Wellsy13 wrote:
Down to retirement of the senior players and top players being pillaged by union/NRL in a short space of time. In the last few years they've lost Sculthorpe, Long, Cunningham, Graham and Eastmond. Roby is all that's left. Wellens is hardly the player he was, and the young players aren't ready yet.
All of those players were on serious coin, and their salaries will have been paid out to other players who've either joined the cluib, or advanced through the ranks.
The problem IMO is two-fold.
Firstly, the players brought in just haven't been of the same quality. Some came with big reputations and haven't lived up to them; others were younger players who've not fulfilled their promise (indeed seem to have gone backwards). Every club signs these players - it's just that here we've had a procession of them. Is this poor recruitment, simple bad luck or bad coaching?
Which brings me to the second part of the problem. Look at the evolution of our team over the course of Super League, and especially from Millward onwards. Millward brought a cavalier attitude to our play (reminscent of the pre-Sl era, although now with good players and a no longer financially dominant wi*an). Our gameplan was aided by quick PTB's and keeping the opposition on the back foot when we got on a roll, along with keeping the ball alive. Our defence at times was bobbins, though. Anderson toughened the defence and brought more organisation. And, although we lost the unpredictability of the Millward golden era, we still played mostly entertaining rugby.
The rot, IMO, came with Potter. More organisation, less unpredictability. Although we conceded less, we became much easier to defend against. This was the culture in which many of our players now in the team were brought through in. The Potter appointment, with hindsight, was a very poor one. Not that he's necessarily a bad coach, but because he was wrong for Saints. I guess one mitigating factor is that around the time Potter came in, the RFL were tinkering with the rules and the interpretation thereof in terms of the ruck. After a period of ensuring players had to let the tackled player up immediately with a 10m defensive line rigidly enforced, defences were given much more latitude to slow the PTB and the distance to the defensive line seems far shorter these days. We were never going to consistently drive teams back with uber-quick PTB's and scoots from dummy half, so Potter had to change our 'plan A'. It's just that he never came up with anything effective, and we eneded up playing one-dimensional, boring rugby.
So, after Potter, we needed a top level coach to get the team back to their 'entertainers' culture. Unfortunately, on current evidence, Simmons unable to do this. If anything, we've gone further backwards in terms of attacking flair.
But we cannot panic now and sack Simmons - unless there is a top-class coach available (which I don't think there is) because, as Mugwump says, it'd be counter-productive (and more damaging in the long-term) to hand the reigns to an average coach for anything other than the rest of the season, and the type of coaches who'd take a short-term contract wouldn't, IMO, be of the calibre needed to turn our season around.
The issue I have with Royce, though, is that he seems too stubborn and, when an idea or tactic isn't working, he won't recognise this and remedy it, preferring to keep plugging away in the vain hope it'll come good, when everyone else can see it won't.
The change I'd make is that, now Lance is more familiar with the team, he should play at No7. He's an experienced player and should be given the role of organiser-in-chief.
