Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:10 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

It's no fluke that the sides having the best seasons to date ( [b]Wire[/b, Catalans and Hull) are also having decent runs with injuries.

Nicky, I really don't know what you've been drinking but to say Wire have had a good run with injuries is like saying the Titanic only had a pin hole in its Hull.

Currently we have injured........
Sandow.
Laithwaite.
Harrison.
Bailey.
T King.
B Evans.
Dodds.
Patton.
Dwyer.
Cox.
Wheeler.

Thats 11 players out of our 25 man squad.


Playing on with injuries are.....
Ratchford.
Westwood
Gidley.
Clark

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:16 pm  

Fatbelly wrote:

Nicky, I really don't know what you've been drinking but to say Wire have had a good run with injuries is like saying the Titanic only had a pin hole in its Hull.

Currently we have injured........
Sandow.
Laithwaite.
Harrison.
Bailey.
T King.
B Evans.
Dodds.
Patton.
Dwyer.
Cox.
Wheeler.

Thats 11 players out of our 25 man squad.

Only Sandow is a starting player in that list though. Dodds might be a bench prop and Dwyer also a possibility for the bench. The rest are squad players and I think most clubs in SL would take that. You also can't claim Gary Wheeler is injured, he's just being Gary Wheeler.

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:22 pm  

bewareshadows wrote:

We won last week so not too much to complain about.

There will be plenty of post game chat.

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Thu Apr 14, 2016 10:45 pm  

As for our game tonight, I've no real problems with anything apart from the refereeing. Catalans are comfortably better than us in all departments and they thoroughly deserved to win that game. They game winning moment was the tackle on Theo Fages in the second half when we were mounting pressure on their line, it was an incredible effort. They are a good team and probably only the lack of discipline in their French players will hold them back. Their pack was much better than ours, they are bigger, stronger and fitter than we are. Their star players also make the McManus sympathisers look silly. While people on here bitch and moan about there being no players to sign in the whole world, Catalans have players like Taylor, Stewart, Inu and Carney running round, through and over us.

Whilst we had a brief flirtation with positivity after a good performance at Warrington, tonight is a massive return to earth. There has to be a realisation at the club that our current squad just isn't acceptable. McDonnell, Owens, Turner, Richards etc. They should not be at the club, never mind in the 17. They also need to look at the strength and conditioning side of things, our players aren't strong enough and aren't fit enough.

If McManus is determined to stick with KC, he needs to get an experienced NRL head coach in to help guide him. He also needs to find someone who can help with recruitment, it's farcical currently. The names being banded about as signings for both this season and next season are just not good enough. Time to think big McManus or the drop out of the 4 will soon become a drop out of the 8.

I can't leave this post without mentioning the referee tonight. I have never seen a worse showing from a match official. He didn't play the offside rule tonight, just completely ignored it altogether. Big Dave Taylor didn't get onside once all night and there were several occasions where they were 5 or 6 yards offside, he missed a knock on by Roby under our sticks because he couldn't see the play the ball because he had two men in his way. He also needed the touch judges coming on to give a penalty. His equipment clearly broke before the game, the two officials tried to fix it before the game but he waved them off, but then decides it needs fixing when Catalans are forced into a drop out. You can't do that, wait for a genuine break in play such as a try or an injury. He didn't affect the outcome as Catalans were so superior, but he made the game a mess. SL as a competition has to do better with referees. They need more of them and they need to be appraised properly and made to improve.

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Thu Apr 14, 2016 11:36 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

As for our game tonight, I've no real problems with anything apart from the refereeing. Catalans are comfortably better than us in all departments and they thoroughly deserved to win that game. They game winning moment was the tackle on Theo Fages in the second half when we were mounting pressure on their line, it was an incredible effort. They are a good team and probably only the lack of discipline in their French players will hold them back. Their pack was much better than ours, they are bigger, stronger and fitter than we are. Their star players also make the McManus sympathisers look silly. While people on here bitch and moan about there being no players to sign in the whole world, Catalans have players like Taylor, Stewart, Inu and Carney running round, through and over us.

Whilst we had a brief flirtation with positivity after a good performance at Warrington, tonight is a massive return to earth. There has to be a realisation at the club that our current squad just isn't acceptable. McDonnell, Owens, Turner, Richards etc. They should not be at the club, never mind in the 17. They also need to look at the strength and conditioning side of things, our players aren't strong enough and aren't fit enough.

