SaintsFan wrote:
We beat Widnes, and that was when they had their rather good halfback playing too. Widnes had a raft of first choice players injured for that match against Wigan but they still won!
It's not like Wigan put out a full first-choice side though, is it? And Saints aren't in a position to at the moment, either. Underestimating Widnes was arguably what brought Wigan down...
SaintsFan wrote:
Nope. Not brave. We have won games this season you know!
Aye - against London, and then Salford. And, TBF, the games you've lost have been close ones, on the scoreboard.
SaintsFan wrote:
We're just having a bit of a crisis at the moment. Can't be Saints these days and not have a bit of a crisis.
I wonder if great teams have to be cyclical - that it's not possible to be on top indefinitely. The decline of Wigan in the 90s after a successful period of around 10 years was accompanied by the rise of Bradford and Saints, who've had a successful period of... around 10 years. We've had Leeds overlapping with that - particularly as Bradford have declined - and now Warrington and Wigan are on the rise again. Maybe there's something about the structure of a club, maybe in the development of youth players and the timing of their introduction to the first team, that gets disrupted when you've got a successful, settled team, and a certain level of pressure and expectation of continued success from fans and the directors?