Nathan Brown : Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:23 am  

As someone who used to be a great advocate of Nathan Brown you need to consider the following !!

His full back judgement runs to replacing Brett Hodgson with Scott Grix for want of an extra years contract for a man who was our best player and 'man of steel.'

Tried to turn Lee Gilmour into a prop forward one of the best diagonal running 2nd row or centre of recent times.

Thought Kevin Brown was a loose forward, sent Shaun Lunt to Leeds and replaced him with Scott Moore !!!!

Thought David Fiaumu a New Zealand international loose forward or hooker was a man destined to be a prop too !!

Brought in Jamie Simpson and played him as hooker a man who had previously played for the bunnies as a winger or centre !!!

I could go on but finally we went to doing a 30 minute intense warm up so half way into the season we were flogged out as he never relaxed training and we signed Brett Hodgson before NB so initially he benefitted from some shrewd signings and took a modest team with one star player and some good players a long way until he started tinkering !!!

From the outside looks pretty similar at Saints on reflection you'd have been better with Rush and our nemesis Mr Cunningham a player I have nothing but great respect for !!!

Final observation from visits to Langtree Park it doesn't hold the terrors Knowsley Road did I have nightmares about Dave Chisnall and company and many other Saints teams and legends the 'park' doesn't seem to hold the same terrors !!!

I'm not trolling just like healthy discussions with Rugby league fans and I hope we don't lose to Batley this afternoon !!!

Re: Nathan Brown : Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:29 am  

fartown since 1961 wrote:

As someone who used to be a great advocate of Nathan Brown you need to consider the following !!

His full back judgement runs to replacing Brett Hodgson with Scott Grix for want of an extra years contract for a man who was our best player and 'man of steel.'

Tried to turn Lee Gilmour into a prop forward one of the best diagonal running 2nd row or centre of recent times.

Thought Kevin Brown was a loose forward, sent Shaun Lunt to Leeds and replaced him with Scott Moore !!!!

Thought David Fiaumu a New Zealand international loose forward or hooker was a man destined to be a prop too !!

Brought in Jamie Simpson and played him as hooker a man who had previously played for the bunnies as a winger or centre !!!

I could go on but finally we went to doing a 30 minute intense warm up so half way into the season we were flogged out as he never relaxed training and we signed Brett Hodgson before NB so initially he benefitted from some shrewd signings and took a modest team with one star player and some good players a long way until he started tinkering !!!

From the outside looks pretty similar at Saints on reflection you'd have been better with Rush and our nemesis Mr Cunningham a player I have nothing but great respect for !!!

Final observation from visits to Langtree Park it doesn't hold the terrors Knowsley Road did I have nightmares about Dave Chisnall and company and many other Saints teams and legends the 'park' doesn't seem to hold the same terrors !!!

I'm not trolling just like healthy discussions with Rugby league fans and I hope we don't lose to Batley this afternoon !!!

Wasn't he the guy that made players like Luke Robinson, Crabtree, cudjoe, Brough, mcgilvery, grix etc Ito household names?

Wasn't he the guy that took a bottom 3 side into the play offs?

Wasn't he the guy that took you to super play offs semi finals?


Wasn't he the guy that took you to challenge cup final?

Re: Nathan Brown : Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:31 am  

St pete wrote:

Wasn't he the guy that made players like Luke Robinson, Crabtree, cudjoe, Brough, mcgilvery, grix etc Ito household names?

Wasn't he the guy that took a bottom 3 side into the play offs?

Wasn't he the guy that took you to super play offs semi finals?


Wasn't he the guy that took you to challenge cup final?

This is no place for facts Pete!

Re: Nathan Brown : Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:36 am  

St pete wrote:

Wasn't he the guy that made players like Luke Robinson, Crabtree, cudjoe, Brough, mcgilvery, grix etc Ito household names?

Wasn't he the guy that took a bottom 3 side into the play offs?

Wasn't he the guy that took you to super play offs semi finals?


Wasn't he the guy that took you to challenge cup final?

I think there are definitely 2 sides to the Brown story at Hudds. He did so well for them but did make some odd calls especially latterly in his time there. I think he tried out some ideas that fell flat like going with a fast mobile pack. The one mentioned by the OP that I dont think was that daft was Brown to LF ... I've always been a fan of a ball playing loose and it works well for Wigan so I dont see why he should be criticised for that at all.

Re: Nathan Brown : Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:37 am  

St pete wrote:

Wasn't he the guy that made players like mcgilvery, grix etc into household names

:s I must have missed that

Re: Nathan Brown : Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:38 am  

Saint Simon wrote:

This is no place for facts Pete!

It doesn't take a rocket science to see we've got problems. I don't know what people expect Brown to do, he's got no halves at the club, he's got injuries to key players and has Inherited a poor squad.

Brown has got the hardest job of any saints coach in the super league era IMO and its going to take time. Any team that loses halfbacks and throws backrows and fullbacks in the halves will struggle.

Brown came here with no halves. Its not Brown that signed Laffranchi to play prop. It wasn't Brown that signed lance as a 6. It wasn't Brown that kept the likes of Meli, Ade, wello that's eating up our cap.

All the Brown knockers out there, I'd love to hear what you'd do with this current squad?

Re: Nathan Brown : Sun Apr 21, 2013 9:50 am  

I'm not knocking Nathan for two years he was really good Challenge cup final 22 minutes from Old Trafford then he just made a lot of odd decisions of which letting Brett Hodgson go to Warrington when he wanted to stay the strangest.

I thought he would pull up trees at Saints but reading posts seems like you got the years three and four Nathan not the best version !!!

To be fair your current squad is as good as he inherited at Hudds but he came up with the wrestling and slowdown game which worked well with the players we had just after a year everyone caught on and McGuire at Wigan thought it worked well and did it much better even as he had more quality players !!!

Re: Nathan Brown : Sun Apr 21, 2013 10:04 am  

he did very well for us,no doubt,restored some pride back into our team, took us to the next level,which was consistent play offs,a cup final and 2 semi finals so he gets my respect for that.
but most of us can't help feel that we could have achieved a lot more had he not started messing about,primarily with positional changes which didn't work out.
instead of some big strong running props,which we have now, he went with crabtree,mason and a selection of hookers,2nd rowers and centres and we got caught out.
he certainly did flog the players in training as some players have alluded to and fell out with certain players who weren't happy with what he was trying to do, indeed before the semi last year v wire the players more or less said they wanted to play the way they were used to not the new way brown had installed, we lost and he walked.
i have respect for what he did for us and would never slag the guy off but he seemingly lost the plot at the end which was a real shame,as people tend to see that rather than the good times he gave us.
i hope he turns it round at saints and becomes a top coach, then, like tony smith,we can say we nurtered a top coach.

Re: Nathan Brown : Mon Apr 22, 2013 9:13 am  

His track record is good, imo, perhaps very good and I was excited when we announced his appointment.
Some things he does though are mind boggling.

Take the Salford game, he left our reserve grade hooker on the bench for 60 minutes for the sake of a reserve full back (who was clearly not suited to play there). He picked Dougie Charnock at #6, but ran him more as a full back, in a game in some of the worst conditions we've played in, then dropped him for the sake of having the likes of Paul Wellens and Staurt Howarth in at 6 instead.

The highlight of this season is the very impressive victory over Warrington. Where that intensity or commitment has gone, I don't know.

Re: Nathan Brown : Mon Apr 22, 2013 9:51 am  

got told this morning..(i know another got told blah blah blah) ..that brown was for the high jump and kieron and scully are taking over!