Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 11:05 am  

The players were to blame. It was a simple case that the Giants turned up to play in a higher gear than us.
When they had us on our line, they limited our yards. When we had them on theirs, they could easily drive for 5 x 10m to get themselves out of trouble.
The panic that ensued in our rank spoilt any chance of attack, with sloppy passes, stupid offloads and poor last play options.
Total lack of focus.
There's no point pointing the finger at players base ability. Hudds were woeful in the game at Langtree last year in a similar fashion. Its the team dynamic that was at fault and needs to be remidied.

Its only one game. I've seen Saints get a towling like that and go on to win a grand final two weeks later. I had hoped that now royce had moved on, our slow starts would have gone as well,but hey ho.

Lets see what the Widnes game brings. As pointed out by the sky muppets, Huddersfield have won their opening fixture in the previous two superleage campaigns against the side the eventually won the league leaders shield. Fingers crossed.

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 12:44 pm  

I blame the lack of cladding

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 12:50 pm  

Offside Monkey wrote:

I had hoped that now royce had moved on, our slow starts would have gone as well,but hey ho.

Eh? We lost neither of our first two games under Simmons. We won the first two last season (I can't remember whether we won the second game in 2011, having drawn with Wigan in the first game in 2011). Our slow starts came under Daniel Anderson if memory serves as he didn't believe in friendlies, though I think we also lost first games under Potter.

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 1:01 pm  

To me it looked as though the players had got a bit carried away with the positivity that seems to have been hovering about the place recently and had turned up unprepared for a fight. By the time they realised what was going on it was too late, as Brough was continually pinning us in our own 10m area and we had done extensive amounts of exhausting defence. It reminded me of many of our recent games against Wigan, in which we have tended to start at a markedly inferior pace and had the stuffing knocked out of us within 15 minutes; when you do that it's nigh on impossible to turn things around unless your opponents let you back into the game with errors or penalties - Huddersfield didn't do that on Saturday.

I don't think it means that we're going to struggle this year (we'll probably turn up all angry next week and give Widnes a bit of a tonking) but it does worry me that in the first competitive game for months, under a new coach and with a new season ahead, we came out at jogging pace. The players should have been straining at the leash to get out there and hit someone.

Hopefully a one off.

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 1:51 pm  

I'm pretty such Dux has hit the nail on the head.

It should not have happened, but the fact it did, cannot be extropolated to predict the rest of the season.

Sure some people have a constant axe to grind and will use anything win,lose or draw to grind it, but take out those with an agenda and people are just miffed that the players did not come out competitively.

Had we been competitive and lost by that amount then there would be cause to worry.

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:08 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

Eh? We lost neither of our first two games under Simmons. We won the first two last season

We may have won that exact fixture, but we certainly had extended periods of poor form at the beginning of both of his seasons. He pulled it round in the first season but got sacked in the second.

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 5:46 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote:

When was this? Smith's never had a bad run with Wire? If there were posts saying Smith out it might have been me doing a wind up.

You must have never listened to the Sunday phone in on radio Manchester. How times, and opinions have changed. Please don’t try to say that a negative comment was never made; there was, and not just one or two. Quite a few people seemed to have changed their minds now (and there’s nowt wrong with that) it’s just this sycophantic idolisation that’s starting to creep in, and the up-in-arms denial to any criticism made of Mr Smith.

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 8:41 pm  

Dux wrote:

I don't think it means that we're going to struggle this year (we'll probably turn up all angry next week and give Widnes a bit of a tonking) but it does worry me that in the first competitive game for months, under a new coach and with a new season ahead, we came out at jogging pace. The players should have been straining at the leash to get out there and hit someone.

I think Nathan Brown's own post match comments might back up your theory: he was very laid back. If he is too laid back then it is possible the team will have not prepared well but instead have gone into the game overly relaxed.

That'll teach them anyway, if your theory is correct.

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:30 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

Dux wrote:

I don't think it means that we're going to struggle this year (we'll probably turn up all angry next week and give Widnes a bit of a tonking) but it does worry me that in the first competitive game for months, under a new coach and with a new season ahead, we came out at jogging pace. The players should have been straining at the leash to get out there and hit someone.

I think Nathan Brown's own post match comments might back up your theory: he was very laid back. If he is too laid back then it is possible the team will have not prepared well but instead have gone into the game overly relaxed.

That'll teach them anyway, if your theory is correct.

I thought his reaction in the press conference was fine. He was spot on in his comments that if you don't turn up physically you end up looking like you have all sorts if problems. Hence people posting squads for Widnes changing halves and backs when the problem was clearly the pack.

Bit of aggression and we'll be fine. Nice little reminder that games aren't won on paper and well be better for it.

Re: Who's to blame : Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:43 pm  

FearTheVee wrote:

I thought his reaction in the press conference was fine.

I think his words were too casual. For example: he expected us to do a 'bit better'? Another example: he has had worse first games and better first games? That may be ok for Hudds, but for Saints it isn't. It must be a long time since we have lost our first game so very comprehensively.

[And they are just two examples that I can remember off the top of my head]