PrinterThe wrote:
As a Leeds fan I don't think we'll win next week. We're still working our way into the season and going off to Aus, missing a load of guys on return vs Widnes and the Catalans game postponed has lead to a disjointed start and we won't have the momentum at the moment to beat Saints.
Come later in the season though I think we could beat them. Whilst they're still considered one of the big boys, ATEOTD Saints have only reached 1 GF in 6 years and were fortunate to win that and no CC finals coming up to 10 years now. A lot of falling at the SF stage and it's a tough hurdle to get past.
Saints also are similar to the early pace setters of the previous two seasons (Cas and Hull) and they look to have a pretty clean bill of health ATM. See how that goes as the year goes on.
It helps if you have a long term settled half back partnership to get to final stages, Saints have struggled for the last 10 years to get a decent pairing a lot of it through injuries, our controversial grand final win half backs were the second rowers Wilkin and Flanagan.
I don't think Saints similarity as being early pace setters is quite right as the club have been the most successful side to make the play offs having achieved 20 play offs out of 22 seasons and the majority of those have been in the top 4 to achieve that. The club still head the all time super league table followed by Wigan with Leeds being a distance third.
This season so far the Saints looks as though its got good balance with a coach in Holbrook getting the best out of his players, we look as though we have reasonable depth to cover for injuries. But the majority of saints fans are not getting carried away with the 5 out 5, we know that the more they keep winning then the closer you get to losing one, at the moment without tempting fate we don't seem to be shaping up for a big loss at the moment and I should imagine the club will have impact at the business end of the season.