would offer you buy a beer for.

The team I watched in the 80's and early 90's were a good bunch of lads that tried hard and even when they lost it was difficult to fault the effort. You just feel that a lot of the players in the current squad just don't care enough.

LMS was blowing out of his @rse 5 mins after entering the pitch on Friday.

Re: Does you like this Saints side? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 5:57 pm  

The Chief wrote:

I know it would be hard to measure but players contracts really should have some minimum performance criteria attached to them which put the club in the position of being able to fire consistently poor players without paying full compensation. Lets face it, more real life situations would see people fired for not producing the goods so why should sports people be any different?

1. I don't think the players' union or their agents would take to kindly to that.

2. If we did it unilaterally how much harder would it make recruitment?