Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 12:17 am  

Albion wrote:

Why not? We'll have a lot of cap space if those players you mention leave and I cannot really see why we wouldn't/can't spend the max cap? Unless you're implying something else.......?

We couldnt compete with Wire over Chris Hill, and its been quoted elsewhere that Wire completely trumped Puletua's salary at Saints, which nearly caused him to leave Saints. Luckily he agreed to stay at Saints even though the offer on the table from Wire was reportedly significantly higher than Saints were prepared to pay.

One of the main sticking points re potential signing in recent years has been Saints refusal to pay transfer fees. Something Wire have had no problems doing. In a sellers market, transfer fees start to come into play.

Having cap space is irrelevant if the other club is in the same position but more open to splash cash around.

Also the Aussie Salary cap which is going upto around £4.5 million in the next few years will make it very hard to attract top line Australasian talent. Thats without even considering what i think will become a bunfight over the diminishing UK player talent pool, as the best British players drain away to the riches in the southern hemisphere

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 12:22 am  

The Chair Maker wrote:

We couldnt compete with Wire over Chris Hill, and it has been quoted elsewhere that Wire completely trumped Puletua's salary at Saints, which nearly caused him to leave Saints. Luckily he agreed to stay at Saints even though the offer on the table from Wire was reportedly significantly higher than Saints were prepared to pay.

Are Wire over-paying in those situations or are saints underpaying?

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 1:09 am  

JonB95 wrote:

Our backs actually did ok. Honestly the first 60 minutes was encouraging. Sia and Manu were ripping it up, Gaskell and Wilkin were kicking fine and things were rosy. Then, it kinda fell apart.

Spot on.

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:07 am  

Blobbynator wrote:

Makinson doesn't have the hands to be a full back IMO.

I'd personally be looking at the young lad from London (whose name has completely escaped me) - he has pace, is currently playing there for London and looks like a really exciting prospect. He's also OOC at the end of the year.

Yes he is a good broken play player, but he fumbled and dropped 3 bombs from Broughy against the Giants.

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:16 am  

I think it was a fair result really. Both teams will get much better when the weather fairs up and the ground hardens.

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:18 am  

I keep trying to convince myself that we're a working progress, but we've been like this for a few seasons now. No half backs, no impact off the bench, no real pace out wide, no leadership, no kicking game. We're stuck in a 'transitional phase' and if this keeps up for the next few games, this season will be a write off already.

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:23 am  

100% point lost for me.

Why? I though we were comfortably the better team in the 1st half. Out muscling them up front and keeping them within their own half on a lot of their sets.
Their tries, although they took them well, came from us giving them possession - the forward pass for tony p for the early one and then Walmsley'stwo errors towards the end.

2nd half, our completion rate completely dropped, whilst Hull kept theirs high. That was the major difference and hat's how they got back in it.

I have no beef with the forwards' commitment or performance this week and thought, given the amount of sets Hull had on our line, we defended well.

The things that concern me are that A) we seemed incapable of getting quick play the balls and B) we have no brain directing us.
At 22-22 we were into the drop goal minute and had driven to our forty metre line. Anyone with any sense knows that you get he ball as far from our posts as possible, but Wilkin decides to come up with a limp cross field chip that lands on their 40!?!?!? WTF!?!

Walmsley will come good, he looks light but still manages to get his body through the tackle and tackled well.

Anyone who's still complaining, you should think back to this fixture last year.

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:24 am  

JonB95 wrote:

Our backs actually did ok. Honestly the first 60 minutes was encouraging. Sia and Manu were ripping it up, Gaskell and Wilkin were kicking fine and things were rosy. Then, it kinda fell apart.

The backs need fixing though, we had about 30 mins were we passed along the line with speed to the edges. We were fortunate that Wilkin and Gaskell and their high bombs were difficult to handle on 3 or 4 occasions. Our half backs still not creative enough during the 80 min game, the only back to have a decent game was Turner, thought Lomax and Makinson had poor games with Gaskell, Jones and Meli just average.
Also 3 games in, we are dominated in the tackle and takes an age to play the ball, don,t know if this the referee control or whether we are surrendering in the tackle too early, this is probably an area we need to show some grunt to get some momentum.

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:42 am  

When we scored back-to-back tries from Laffranchi and Meli, I thought/hoped we could go on and put some points on them, as the old Saints would have done.

Re: Point won / Point Lost ??? : Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:48 am  

St. Rughead wrote:

When we scored back-to-back tries from Laffranchi and Meli, I thought/hoped we could go on and put some points on them, as the old Saints would have done.

The old Saints had a lot more experienced players in key areas that were better than the experienced players we have now.