Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:08 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

I completely and totally agree with you.

so you're happy with how we're playing? do you think the attack looks organised?

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:13 pm  

Saint Simon wrote:

so you're happy with how we're playing? do you think the attack looks organised?

It's not just the attack either, we've shipped far to many points this season. It's ok Royce saying we defended well last week, we was playing a poor injury hit side who had sammut out.

We shipped 36 points against hull kr who had both halves out.

From the top to bottom we've been poor in every aspect thus year and not looked good in one single game.

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:21 pm  

St pete wrote:

Your still missing my point. We lost possibly the best prop in the world and signed a decent backrow to replace him.

I'm not calling laffranchci and never have but we should have replaced jammer with the best prop available.

We've no aggression in the pack, it's to soft.

I've not, I agree that in an ideal world we would have replaced Jammer with a player of a similar ability, but the simple fact is there was no-one like him available within our means. Who was the best prop available on the market doesn't necessarily equate to who we would able to attract and sign, its not like picking sides in the playground or in a fantasy league.

Looking at last season (& this year so far) the ideal replacement from the UK would have been Andy Lynch but he signed for Hull FC in September on a two year deal for a "significant six figure deal". Assuming that we could match the deal offered (which I seriously doubt we could), there are any number of other variables that might lead to him choosing to sign for Hull instead, we can't just assume he'd want to come to Saints because we're Saints.

What I'm saying about Laffranchi is we needed a forward who could play prop, he has played prop in the past (including Wests Tigers' 2005 NRL Grand Final victory) and clearly the club felt he had the attributes to play as an out and out prop for his time here in much the same way TP has. His stats this season are comparable to those of the props at Wigan and Warrington.

Purely as an example (and I'm not directly comparing their level) look at players such as Willie Mason, Petero Civoniceva and Craig Fitzgibbon - on their day they were often considered some of the best players in the world, all capable of and regularly switching between prop and second row.

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:22 pm  

Saint Simon wrote:

so you're happy with how we're playing? do you think the attack looks organised?

No on both counts but for feck's sake, you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. We lost by a maximum of four points and at Bradford two of them should never have been awarded - see the RFL's decision on Jamie Foster's so called offence against Bateman. The try Catalans scored at the end of their match against us - the one I was mocked over for getting angry about - should never have been awarded due to the infringement in the previous set when Pryce put his ball carrying arm on the floor with Saints defenders on him. I could go on.

None of those things, plus Puletua dropping a beauty of a pass from Wello on Saturday night, was the fault of the coach.

And, whether any of you admit it or not, we had hauled in our defence over the last two weeks. Even when we were down to 12 men we held our line. People were berating Royce for his defensive structure yet we have seen it in action over the last two weeks, just as we saw it as the season wore on last year too. The attack would come, just as it did last season when we were adapting to being without Cunningham, Pryce and Eastmond. The young players had to learn how to deal with mistakes and he would have been helping them with that. With Lance Hohaia in there, and others too, it is quite possible that our attack would have become more varied once the confidence issue had been resolved as we would not be relying solely upon two novices to make all the plays.

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:23 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

Can one of you more enlightened fans please explain this statement from McManus?

"Force of circumstance has reconstituted change."

Welcome to the modern world bro

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:27 pm  

Tony Stark wrote:

I've not, I agree that in an ideal world we would have replaced Jammer with a player of a similar ability, but the simple fact is there was no-one like him available within our means. Who was the best prop available on the market doesn't necessarily equate to who we would able to attract and sign, its not like picking sides in the playground or in a fantasy league.

Looking at last season (& this year so far) the ideal replacement from the UK would have been Andy Lynch but he signed for Hull FC in September on a two year deal for a "significant six figure deal". Assuming that we could match the deal offered (which I seriously doubt we could), there are any number of other variables that might lead to him choosing to sign for Hull instead, we can't just assume he'd want to come to Saints because we're Saints.

What I'm saying about Laffranchi is we needed a forward who could play prop, he has played prop in the past (including Wests Tigers' 2005 NRL Grand Final victory) and clearly the club felt he had the attributes to play as an out and out prop for his time here in much the same way TP has. His stats this season are comparable to those of the props at Wigan and Warrington.

Purely as an example (and I'm not directly comparing their level) look at players such as Willie Mason, Petero Civoniceva and Craig Fitzgibbon - on their day they were often considered some of the best players in the world, all capable of and regularly switching between prop and second row.

I know it's impossible to replace jammer with someone with the same ability but we should have got the best prop available and not a backrow. For me, laffranchci done ok but he lacks the things prop do naturally like aggression.

I think everyone agrees that we need another prop but with no English props about and no quota spots free we are stuck with what we got.

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:33 pm  

St pete wrote:

I know it's impossible to replace jammer with someone with the same ability but we should have got the best prop available and not a backrow. For me, laffranchci done ok but he lacks the things prop do naturally like aggression.

Darrell Griffin was the best prop available and he wanted to go to the champions. What's your next move now that's one gone?

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:39 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

No on both counts but for feck's sake, you don't throw the baby out with the bath water. We lost by a maximum of four points and at Bradford two of them should never have been awarded - see the RFL's decision on Jamie Foster's so called offence against Bateman. The try Catalans scored at the end of their match against us - the one I was mocked over for getting angry about - should never have been awarded due to the infringement in the previous set when Pryce put his ball carrying arm on the floor with Saints defenders on him. I could go on.

None of those things, plus Puletua dropping a beauty of a pass from Wello on Saturday night, was the fault of the coach.

And, whether any of you admit it or not, we had hauled in our defence over the last two weeks. Even when we were down to 12 men we held our line. People were berating Royce for his defensive structure yet we have seen it in action over the last two weeks, just as we saw it as the season wore on last year too. The attack would come, just as it did last season when we were adapting to being without Cunningham, Pryce and Eastmond. The young players had to learn how to deal with mistakes and he would have been helping them with that. With Lance Hohaia in there, and others too, it is quite possible that our attack would have become more varied once the confidence issue had been resolved as we would not be relying solely upon two novices to make all the plays.

the defense has tightened up, but then bradford and Hull are hardly Leeds/Wire/wigan in attack. You pick out instances where we could have won at Bradford, but our first try was a mile forward

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 7:53 pm  

Saint Simon wrote:

the defense has tightened up, but then bradford and Hull are hardly Leeds/Wire/wigan in attack. You pick out instances where we could have won at Bradford, but our first try was a mile forward

Our defence became fine last season too, Simon, so don't act dumb. Everyone knows we had a perfectly good defence, once the players actually decided to bend their backs and defend.

Our attack wasn't all dull last year either. We scored some beautiful tries, some from deep too. Last year everyone was also on here blathering about us being the worst Saints team in 90 years and how we couldn't attack/defend/blow our noses, yet we got better - in spite of our awful injuries (nothing to do with the coach, again) - and got to another GF.

No, I am fully convinced here that Royce has been shafted and that we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I just hope it doesn't come back to bite us on the backside.

Re: Royce Gone !! : Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:00 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

Our defence became fine last season too, Simon, so don't act dumb. Everyone knows we had a perfectly good defence, once the players actually decided to bend their backs and defend.

Our attack wasn't all dull last year either. We scored some beautiful tries, some from deep too. Last year everyone was also on here blathering about us being the worst Saints team in 90 years and how we couldn't attack/defend/blow our noses, yet we got better - in spite of our awful injuries (nothing to do with the coach, again) - and got to another GF.

No, I am fully convinced here that Royce has been shafted and that we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I just hope it doesn't come back to bite us on the backside.

It won't.