Re: Hull Game : Fri Aug 14, 2015 11:57 am  

St pete wrote:

Had it occurred to you read my posts?

I've said having walsh and Turner tohether is a open invitation to attack us but Turner was a poor defender at salford, poor defender at hull and he's still a poor defender at saints. We been miles open on the left ever since Turner arrived as every man and his dog knows he can't defend.

As you say, we now have walsh next to him that makes it 100 times worse.

it has occured to me to read your posts...

The point I am making is that at the beginning of the season (pre-Walsh coming back) Turner's defence was actually looking good. He was moving up well and making good, hard tackles and stopping plays out wide before they became dangerous. It is only since Walsh came back it has got worse. Granted JT misses a lot of tackles, everybody knows that, but our left hand edge wasnt leaking tries/breaks galore in like we are now. It has got 1000% worse since Walsh came back and I would say the finger of blame points firmly at said little man in the 7 shirt before Turner as to how suspect our left hand side defence is.

turner has been one of our stand out performers for most of the season and I think its harsh some of the criticism thats been aimed at him. Also very disappointed (if its true what I have heard) that he is only on the bench for tonight's game with Jones staying in the centre...after watching Hull v Cas last week, the defence of Sa & Lineham is very suspect (would make Turner look world class in defence stakes). We should have him attacking those as it could be a great opportunity to score points...Jones is better defensively but isnt anywhere near as good with ball in hand as Turner

Saint #1 wrote:

For your theory that Wilkin fixed the problem and Walsh is now causing it, despite Turner's defence being poor all year: Walsh has missed 28 tackles in 11 games this year. In his 12 games at halfback, Wilkin missed about 35. Turner missed about 36 tackles with Wilkin as his halfback, and only around 20 with Walsh there.

Not sure where you are getting those stats from, but Turner has missed 55 tackles so far this season with 28 of them being in the games Walsh has played in so that doesnt really add up. I wasnt saying that turner only misses tackles when Walsh is there (as said above we all know he is good for missing 2-3 a week). My point is that our left hand side defence wasnt being targeted and pulled to pieces earlier on in the season like it is now and the difference in that is Walsh has returned. Walsh (when fit) is a great ball player and obviously has to defend somewhere in the line, but pinning all the blame on Turner for our left side problems is very harsh considering he has Walsh who cant tackle, and Swift outside him who has a habit of shooting out of his line and being out of position.

FWIW I was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago and was talking to a current SL player about the same thing, and he even admitted that his team would attack Saints differently when Walsh is in the team as they know how much he struggles to cope defensively in comparison to having Wilkin in same role so would trust what he was saying

Re: Hull Game : Fri Aug 14, 2015 12:21 pm  

Saint #1 wrote:

Turner's defence didn't tighten up, it's been poor all year. He's 11th in the league for missed tackles, you think this only started when Walsh came into the team? And that stat doesn't even fully illustrate the problem because it doesn't reflect the times where he makes a bad decision causing someone to go through a gap where he should have been, like Leeds' final try in the CC Semi Final.

For your theory that Wilkin fixed the problem and Walsh is now causing it, despite Turner's defence being poor all year: Walsh has missed 28 tackles in 11 games this year. In his 12 games at halfback, Wilkin missed about 35. Turner missed about 36 tackles with Wilkin as his halfback, and only around 20 with Walsh there.

Not saying Turner is the cause of this either, but the last match, with Jones as his centre, is the only match Walsh has missed no tackles this year.

Fair enough but Wilkin didn't position himself on the wing in defence so the comparisons are difficult. Clearly Wilkins is a better tackler than Walsh and we looked more stable when he played at HB.

Walsh has been a major disappointment at HB and added to that is his very poor defence. But as a major big name signing he won't be dropped.

Re: Hull Game : Fri Aug 14, 2015 12:34 pm  

wakey_saint wrote:

Also very disappointed (if its true what I have heard) that he is only on the bench for tonight's game with Jones staying in the centre...after watching Hull v Cas last week, the defence of Sa & Lineham is very suspect (would make Turner look world class in defence stakes). We should have him attacking those as it could be a great opportunity to score points...Jones is better defensively but isnt anywhere near as good with ball in hand as Turner

My initial reaction to Turner being on the bench was disappointing, but when you think about it we are leaking points in the first 20 mins, so Jonesy might tighten things up defensively but you can,t bet money on it at the moment.

