Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:22 am  

we just could not handle soliola and i also thought that pulatua (sorry about spelling) was immense aswell

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:27 am  

With one home game to go and then a grand final theres the very real, and terrifying prospsect of a 6th consecutive grand final defeat on the horizon.

Every year it's the same old story. After a great playoff run:

-We are playing better this year
-The players will use last years defeat to motivate them
-previous defeats have no negative impact
-Our style is better suited to the game
-It has to be our turn this time
-The coaching staff are better
-The opposition aren't as strong as last year

Insert above where applicable since 2007.

Oh of course, saints still have to win one more game to get there, and win it they will, at home against most likely warrington, pretty much mirrowing their route last year in beating 2nd place away and home to make it.

Then the oponents, should leeds dispose of catalans, will either be wigan or leeds. It's pretty unlikely leeds will make it all the way, but theres always that nagging doubt, and should they beat catalans, wigan will pick them in the club call and you have a 50/50 game in which leeds will be highly motivated.

Surely it couldn't be another leeds saints grand final, never, not this time, it really couldn't............could it?

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:46 am  

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, we still have a tough Semi Final in two weeks time. If we do play Warrington again, they'll be determined to beat us and they have already beaten us at LP this year.

But, should we make a Grand Final I think it's important we don't fear the game and attack the opposition like we did yesterday. We need to be positive and not afraid to offload the ball and not afraid to put some set moves on and cause the opposition problems. One out, safe rugby will not beat a team in a Grand Final, defences are at their most intense and you need to attack your opposition. Either way, let's 'ave it! We're not favourites to get there and we're not favourites to win it, so we have nothing to lose.

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:56 am  

There was alot more offloading yesterday, hence alot more ball going to ground from both teams, but also for Saints we had overlaps and tackle busts and breaks.

You have to accept that with more offloads there will be more dropped ball, but so long as it's not in our 20m area I can live with that. It makes the game more entertaining and gives us a chance of winning against quality defences.

As for the kicking game, mmmmmm not that crash hot, but then we did not really need one yesterday. I think there was one decent kick but that was after Brett went off.

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:18 pm  

Your lads were really up for it last night and once we went behind I detected a "never mind, we get another chance" mentality with ours.

Predict a Wigan/Saints final, with a Wigan win due to their key players coming back after injury.

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:41 pm  

Blobbynator wrote:

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, we still have a tough Semi Final in two weeks time. If we do play Warrington again, they'll be determined to beat us and they have already beaten us at LP this year.

But, should we make a Grand Final I think it's important we don't fear the game and attack the opposition like we did yesterday. We need to be positive and not afraid to offload the ball and not afraid to put some set moves on and cause the opposition problems. One out, safe rugby will not beat a team in a Grand Final, defences are at their most intense and you need to attack your opposition. Either way, let's 'ave it! We're not favourites to get there and we're not favourites to win it, so we have nothing to lose.

A fine balance must be struck because if you are trying to offload alot and put on alot of set moves it increases the probability of errors and surrendering easy field position in a grand final is a cardinal sin, the game can be out of reach in the blink of an eye.

Without wishing to sound basic and state the obvious, you'd go out to control field position and once you have the territory, that's when you try and attack the opposition.

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:45 pm  

Peter Kingsley wrote:

A fine balance must be struck because if you are trying to offload alot and put on alot of set moves it increases the probability of errors and surrendering easy field position in a grand final is a cardinal sin, the game can be out of reach in the blink of an eye.

And for that reason I think we should do as we did last night and leave the offloads to our two offload specialists (TP and Laffranchi). They are both superb at it and I've yet to see either of them get it wrong when they do it.

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:41 pm  

A game won with determination and commitment. Our forwards took it to them in both defence and attacks and out defence outside was sensational.
Perry and LmS struggled bu Tony P, excelled and were well supported by v solid showings by Boof and Clough. Roby was also very busy.
However, the ball isn't getting to our centres wide of Wello. The kicking game was a real mixed bag. Hohhaia was pretty quiet and, while Lomax came up with some great plays, on the whole he's still struggling to impose himself as a halfback without the sufficient support.
I mentioned in another thread they needed a rocket up the booty for big games. We got that, but my other concerns for the side still ring true.

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:51 pm  

Offside Monkey wrote:

However, the ball isn't getting to our centres wide of Wello.

I agree. It's very frustrating, especially on one occasion last night where if he'd have passed instead of going for the line himself we would have been in for a try.

Re: Warrington discussion : Sun Sep 16, 2012 4:10 pm  

i doubt we will beat wire in a couple of weeks and if we do i doubt we will beat wigan in the final. but then i doubted we'd beat wigan or wire too