If McManus is determined to stick with KC, he needs to get an experienced NRL head coach in to help guide him. He also needs to find someone who can help with recruitment, it's farcical currently. The names being banded about as signings for both this season and next season are just not good enough. Time to think big McManus or the drop out of the 4 will soon become a drop out of the 8.

I can't leave this post without mentioning the referee tonight. I have never seen a worse showing from a match official. He didn't play the offside rule tonight, just completely ignored it altogether. Big Dave Taylor didn't get onside once all night and there were several occasions where they were 5 or 6 yards offside, he missed a knock on by Roby under our sticks because he couldn't see the play the ball because he had two men in his way. He also needed the touch judges coming on to give a penalty. His equipment clearly broke before the game, the two officials tried to fix it before the game but he waved them off, but then decides it needs fixing when Catalans are forced into a drop out. You can't do that, wait for a genuine break in play such as a try or an injury. He didn't affect the outcome as Catalans were so superior, but he made the game a mess. SL as a competition has to do better with referees. They need more of them and they need to be appraised properly and made to improve.

Where do I start?

I agree that the ref was poor and he only gave one off side - against us ironically. You are right, the Cats are fast off the line but not that fast.

Unlike you I thought our main Props did OK and Farges and Walsh did their best - but there was no movement or runners. Our second row were non existent and LMS, whilst I can't knock him for effort he hasn't a brain at least no rugby brain.
He cut inside all the time into the middle where our forwards had already had no joy. Why not go to the edge, why not try the left side for a change.?

Forward wise, we never really looked like we would score in the 2nd half and defensively you just knew when they got near our 20 that they would score. Only an off night by Richards kept the score to non embarrassing levels.

I thought Mc Donnell and Dawson played OK, but I have particular venom for Turner who was absolutely garbage in everything he did.
Did KC try him at SO for so long because he knew he was so poor in defence AND attack. I felt sorry for Spedding who was never going to get the ball from Turner and who was all over the place positionaly because Turner was wondering around. Get rid.

Did anyone see if Jack Owens was actually on the pitch?

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Thu Apr 14, 2016 11:51 pm  

Jack Owens "chasing" Pat Richards was one of the most disgraceful things I've seen on a sporting field.

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Thu Apr 14, 2016 11:52 pm  

Didn't see or hear the game but just read KC's post match comments. He seems to be excluding himself from responsibility for the performance. He might not be to blame, I don't know, but you've gotta show as a coach that you're all in it together. Talking like that is only going to isolate him from the players and create a very unhappy atmosphere. You can't talk about being proud of the lads one week then after the next match essentially saying a few won't be playing next week.

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Fri Apr 15, 2016 6:52 am  

Saddened! wrote:

Only Sandow is a starting player in that list though. Dodds might be a bench prop and Dwyer also a possibility for the bench. The rest are squad players and I think most clubs in SL would take that. You also can't claim Gary Wheeler is injured, he's just being Gary Wheeler.

With out wanting to derail, the issue is not so much the players who are out injured as the ones playing through injury, as every one of the squad players are injured.

As a 'neutral' Catalan were great last night, it's just a shame KC couldn't admit that.

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Fri Apr 15, 2016 7:01 am  

Twentyman wrote:

Didn't see or hear the game but just read KC's post match comments. He seems to be excluding himself from responsibility for the performance. He might not be to blame, I don't know, but you've gotta show as a coach that you're all in it together. Talking like that is only going to isolate him from the players and create a very unhappy atmosphere. You can't talk about being proud of the lads one week then after the next match essentially saying a few won't be playing next week.

I seem to remember KC was blaming his senior players so for me that would be Wilkin, Turner and LMS (despite being workmanlike). Our front row put in a good effort, but Roby should have run out from dummy half a bit more because Catalan was so far offside the first receiver was getting very little time to do anything.
Catalans won this game with power at impact 37 tackle busts against a weak effort of 12 tackle busts for Saints.
.
Shirts 1 to 5 are sat in the stands at the moment watching the game so its obvious our weakness in defence and attack is out wide, its going to be a long frustrating season this year isn't it. Also KC is on a "sticky wicket" coming out with post match comments like that.

Re: St Helens v Catalans Dragons : Fri Apr 15, 2016 7:10 am  

Saddened! wrote:

Jack Owens "chasing" Pat Richards was one of the most disgraceful things I've seen on a sporting field.

this happened right in front of me and i said the same thing to my dad. How old is Pat Richards and how old is Owens? is Richards approaching his mid 30's and Owens early 20's? not only did he get done for pace he gave up after 10 meters. How can a young winger get done for pace of a 30 odd year old winger in the 2nd half.