We are still far too soft in the tackle down the middle, which causes and exposes the problems out wide, for tonight I would like to see a lot more dominating tackles shutting the opposition down, especially offloader Liam watts. If we allow Hull freedom to run. then they will gain a lot of confidence that they can win this game.

The clock is running down for Walsh and Burns to get there act together, they have got these 2 home games to get the team playing into form towards the business end.

Re: Hull Game : Fri Aug 14, 2015 6:13 pm  

Walsh and Burns are not just a disappointment they are a disaster. We all expected a dynamic duo and have ended up with a pathetic pair. As a previous poster said time is running out for them.

Re: Hull Game : Fri Aug 14, 2015 8:45 pm  

I shall await the melt down with interest.

Have other teams upped their game or have we got worse.

Re: Hull Game : Fri Aug 14, 2015 9:06 pm  

where's rommel no comments tonight ????

Re: Hull Game : Fri Aug 14, 2015 9:09 pm  

bewareshadows wrote:

I shall await the melt down with interest.

Have other teams upped their game or have we got worse.

You need to face reality that we are awful at the moment. No excuses of injuries etc as Hull had severe injuries. We are just not good enough!

Kyle amor sat in the stands while that big fat waste of space is sat on the bench watching. He must have made four carries all night.

Walsh had his worst game in a saints shirt and that says it all really.

The pack not good enough and the backs are one if the worst in super league but don't worry we have Peyroux arriving next year to sort our problems out.

Re: Hull Game : Fri Aug 14, 2015 9:10 pm  

thought your forwards where well beaten up the middle tonight,saying that wouldn't surprise me to see you get to old Trafford, good luck

Re: Hull Game : Sat Aug 15, 2015 12:11 am  

wakey_saint wrote:

Not sure where you are getting those stats from, but Turner has missed 55 tackles so far this season with 28 of them being in the games Walsh has played in so that doesnt really add up. I wasnt saying that turner only misses tackles when Walsh is there (as said above we all know he is good for missing 2-3 a week). My point is that our left hand side defence wasnt being targeted and pulled to pieces earlier on in the season like it is now and the difference in that is Walsh has returned. Walsh (when fit) is a great ball player and obviously has to defend somewhere in the line, but pinning all the blame on Turner for our left side problems is very harsh considering he has Walsh who cant tackle, and Swift outside him who has a habit of shooting out of his line and being out of position.

FWIW I was at a wedding a couple of weeks ago and was talking to a current SL player about the same thing, and he even admitted that his team would attack Saints differently when Walsh is in the team as they know how much he struggles to cope defensively in comparison to having Wilkin in same role so would trust what he was saying

There were two matches - Leeds at home and Huddersfield away - where Wilkin played the first half at halfback and Walsh the second, so I just said half the missed tackles for each player for lack of a better method. The other match was Catalan away where Walsh went off injured. Our left hand side defence has been our weak spot all year for me, it showed as early as the WCC where Reynolds made Turner look stupid.

I'm not saying it's all Turner's fault or that Walsh is a great defender. Walsh is a weak tackler, but Turner makes the problem much worse. Again, while there's no stats to back it up yet, Walsh's defence tonight seemed better than previous weeks. The fact that Turner has been moved to defend in the middle, where planting his feet early or struggling to deal with a second man play isn't as much of an issue, seems to indicate KC shares my thoughts.

Re: Hull Game : Mon Aug 17, 2015 8:59 am  

Saint #1 wrote:

I'm not saying it's all Turner's fault or that Walsh is a great defender. Walsh is a weak tackler, but Turner makes the problem much worse. Again, while there's no stats to back it up yet, Walsh's defence tonight seemed better than previous weeks. The fact that Turner has been moved to defend in the middle, where planting his feet early or struggling to deal with a second man play isn't as much of an issue, seems to indicate KC shares my thoughts.

Walsh's defence looked better on Friday night...is that because (from memory) he made one tackle where he came out of line and tackled Rankin? Turner was on the bench for around 60 mins and our defence was still awful...couple this with the fact that Jones is incapable of committing a defender and providing his winger with half a chance from an offload and we end up with an average to poor defensive side with no attacking threat whatsoever. IMO I would still rather have Turner in that centre than Jones...

Will be interesting to see if KC backs up his post match comments and drops Walsh for Hudds game how different things are