Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:24 pm  

The Chief wrote:

In Potters last season, remember the debacle at home against Hull in the fog? Well I know for a fact that potter was given 3 games to turn it around or he was gone. The club would have put KP in temp charge for the rest of season. Anyway, that week, the players had a meeting and decided to change their style of play back to what worked for them rather than how potter wanted them to play. The players felt they were being embarrassed by their own perfomamces and took matters into their own hands. Things certainly improved and potter kept his job, but it was down to player power rather than Potters coaching. Just looking at him in the ht team talks on sky with the dressing room camera, it was obvious that he offered no motivation whatsoever and had lost the respect of the senior members of the squad.

I had no idea Kevin Petterson was a Rugby Coach.

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:58 am  

When it comes down to winning things both Potter and Simmons are nearly men I'm afraid

You can make excuses for them and say they have been the victim of difficult circumstances but for me they are missing the extra level of leadership that turns a team into winners

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:16 pm  

It would be interesting to fast forward a couple of years to see if there's much difference between the senior players' views of Simmons and Potter.

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Tue Sep 13, 2011 10:26 pm  

bewareshadows wrote:

Milward was the Messiah

He's not the messiah he's a very naughty boy!

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Wed Sep 14, 2011 11:23 am  

bolinsblues wrote:

It would be interesting to fast forward a couple of years to see if there's much difference between the senior players' views of Simmons and Potter.

Dont's disagree, but other than the Eastmond saga which Royce inherited how many other rumours of discontent have you heard? No smoke without fire

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Wed Sep 14, 2011 4:51 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

Is that what it was about in 2008 too? And 2009 with a different coach?

It was a major part of it in all grand final defeats to Leeds, less so against Wigan when we'd managed to introduce some pace into the team with Eastmond and Lomax.

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Wed Sep 14, 2011 5:02 pm  

Sthelens RLFC wrote:

2007 was the year we finished top of the pile and beat Leeds 2 weeks before the Grand Final. It's quite easy to blame our back 3 for the defeat because the most memorable try from that game came from Donald rounding Wellens with ease on his way to a try. I don't recall anyone particularly worrying about our lack of pace (wellens, Gardner, Meli against Webb, smith, Donald) too much before hand. I do remember Saints being red hot favourites and not turnin up on the night. If you saw it that there could be a 29 point turnaround due to a slightly bigger pitch then fair enough. I guess that must have been the reason we went on to lose another 3 straight grand finals as well.

We beat Leeds by 2 points at home, in another game in which we failed to score a try against them in a second half. Of course you can cling to the solitary close win we had that season rather than the other two losses.

It's quite easy to blame our back three due to the viewing of Sinfield kicking us to death and our ball returners being so slow that we were starting our sets on our 10/20 metre line and they were starting there on their 30/40, which was a major cause of all our GF losses to Leeds. We lost the territorial battle because of it and so lost the games, not due to the fact that Donald scored a try.

There wasn't a major debate over the lack of pace before hand because most hadn't noticed it due to us playing on mostly smaller pitches, some had discussed it but had been roundly derided (and still are by some). However it was a weakness that Smith spotted and used to it's fullest advantage, and McClennan carried it on subsequently. Anderson didn't rectify it, Potter attempted to with the introduction of Eastmond out wide and then Foster and Lomax afterwards.

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Thu Sep 15, 2011 8:40 am  

I seemed to have stepped into a parallel universe were some people would rather be 18 points down and having a go, than in front and holding on. Bizarre.

To me, there's no debate who is better in potter or da, its da everytime, da wasn't perfect, it could be argued he left us with an aging squad, and I believe potter was on a hiding to nothing regardless.

The main debate is, is Simmons better than potter, and you can't look at saints and think our X is better than last year, not significantly anyway. Defence is better this year, by effectively 1point a game, but attack is down by a converted try in every game. Similarly I don't think our style of play is particularly more entertaining, for me we score far too many tries from 5 yards through the props, agreed they all count the same, but its hardly what you'd call entertaining. When did we last go the length of the length of the field.

I have no doubt ade speaks lowly of potter, don't forget potter preferred foster over Gardner at the end of last season, a move everyone on here would have agreed on

One game which stands out, we went to wigan last year with a team of wellens, foster, Gidley, flannery, meli, pryce, Moore, graham, kc, hargreaves, Clough, dixon, tp... Roby, fozzard, ashurst and Johnson... And we won, I'd say that is as weak as any team we've put out against wigan or wire this year.

Potter wasn't that great, put so far to me Simmons isn't a whole lot better, he deserves another year. But purely on this season he's no better than potter

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:02 am  

paulscunthorpe wrote:

I seemed to have stepped into a parallel universe were some people would rather be 18 points down and having a go, than in front and holding on. Bizarre.

To me, there's no debate who is better in potter or da, its da everytime, da wasn't perfect, it could be argued he left us with an aging squad, and I believe potter was on a hiding to nothing regardless.

The main debate is, is Simmons better than potter, and you can't look at saints and think our X is better than last year, not significantly anyway. Defence is better this year, by effectively 1point a game, but attack is down by a converted try in every game. Similarly I don't think our style of play is particularly more entertaining, for me we score far too many tries from 5 yards through the props, agreed they all count the same, but its hardly what you'd call entertaining. When did we last go the length of the length of the field.

I have no doubt ade speaks lowly of potter, don't forget potter preferred foster over Gardner at the end of last season, a move everyone on here would have agreed on

One game which stands out, we went to wigan last year with a team of wellens, foster, Gidley, flannery, meli, pryce, Moore, graham, kc, hargreaves, Clough, dixon, tp... Roby, fozzard, ashurst and Johnson... And we won, I'd say that is as weak as any team we've put out against wigan or wire this year.

Potter wasn't that great, put so far to me Simmons isn't a whole lot better, he deserves another year. But purely on this season he's no better than potter

Nail pretty much on the head there.

Wigan and Warrington have demonstrated the huge difference a top coach can have and we must make this our priority when Simmons' reign ends.

As for those wanting Millward back - seriously?
I enjoyed the trophies immensely, of course, but I'm sure there are other coaches could have managed the majority, if not all, of those victories without dragging the club through scandal after scandal, and some of the most painful slaughterings I've ever had to watch my team go through.

Re: LMAO - Ade and the kings view on potter : Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:06 am  

Billinge_Lump wrote:

It's quite easy to blame our back three due to the viewing of Sinfield kicking us to death and our ball returners being so slow that we were starting our sets on our 10/20 metre line and they were starting there on their 30/40, which was a major cause of all our GF losses to Leeds. We lost the territorial battle because of it and so lost the games, not due to the fact that Donald scored a try.

I seem to remember that we couldn't get out of our own half in the first half of the 2002 grand final against Bradford and were outplayed for huge parts. Deacon kicked us to death in that game as well and we weren't starting our drives on the 10/20 metre line....we were there on our 3rd or 4th tackle at times yet we somehow found a way to win. What I'm trying to is that certain parts of our team are always going to perform at different levels but my opinion is that the whole team underperformed in that Grand Final. You are saying that we lost as a team because the pitch was wider and 3 of our 17 players couldn't get the ball back quickly enough. I agree that was certainly a factor in defeat but to suggest that the other 14 players didn't underperform is wrong.

Why did Leeds not blast us off the park in 2008 and 2009 when we had the same, slower back 3?