Re: a complete joke! : Sat Jun 14, 2014 10:04 pm  

Judder Man wrote:

We can have some of the best coaches and players at the club but the conclusion will be the same unless we look deeper towards the structure and culture at the club.
It,s something McManus has struggled with since leaving Knowsley Road albeit with the occaisional historical quotes in the match program to remind the club where they should be.
On the pitch we are very short of inspirational players to influence players with the right atitude, hence the retention of Wello and Wilkin.
Someone needs to step up in prominence to be a leader on the pitch, we,ve not had anybody for the last 3 years capable of doing this.

People are born leaders IMO. We have a lot of passive players in our team, Roby included. I don't think we have a leader in there and maybe that says more about the people recruiting/promoting players than about the players. If you recruit/promote passive players then you have no leaders.

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 8:40 am  

I consider Brown to be a similar coach to Eric Hughes for us ,we are a better squad under him than the previous 3 coaches despite some recent terrible performances .
But we don't have a killer instinct to go that bit extra and win a big game , maybe Brown , like Hughes, is not capable of coaching that.
I'd still be happy for Brown to see out his current deal then look to recruit a real ruthless coach .

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 8:48 am  

When I was watching last night I was surprised at the amount of effort that some Saints players were putting into the game. Earlier in the season we were poop real poop, we didn't turn things around until mid May but prior to that time I didn't question the effort our team were putting in.

Last night was one of two things, just a plain old bad day at the office or a sign of more deeper problems within Saints.
You now have two really big games coming up in Cas at home & the Pies away, take two or more points from those games and you can say you are back on track and Perpignan was a horrible blip. It would not surprise me if you took the four points from the two games.

I still think that Saints will finish in the top three and along with Wire, Wigan & Leeds make up the four teams to contest the Grand Final eliminating games.

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 9:19 am  

Thank god we've only got Cas and Wigan next...

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 9:40 am  

I have never seen such poor tackling from a Saints side, shirt grabbing, Catalan just seemed to be able to walk past players.

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 11:08 am  

I'm honestly a bit lost at the moment and the only phrase that comes to mind to describe it is Jekyll and Hide ( and no that is not a mis-spelling).

Lets start at the top, the big man is a huge Saints fan, I do not doubt he would do whatever is in the clubs best interests. However as a fan which we all are, we can make decisions that we think are in the best interest but we can be wrong.

The coaching staff and structure..

There must be an issue, I'm not going to profess great insight but others outside the club have commented on our ex-players conditioning and they are experts in their fields.

Signings which are down to the whole team, why do we have props who only like to play loose forward? 2nd rowers who only like to play loose forward? etc

The coach I do think he knows what he wants from the team, but I'm doubting that he has the force of will and motivation to get it across. I think he has the smarts but you can see people in any company who are very clever, but have no idea of how to manage people and get the best from them.

The players, these are the hiders. I've honestly no idea who is our best line up. At the start of the season it seemed very straight forwards, but now I'm not sure. Why because the player with the name on the back can have a great game one week and be awful the next.

We can't blame yesterday on Lance (I have had no time for him the last 2 years, but that's down to him not being a 6 he certainly puts in effort)
Laffranchi, Wilkin (all three missing from injury)

If I thought there was something magical like sacking them all then fine I'd suggest it, but I'm not sure playing the kids will change much it's seems to be catching.

Next week we could be fine, but a lot seems to be down to how the other side turns up.

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 12:04 pm  

I think the whole structure and culture at the club is very fragmented and this should be fixed first, otherwise any present and future coach will struggle at first base.
I.m very critical of our players conditioning to run the course of the season and the mental toughness impregnated into the players.

In a way I have a bit of sympathy for McManus who has had to battle on all fronts, a new stadium, turning the club into a profit making one whilst balancing youth development with overseas signings. All this means we have been in a long term transition period instead of a short one.

We really need a highly disciplined performance related structure in place to operate as one entity instead of the "cherry picking" of individual players who have and have not performed in a match.

The biggest problem we have and which can be fixed quite easily is our attitude and intensity of starting a game, I,ve only seen 2 games where we have got this right against Leeds and Huddersfield.

Hopefully monday morning is a positive productive one as for the next 2 games there is nowhere to hide for both player and coach.

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 12:04 pm  

jaybs wrote:

I have never seen such poor tackling from a Saints side, shirt grabbing, Catalan just seemed to be able to walk past players.

Apart from Lomax . IMO put in a shift for Saints last night . Tackles well above his Wieght . Class player hope the injury is not too serious .

Regards , EW

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 12:43 pm  

The last trophy saints won was in 2008. That's 6 years ago. Quite a long time.

Re: a complete joke! : Sun Jun 15, 2014 3:37 pm  

Edinburgh Warrior wrote:

Apart from Lomax . IMO put in a shift for Saints last night . Tackles well above his Wieght . Class player hope the injury is not too serious .

Completely agree, what a freak accident, just to turn in his run as Johnny did and go down like that! Noticed one forward who likes to go out to the wing area, and still struggles to get back in the line???