I couldn't write last night because I was too upset. Still absolutely gutted this morning, after a pretty terrible night's sleep too.
A few thoughts:
Ryan Morgan did make a howler, but he had also been defending against Shenton and Eden for the full game, who have been scoring tries for fun all season, and had kept them in his pocket for all but one break of the game. He was unlucky, because while it was a penalty, Child ignored many other possible penalties in those final minutes. The bloke will presumably be suffering this morning, but the only reason he was able to commit that brainfart was because of the work he'd put in in the preceding 79 minutes.
I've seen people saying Percy had a bad game. Obviously he did with the boot. But that's a bit unfair on the rest of his game. Defensively he was sound against a much bigger man in Webster, and he made a lot of metres when we passed the ball out to him - even in our own half. His try needed scoring too. If I had a complaint about Percy, it's that he's not as good as a centre needs to be at playing with other people. There seems to be very little understanding between him and his winger, and he frequently bobs and weaves and beats a man or two, but rarely passes to anyone in support after a break's been made. That is the part of his game Holbrook needs to develop in the close-season.
A weakness in our game, which is a relic from the Cunningham 5-drives-and-a-kick era is that we've had support play and effective offloading coached out of us. Saints made a number of offloads in the game last night, and lots of them went to ground, because the receiver simply wasn't expecting the ball. Contrast to Cas, where offloads always not only went to hand, but to a player who was expecting it and ready to do something with it. Likewise with breaks. The most glaring example was when Percy simply gave up on his supporting run when Makinson passed it out. In a confident attacking side, Percy would have run through whether the ball was presented or not - just in case. But our players have come to expect the tackle to be taken, so they don't push up. You also see that again and again in the middle of the park. Roby, Walmsley, Fages - all these lads get through the line and look for offloads, but they very rarely have anyone following up down the middle. Again, a real contrast to Cas, who always have support runners in numbers. That's the difference between a team which expects a pass and one which has lost the habit. This is the biggest area of work for Holbrook in the close season - teaching us to run support expecting to make breaks.
Matty Smith. I just don't really understand this situation. He's acknowledged to be slow and not particularly creative. But the assets are supposed to be a big kicking game and an old guiding head. But his kicking is average (no 40-20 for us at crucial moments), and at pressure moments when the team needed guidance, it clearly wasn't coming. The setting up for our drop-goal attempt was awful. Every single one of those plays should have been orchestrated by Smith, and he should have been in a position to have a good shot. Instead, it was chaotic and wasted. Halfback is the area where we have to take action. Last night, Luke Gale outplayed both our halves on his own (when his own partner was having a stinker). When was the last time a Saints halfback took control of a game and really bossed it? Probably Luke Walsh in his first season before his leg break. Smith isn't our man. Richardson - given coaching and time - might be. But we have to do something, because we won't win anything until we have an effective halfback partnership.
Having said all that, we were one catch and a brainfart away from Old Trafford, where I would have fancied us to beat either Leeds or Hull. Rewind the clock to even a couple of weeks ago when we were losing to Hull and Wigan at home, and that was very unlikely. Rewind to the first half of the season when we were losing to Leigh while playing the worst rugby of the last 20 years, and it would have been unthinkable. There may be huge disappointment this morning, but at least there's hope for next year.
