Re: Spent force : Sun May 13, 2012 10:48 am
I really don't understand fans falling over themselves to bash our pack. I thought it was pretty effective yesterday. Indeed, I think it's been effective in the overwhelming majority of games this season. Yes, some forwards did drop off tackles yesterday - but most of these mistakes were in the final twenty minutes when the game seemed lost. Prior to that I thought our forwards stood up to Wigan pretty well.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about our backline which leaks opportunities like a busted water pipe. On reflection it was a mistake to bring back Wheeler in a game this big. Together with Shenton and Meli he made Wigan's task of breaching our defence very easy. I really can't recall any Saints side over the last twenty years which has been this woeful defending down the channels.
This problem is further exacerbated by our inability to keep opponents off us through our one-dimensional attacking and kicking which is giving them up to twenty yards per set. Wigan's kicking penned Wellens back to his goal line whereas ours regularly gave them tackle zero anywhere up to the half way mark.
I've been saying Lomax isn't a scrum half since the beginning of the season. Yes, he has the ability to unlock the weaker sides. But any team serving up a cohesive and determined defence will nullify him completely. This is not to say I think Lomax is a poor player. He's just being asked to perform a task his (copious) talents aren't suited to.
Gaskell is the future in terms of playmaking. Right now he's not physically ready to perform this task on a regular basis and I think one of the reasons he's been kept out of the side is to work on his frame. Hopefully he's bulked up a bit but we're going to have to wait until probably next season before we see any serious benefits.
Again, I think our best option is to shunt Hohaia to scrum half where he can work in tandem with Gaskell. I'd then divide the hooking responsibilities between Lomax and Roby (making us far less predictable in that area) with Roby moving to loose forward when Lomax occupies the spot.
At fullback we need to look seriously at phasing in either Makinson or possibly Swift. Josh Jones has done enough (and is physically developed enough) to warrant a long-term spot. Shenton is a waste of time right now. Yes, he's still recovering from injury - but this doesn't mean we can allow a player to continuously turn out sub-standard performances without taking action. Ditto Wheeler. I've given this lad plenty of latitude over the past few years but my patience is now at and end. I said earlier this year that he needs to cement his position this season or not at all. So far he has done little to nothing to achieve that aim. Meli? What more can be said about this guy. I simply can't think of any better symbol of Saints' failure in recruitment over the past five years than Meli. Last season he dodged a bullet by turning in some surprisingly good attacking displays in the centre but this season he's not even doing that. The guy is long past his sell-by date and we should look at other options in the academy.
