Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sun Mar 24, 2024 5:30 pm  

RS just needs to make peace with the fact that sl refs won't police the ruck / PTB effectively and to play to it like Saints do and virtually every other side.

It's why having Plan A B and C being " play fast abd off the cuff" isn't a great idea.
Having support runners, off loads and trying yo get quick ptb is good, but so is having a good kicking game on T5, doing direct hard runs from the forwards and set plays when in an attacking position.
So is applying pressure and turning the screw.

The less said about wasting a bench spot the better.
It's stupid and pointless and contributes to players making mistakes / errors

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Sun Mar 24, 2024 8:55 pm  

Again, the main reason we lost to Saints two times in my view is our errors. Penalties and really poor kicks/passes at crucial times. That's not structure it's player quality/form. The errors have robbed us of field possession and pressure at crucial moments.

Miller, Frawley again culprits this week. Miller is great running forward but we need to learn how to integrate him better into the team.

We weren't that far away - in fact we were the better side for half of the first game against Saints.

Totally agree we aren't incisive enough in good ball and we aren't making enough metres. Said it before but compared to how Leigh attack we look very individualistic.

We are playing poorer quality opposition at times over the next few weeks and we need to show what we're capable of. I think we will but... we'll find out.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Mon Mar 25, 2024 5:54 am  

we were rubbish last week. were nowhere near them for 80 minutes. errors came because we were on the back foot all the time. same the second half the week before

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:39 am  

tad rhino wrote:

we were rubbish last week. were nowhere near them for 80 minutes. errors came because we were on the back foot all the time. same the second half the week before

Let me give you some reason Tad…

Bentley, strips the ball off their player in a 2 man tackle right on Saints line. Not on the back foot.

Newman concedes by flopping on a player already being taken into touch with good play from Mom. Not on the back foot.

Frawley passes into Mik’s body around the half way line as we’re attacking, losing possession. Not on the back foot.

Penalties for offside conceded in the opposition 30 several times. Not on the back foot.

You see my trend and there were plenty of other instances I could point to. Miller failing to make the 10 on a tee kick - like he kicked out on the full the previous game. You could argue a couple of his other errors were based on pushing it too hard.

Without these kinds of errors we don’t lose possession and territory. They put us on the back foot. In the general collision, Walmsley aside, we were comparable to Saints I would say.

Really poor field kicking too - at this level of opposition you’ll get punished for sloppy play and we have been.

Before you say it (again) I do agree we look too passive in D especially in our half at times. I suspect RS is trying to save energy but it clearly doesn’t work at times.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Mon Mar 25, 2024 10:53 am  

Agree with all of the above, especially the bit about it being a tactic to save energy for a big final push, but if we were more aggressive and played with more intent, we wouldn't need to save the energy for a final hurrah, we would already be far enough ahead. We also should be fitter if we can't play at the right tempo all game, the use (or otherwise) of subs only makes this worse.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Mon Mar 25, 2024 11:21 am  

I mean we have looked strong against lesser opposition in second halves but we haven’t held our line against a good side or broken them down with their good D.

I’m not saying the CC was good enough from us because it wasn’t; but in the cold light of day we did create opportunities against them and as I say we don’t make those stupid errors and we may well win both. The ref was pretty harsh on some 50:50s though and that happens sometimes in sport; I think some of those calls did affect the flow of that game and put Saints at an advantage.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Mon Mar 25, 2024 1:28 pm  

The fact anyone can look at the 2nd half of the SL latch and the cup match and think we were close is really worrying. If that's the standard that's acceptable then no surprise we are where we are at now. Main problem to me looks like mindset. They play as if it doesn't matter whereas Wigan/saints/etc run harder, tackle harder and therefore get the 50/50 calls. Add in the lack of basics and it's a good job the likes of London and hull fc are in SL so we don't finish bottom.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Mon Mar 25, 2024 1:35 pm  

batleyrhino wrote:

. We also should be fitter if we can't play at the right tempo all game, the use (or otherwise) of subs only makes this worse.

I don’t know if it’s a lack of fitness or whether we just don’t have the right physical specimens to compete with the likes of St Helens. If it’s the former, comments like “trainings over rated for some of these guys” from R.S may give an explanation as to why other teams are fitter. If it’s the latter, that’s worrying because we’re stuck with players who can’t physically compete with the big boys for the rest of the season. Our kick chase is laboured, (not helped by Frawley’s terrible kicks), our line speed in defence is poor, and we never hit the ball at pace in attack, all worrying symptoms of poor physicality. Add to that the engines of our so called “impact” players Lisone and Sangare being pretty poor, it’s no wonder we simply can’t match the intensity of Saints. We should be okay against some of the plodders in Superleague, but when we need to match the big boys physically I’m not sure we can do it.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Mon Mar 25, 2024 3:26 pm  

leeds owl wrote:

I don’t know if it’s a lack of fitness or whether we just don’t have the right physical specimens to compete with the likes of St Helens. If it’s the former, comments like “trainings over rated for some of these guys” from R.S may give an explanation as to why other teams are fitter. If it’s the latter, that’s worrying because we’re stuck with players who can’t physically compete with the big boys for the rest of the season. Our kick chase is laboured, (not helped by Frawley’s terrible kicks), our line speed in defence is poor, and we never hit the ball at pace in attack, all worrying symptoms of poor physicality. Add to that the engines of our so called “impact” players Lisone and Sangare being pretty poor, it’s no wonder we simply can’t match the intensity of Saints. We should be okay against some of the plodders in Superleague, but when we need to match the big boys physically I’m not sure we can do it.

I dont think our kick chase was anything different to Saints kick chase, the difference was the kicking game, we were kicking it straight down Weslbys throat, meaning he was on the 40/50m line by the time we got to him. Saints seemed to find the ground ot turn our players around 9 times out of 10, meaning their defencise line had longer to get up field.

I've been really disappointed with Frawleys kicking game, hoping it improves.

You're right about hitting the ball at pace though, I cant understand why only a handful of players do it and most of them dont. I cant imagine Smith is telling them not to run onto the ball at pace, so it must be down to the individual players in my mind.

Re: RD 5 | St Helens (H) : Mon Mar 25, 2024 4:11 pm  

Kicking game is as much about field position as it is skill or technique. If you're having to. kick from your own 30m or 40m area constantly, then the opposition will be starting close to the halfway line more often than not.