Re: Pack philosophy : Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:59 pm  

karetaker wrote:

Sorry even God couldn’t fix us, he is all out of miracles. If he could I’m sure he would point Westwood to the fountain of youth.

I know I started this off but I don’t think we are quite that bad. With Hill, Cooper and Ratchford in the team we will be competitive. But, there is definite pruning (and grafting) required for next season. (We were terrible on Friday though.)

Re: Pack philosophy : Wed Jul 17, 2019 6:50 am  

I think Saints lost the two semis last year because their pack was soft. They lost Walmsley for the season and never replaced him plus they had Wilkin and LMS in their starting back row (One who wanted to be the number 6 the other a show boater)

They've stiffened the pack up this year (Walmsley back, Thompson running hard, Wilkin in Canada and LMS on the bench) and are a far better side for it.

Re: Pack philosophy : Wed Jul 17, 2019 7:40 am  

wire-quin wrote:

I think Saints lost the two semis last year because their pack was soft. They lost Walmsley for the season and never replaced him plus they had Wilkin and LMS in their starting back row (One who wanted to be the number 6 the other a show boater)

They've stiffened the pack up this year (Walmsley back, Thompson running hard, Wilkin in Canada and LMS on the bench) and are a far better side for it.

Lol

Re: Pack philosophy : Wed Jul 17, 2019 8:12 am  

It would be interesting to hear what everyone thinks about Joe Philbin. He seems to be a fans' favourite and lots of people talk about the impact he makes, but does he really? He runs the ball in hard, granted, but he seems to have adopted a style of hitting the defenders and turning, rather than aiming to run through them. It's like he's trying to set up an offload, but it hardly ever happens. Remember his blockbusting tackle bust and 90m run at Hull FC a couple of years back? We need more efforts like that from him, and more close-range tries. Don't get me wrong, he's far from the worst culprit, but I just feel he's got big potential that he's not quite living up to at present.

Re: Pack philosophy : Wed Jul 17, 2019 9:19 am  

The Speculator wrote:

It would be interesting to hear what everyone thinks about Joe Philbin. He seems to be a fans' favourite and lots of people talk about the impact he makes, but does he really? He runs the ball in hard, granted, but he seems to have adopted a style of hitting the defenders and turning, rather than aiming to run through them. It's like he's trying to set up an offload, but it hardly ever happens. Remember his blockbusting tackle bust and 90m run at Hull FC a couple of years back? We need more efforts like that from him, and more close-range tries. Don't get me wrong, he's far from the worst culprit, but I just feel he's got big potential that he's not quite living up to at present.

That's a good point. He's at his best when he just gets the ball, charges forward like a cannonball and tries to get through the line.

Don't think he's as effective as he can be at the moment but, as you said, far from the worst culprit.

Re: Pack philosophy : Thu Jul 18, 2019 8:37 am  

Edited

Re: Pack philosophy : Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:51 pm  

To be fair all our forwards seem to have less impact as the season has progressed. Good point with Philbin though, he seems to have adopted the spin in the tackle technique for most of his runs. But to be fair to him it's price and Hendersons job to get his technique right and they're clearly happy with what he's doing.

Re: Pack philosophy : Thu Jul 18, 2019 4:36 pm  

Or thane wrote:

To be fair all our forwards seem to have less impact as the season has progressed. Good point with Philbin though, he seems to have adopted the spin in the tackle technique for most of his runs. But to be fair to him it's price and Hendersons job to get his technique right and they're clearly happy with what he's doing.

Apart of Battye skill set....but he has quite a bit more.