Northampton_Saint wrote:
Usual screaming nonsense. We have no 1, 6, 7 or 9 at the moment and many key players missing elsewhere so of course we're going to be struggling. There's not a coach on earth who would have gotten us many more wins of late. I'll start getting worried if we're not winning regularly by July, not May. We'll still make the top 8 easily (top 4 might be pushing it if the injury situation doesn't ease soon) and will hit the playoffs fresh, rested and ready to turn over the first 2 teams we meet and then get knocked out in the semi by Wire or Leeds because we're rendered one-dimensional with no halves and can only barge. Much the same as last year. Progress I think they call it.
Thanks, Dr Pangloss.
I think you're very much mistaken if you think we'll still make the top 8 easily. London and Widnes are not good sides, yet they've both beaten us. They are the sort of "guaranteed" points which would normally mean that Saints could lose matches against the top teams and still make the playoffs easily. Yet we lost them. Today, we'll probably be out of the top 8. Look up, and the clubs above us are all, without question, significantly better than us.
Wigan, Warrington, Leeds, Catalans, Huddersfield are all so far ahead of us in quality that we're playing a different league. Hull, Hull KR and Bradford are teams we might be able to compete with if we had all our players back - but there's currently no sign that our top two, Lomax and Roby, are coming back any time soon. I think there's a very high chance that we will finish in the bottom 5, and that we will not make the play-offs, for the first time ever.
For Saints, that is disgraceful. Yet some fans are in full-on delusional mode. They keep telling themselves how great our youngsters are like Walmsley, Percival and Thompson, and how our injuries are responsible, with some even claiming that missing Clough is making a difference, FFS !
We need to be realistic. Look at our playing roster and ask yourself which players would currently be selected in the top teams if they were on the rosters at those clubs :
Roby and Lomax - who are both injured.
Soliola
Would Walmsley and Thompson get a game at the top clubs ahead of their current packs ? Maybe. Probably not.
Makinson ? Probably not, given the fullbacks they have
You could argue that this is only because some good players are suffering a major loss of form. Puletua has been great in the past but isn't now. Turner and Manu have been effectively non-contributory since they arrived. Hohaia and Laffranchi are shadows of their former selves. Wilkin and Wellens come into the effort-but-no-reward category. Jones, Greenwood are gap-fillers of the sort we used to have just one of, on the bench, in less-pressured games. Now they're mainstays of the team. Ashe ? Every time I've seen him he's struggled to be mediocre, not just this season either.
Even if - and I think it's a long-shot, but let's be generous - even if those players are good enough to compete, but are just suffering a loss of form, then the next question is obvious : why the hell are so many players all suffering a loss of form together ? Why is it that they are all, collectively, unable to put together even basic attacking moves ? Why is it that the whole line doesn't even show the aggression, linespeed or commitment of an amateur side in defence ? If that's not the coach, then I don't know what is.
We've lost 5 on the trot, and 6 of the last 7. In fact, if we want to make the full season point, we've played 15 competitive games this season and won just 6. Those six wins include just 1 against a team in the top half of the table - Warrington. Otherwise, the only teams we've beaten are Widnes, Salford, Castleford, Wakefield and Bradford.
This is not acceptable. There are players on big money at Saints, and there are internationals all over the park. Injuries simply cannot be used to endlessly excuse what is clearly a lack of effort, commitment and professionalism from the players on the pitch. And that is down to the coach. Brown needs to put a rocket up the players, and McManus needs to put a rocket up Brown. And we fans need to stop making excuses and accepting standards which would have been unthinkable for the last 15 years.
