The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sat Aug 08, 2015 11:15 pm  

I'm worried that I'm turning into Saddened but I'm shocked at how poor we played today. I just wish I could post something positive for once but it's hard to find many positives in respect of the last couple of weeks.

Our tactics are so boring and predictable. We have two halfbacks who don't want to take on the line or have the ability at the moment to deliver a killer pass. Our attacking structure and shape is the worst in the league and our inability to get the ball into Percival's hands often enough is absolutely criminal. It's not as if we have one the best HBs Super League has seen on the coaching staff is it?

How we can play against 12 men and not take advantage or adapt our tactics to suit? We carried on playing one up rugby and it wasn't until late on when we actually started to promote the ball and we looked ok (I use the term loosely)

I hate to pick players out (I'm not in a great mood), but seeing Matty Dawson embarrass himself with the 'finish' in the corner was the final straw for me. How he has been given a contract extension I will never know. Please let's hope Makinson is back soon.

As an aside: it's interesting to note that I was at a fans forum a couple of weeks ago and Cunningham was slagging off Potter and Simmons saying that they had no personality and was explaining how their decisions damaged the club (short and long term). But from where I sit at the moment this brand of rugby we are producing is reminiscent of the Potter days and I feel that Cunningham has a much better squad thanks to Brown.

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sun Aug 09, 2015 4:00 am  

This +1

With a added suggestion to stop the penalty count our lack of discipline is killing us?

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sun Aug 09, 2015 6:58 am  

We played much better rugby than this under Potter and Simmons... we are rudderless

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sun Aug 09, 2015 7:12 am  

Albion wrote:

I'm worried that I'm turning into Saddened but I'm shocked at how poor we played today. I just wish I could post something positive for once but it's hard to find many positives in respect of the last couple of weeks.

Our tactics are so boring and predictable. We have two halfbacks who don't want to take on the line or have the ability at the moment to deliver a killer pass. Our attacking structure and shape is the worst in the league and our inability to get the ball into Percival's hands often enough is absolutely criminal. It's not as if we have one the best HBs Super League has seen on the coaching staff is it?

How we can play against 12 men and not take advantage or adapt our tactics to suit? We carried on playing one up rugby and it wasn't until late on when we actually started to promote the ball and we looked ok (I use the term loosely)

I hate to pick players out (I'm not in a great mood), but seeing Matty Dawson embarrass himself with the 'finish' in the corner was the final straw for me. How he has been given a contract extension I will never know. Please let's hope Makinson is back soon.

As an aside: it's interesting to note that I was at a fans forum a couple of weeks ago and Cunningham was slagging off Potter and Simmons saying that they had no personality and was explaining how their decisions damaged the club (short and long term). But from where I sit at the moment this brand of rugby we are producing is reminiscent of the Potter days and I feel that Cunningham has a much better squad thanks to Brown.

I said from day one thst Royce simmons wouuld set this club back years due to his coaching and retention/recruitment. Word from inside the camp was thst his training methods was dull, repetitive and boring.

When we brought Brown in i said we would win a trophy during his time at the club. we had plsyers saying they love going to training and he's brought fresh new ideas to the club etc. His retention/recruitment put us back up there in the mix. His tactics was spot on. He didn't a halfbacks for vitrtully the whole time he was here but he adapted our style to compensate this. It might not have been pretty but it couldn't be helped with the massive injury list we had. He won the grand final With flash and wello as our halves!

Now under KC I fear we going back to the Royce days. We look poorly coached. We look bored. We don't look up for games. How he uses the interchange is baffling me (I see we used the Royce method of not using a bench player and rolling with 16 players). We play boring one up rugby. Our only plays are inside balls or the short ball to Greenwood. Our recruitment/retention looks like it's from the Royce simmons handbook of signing crap.

Looks like the work Brown put in could be blown away in two seasons.

I like KC as a man and a former Saint legend but he wasn't ready for the job. It's come to soon. We should have brought a experinced coach in for two years to give KC more time. It's like he's learning his trade on the job and it's killing us. It might be a short time pain for long term gain but next year with the players going and what we brought it I fear it's going to be a very long pain.

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:14 am  

JonB95 wrote:

We played much better rugby than this under Potter and Simmons... we are rudderless

As we are in the present and not in the past, In the grand order of things, for curiosity where would you place the least experienced rookie coach in super league.

Mc Dermott
Wane
Powell
Anderson
Smith (T)
Frayssinous
Radford
Chester
Betts
Harris
Smith (B)

Cunningham.

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sun Aug 09, 2015 10:34 am  

Judder Man wrote:

As we are in the present and not in the past, In the grand order of things, for curiosity where would you place the least experienced rookie coach in super league.

Mc Dermott
Wane
Powell
Anderson
Smith (T)
Frayssinous
Radford
Chester
Betts
Harris
Smith (B)

Cunningham.

The league places him 3rd and the league does not lie.

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sun Aug 09, 2015 2:44 pm  

bewareshadows wrote:

The league places him 3rd and the league does not lie.

You've gotta take into account the squads at the coaches' disposal though. Someone like Betts has done well with what he's got and Widnes often punch above their weight, and what Powell has done at Cas is brilliant. Are we fulfilling our potential? We have the 2nd best squad in the league IMO but we often look not as good as Wigan and it wouldn't surprise me to see them get to the grand final instead of us.

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sun Aug 09, 2015 4:45 pm  

The Reaper wrote:

You've gotta take into account the squads at the coaches' disposal though. Someone like Betts has done well with what he's got and Widnes often punch above their weight, and what Powell has done at Cas is brilliant. Are we fulfilling our potential? We have the 2nd best squad in the league IMO but we often look not as good as Wigan and it wouldn't surprise me to see them get to the grand final instead of us.

In theory we are the second best squad on paper but we have had long spells with a very long injury list causing quite a lot of disruption more than other teams. We,ve been ticking over in the 1st 3 for most of the season now, I don,t think any of the other coaches would have improved us position wise.

Leeds obviously are hitting top form at the moment but can they keep this going for 2 months, Saints were pretty decent form wise in the first 5 games, if we can return that level in the last 4 games then we are pretty much back on the bike.


PS. where is Mugwump, is he going to hit us with a "War and Peace" version of opinion.

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Sun Aug 09, 2015 5:06 pm  

Judder Man wrote:

where is Mugwump, is he going to hit us with a "War and Piece" version of opinion.

He's probably on some Australian cricket forum telling them they can still win the ashes.

Re: The Entertainers? A general moan (Sorry) : Mon Aug 10, 2015 5:53 am  

Judder Man wrote:

In theory we are the second best squad on paper

I read statements like this on here regularly but what does this actually mean? Whenever I see these statements my immediate reaction is 'Says who?'

I think one of our biggest problems is that Cunningham's hero status makes him almost unsackable.