: Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:22 am  

Shoot me down if you like but i honestly believe player for player we are as good as Saints.

Our achilees heel is not tactics or ability, its our fragile mentality. We're far too soft up top, and a lot of that comes from a lack of leadership on the pitch when the going gets tough.

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:24 am  

Sporting Billy wrote:

Shoot me down if you like but i hoesly believe player for player we are as good as Saints.

Our achilees heel is not tactics or ability, its our fragile mentality. We're far too soft up top, and a lot of that comes from a lack of leadership on the pitch when the going gets tough.

I believe our players are as good as Saints' especially tonight. Our tactics were dire. Really, really bad. We were terrible tonight.

Talk about 40-50mins all you want, that is irrelevant.

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:53 am  

Just one question....did we ever look like scoring in he 2nd half ??

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:06 am  

Southstander05 wrote:

Just one question....did we ever look like scoring in he 2nd half ??

Um, you did score in the second half!

You just made a mistake and let us in and that combined with the moment that we clicked and then we found momentum. We started throwing it around and, well, that's not what Lowes had been coaching. Unfortunately. I preferred the throwing it around Wire style of play. I was looking forward to a real end-to-end game tonight. I love watching Wire in full flow because they have similar open rugby style usually to Saints (I like open style rugby). All Lowes really needed to do was secure your defence. I think you were actually closest to us in our previous game, when Long pipped you with a drop goal. I think that is what Wire should look like. Fantastic open rugby but with solid defence. It will be a shame if he moves you away from that, though you may well end up being more successful with the style of play used in the first half. So long as it is used for the full 80 minutes! (That's a tough call for any team)

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:14 am  

Dave T wrote:

I'll just add that it was 6 tries to 2. They battered us.

If the game had gone on for another 15 minutes then Saints would have scored 40+, towards the end it felt like they were going to score from virtually every set of 6.

Its either we have serious fitness issues where we simply fell away from off the pace or our achillies heel has come back to haunt us which is our overall poor defence in our own 10, teams at times find it very easy to open us up when close to the line.

We do some great defence in certain areas but you get the feeling that if a team injects any sort of pace into their attack when in our 10m area with several dummy runners then they will open us up very easily, its as if our defence is based on some great individual efforts rather than a team defensive structure.

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 7:47 am  

On paper, warrington should be top 3. I have said for 2 years now that warrington will not fulfil the potential until they get a decent coach at the helm.

James Lowes is not the man to take them to the next level imo.

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 8:05 am  

[quote="Dave T"]Our props were excellent, they really were

You need to have a look at the second half again. Carvell (lost ball) and Morley twice (lost ball & high tackle) gave Saints position in our half from which they scored 3 tries. Don't get me wrong they wern't bad, but ended up giving Class players too much ball in our half....to beat Saints we need them starting as close to their line as possible......we did that quite alot tonight, unfortunately not enough.

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 10:46 am  

Irish Wire wrote:

We seem to have a huge problem scoring in the second half.

Same last year.

I'd say it's more a huge problem playing for 80 minutes than the scoring aspect. We started the second half just fine but seem to stop playing after 50/60 mins.

Funny how the Saints fans turned up just as the Warrington team went home.

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 10:57 am  

Rugbychick™ wrote:

Funny how the Saints fans turned up just as the Warrington team went home.

Clutching at straws debate.

I must admit, that's the most one dimensional, boring Wire side I've ever seen and was very reminiscent of the Bulls team from around 2001. You've got a huge pack, but you've also got some good backs. To not use them is criminal.

: Sat Feb 14, 2009 10:59 am  

We just couldn't capitalise on our chances. So many times we had the ball on Saints line in the first half and we came away with only 2 tries. Give away a couple of penalties in the second half and give Saints field position and they capitalised every time. Difference between a trophy-winning team and the trophy-losing team.