Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 9:08 am  

Catalan were awful. Looked like they hadn't played a game for 5 years. So slow and narrow. How can a team have so much ball in such good position and only score one try and a drop goal? It's a good job we dropped the ball a lot and conceded a ridiculous amount of penalties.

This Carney best be good to improve that lot Jean!

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 9:33 am  

Catalans were lucky it was first game of the season. Saints blew plenty of chances that once they get going, they won't.

If that game was Round 12 or summat, they'd have racked up a cricket score.

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 9:39 am  

To be fair Saints looked no better than Catalans
Home advantage saw Saints through.

Saints & Catalan will get better.

SL isn't won in round one, however much every minute may matter.

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 9:53 am  

Albion wrote:

Catalan were awful. Looked like they hadn't played a game for 5 years. So slow and narrow. How can a team have so much ball in such good position and only score one try and a drop goal? It's a good job we dropped the ball a lot and conceded a ridiculous amount of penalties.

This Carney best be good to improve that lot Jean!

To be fair they did score 2 tries, it's the incompetence of the referee's why the score was so low on Catalans behalf.

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 10:13 am  

Albion wrote:

Catalan were awful. Looked like they hadn't played a game for 5 years. So slow and narrow. How can a team have so much ball in such good position and only score one try and a drop goal? It's a good job we dropped the ball a lot and conceded a ridiculous amount of penalties.

This Carney best be good to improve that lot Jean!

Catalans were missing not only a possible future Man of Steel, Todd Carney, but also a past contender for Man of Steel and a 2012 Dream Team selection, in one Scott Dureau. Those two should have been the halves who would have directed the team around the park.

Add to that the very early loss of the attacking talents of centre Villiami Sione Tonga, and you can see why the Catalans attack was not very potent.

I am hopeful that Carney's calf injury is not very serious, that Dureau's groin is going to mend soon, and that we will soon see those two, along with Tonga, playing havoc with opposition defences.

Meanwhile let's look forward to seeing Terence Campese and Albert Kelly setting off brilliant attacks by Hull KR against Leeds this weekend.

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 2:00 pm  

JEAN CAPDOUZE wrote:

Catalans were missing not only a possible future Man of Steel, Todd Carney, but also a past contender for Man of Steel and a 2012 Dream Team selection, in one Scott Dureau. Those two should have been the halves who would have directed the team around the park.

Saints were missing potential man of steel Luke Walsh, so what? You can't really call Dureau a miss for the Dragons last night because he didn't play all last season so they are well used to being without him and Bosc is no mug (and is a halfback).

There were a number of injury stoppages - one or two I doubt were injuries at all tbh - and too many penalty stoppages. Bentham got carried away before halftime. Every team that plays rugby league is usuall offside on the line in defence but for some reason he decided to repeatedly pull Saints up for it during that spell before halftime. He was in error to do that. If he had taken the same approach throughout the match we would have still been at Langtree Park now.

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 2:29 pm  

K-Diddy wrote:

To be fair they did score 2 tries, it's the incompetence of the referee's why the score was so low on Catalans behalf.

Please do clarify.

I always thought that the players scored tries or missed them or dropped the ball, especially if no one is there to tackle them, not match officials but then it's never too late to learn.

I will admit though that a good defence prevents teams scoring tries, but I've never seen a match official tackle a player so far.

You help would be appreciated

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 5:41 pm  

Leaguefan wrote:

Please do clarify.

I always thought that the players scored tries or missed them or dropped the ball, especially if no one is there to tackle them, not match officials but then it's never too late to learn.

I will admit though that a good defence prevents teams scoring tries, but I've never seen a match official tackle a player so far.

You help would be appreciated

If a player scores & the ref/VR come up with a baffling 'tackled in the air' decision that to me counts as the officials stopping a perfectly good try. What would you say?

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 6:09 pm  

K-Diddy wrote:

If a player scores & the ref/VR come up with a baffling 'tackled in the air' decision that to me counts as the officials stopping a perfectly good try. What would you say?

There was contact but I wouldn't have called it tackled, not by any stretch. I thought they had turned it down for a knock on in the air by the Dragons that appeared in a video angle we couldn't see from the West Stand (which equates to most video angles since the screen is so small!). When I watched the match back I was surprised by the reason given.

However, was Swift in touch for the try he was disallowed? The one where he ran along the touchline I mean, not the one where he tried to ground the kick. From behind he was very very close but he didn't look to be in touch. The ref didn't go to the screen at all for that as the touch judge stuck his flag up.

I'd say evens on the wrongly disallowed tries, both could have gone either way. Both were disallowed as it happens.

Re: St Helens vs Catalans: best match of the first round. : Sat Feb 07, 2015 7:26 pm  

SaintsFan wrote:

There was contact but I wouldn't have called it tackled, not by any stretch. I thought they had turned it down for a knock on in the air by the Dragons that appeared in a video angle we couldn't see from the West Stand (which equates to most video angles since the screen is so small!). When I watched the match back I was surprised by the reason given.

However, was Swift in touch for the try he was disallowed? The one where he ran along the touchline I mean, not the one where he tried to ground the kick. From behind he was very very close but he didn't look to be in touch. The ref didn't go to the screen at all for that as the touch judge stuck his flag up.

I'd say evens on the wrongly disallowed tries, both could have gone either way. Both were disallowed as it happens.

Erm I have to agree with most of that.

Your bit on the offside is accurate too. I would challenge anyone to find a set of 6 in RL where there was ever an incidence when all the players where onside.


I'm starting to worry. I don't often agree with you this much.