Fri 27 Sept: SL Semi Final: St Helens v Wigan Warriors KO 7.45pm (TV)

[Ullman]

Just now, Old Frightful said:

And over on facebook...

Fantastic.

Good job I've just finished me cup o' tea.

[hullste]

5 hours ago, JohnM said:

No. Salford would have won the GF fair and square and Saints could only blame themselves. However, if Saints win, they can look back on the season as their greatest of modern times. Just reward indeed, damn it!

Not their greatest but The Greatest

[JohnM]

9 hours ago, hullste said:

Not their greatest but The Greatest

Steady on there. This time, you've gone too far!

[Gooleboy]

14 hours ago, Old Frightful said:

And over on facebook...

Or Saints fan in a dash to get the last half time pie!

[Rupert Prince]

3 hours ago, JohnM said:

Steady on there. This time, you've gone too far!

Indeed. This is the saints team that lost twice to Broncos and lost at Wembley whose opponents were missing their key playmaker.   They are still a very good team of course.

They were set up for an early try in the Wigan game, but were denied an early one at Wembley. Food for though there

[Griff9of13]

27 minutes ago, Saint 1 said:

Just seen the stats for this game. Clubb, Byrne and Partington ran for a combined 50m, with Clubb's 11m a particularly laughable contribution. For comparison, Saints lowest middle forward for metres was Ashworth with 79m.

That's what happens when you spend set after set after set defending and when you do finally get the ball you start from inside your own 20; there's no juice left in the tank. Wigan knew that their only option of gaining any ground was to try and go round via their backs. To a certain extent it worked in that the only time they made any advance up the field was by that route.

[Exiled Wiganer]

1 hour ago, Saint 1 said:

Just seen the stats for this game. Clubb, Byrne and Partington ran for a combined 50m, with Clubb's 11m a particularly laughable contribution. For comparison, Saints lowest middle forward for metres was Ashworth with 79m.

I remember Clubb rushing back into the side as soon as he could after having a kidney taken out. Now, there is a man who puts his hand up for the cause. A proper geezer, with a World Club Challenge (which you get for beating the NRL champions in case that has you shaking your head uncertainly), and won a Grand Final last year. Possibly Gravesend’s finest. 

[Rupert Prince]

15 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I remember Clubb rushing back into the side as soon as he could after having a kidney taken out. Now, there is a man who puts his hand up for the cause. A proper geezer, with a World Club Challenge (which you get for beating the NRL champions in case that has you shaking your head uncertainly), and won a Grand Final last year. Possibly Gravesend’s finest. 

Correct.  There are lies damned lies and statistics. 

I can recall some unlucky incidence for Saints in the past, not least in last season's Semi and this season's Cup.  What goes round comes round.  Fair enough riding their luck.

[EagleEyePie]

3 hours ago, Saint 1 said:

Just seen the stats for this game. Clubb, Byrne and Partington ran for a combined 50m, with Clubb's 11m a particularly laughable contribution. For comparison, Saints lowest middle forward for metres was Ashworth with 79m.

That's not that surprising when you consider Wigan's props generally make around 50m per game at most. The metres come from the outside backs, where we'll often have 3 or 4 of them making 100+ metres. The forwards only really make carries when they are in the final 2/3 of the field, and we struggled to even make it that far on Friday night.

It was a deliberate tactic under Wane. The forwards didn't make as many carries but had enough in the tank to defend with high intensity. Lam tried to change that early in the year but we had so many injuries in the pack that it never worked, as none of our props were really capable of making a lot of metres anyway.

Now it's done out of necessity. Clubb isn't the player he was a few years ago, Flower and O'Loughlin aren't fully fit and Byrne and Partington are youngsters who will generally struggle to be really effective going forward until they are a couple of years older. So as a result they are back to playing the Wane way - with the backs and back row taking most of the carries.

Considering Clubb was on the field mostly when we were under pressure and stuck in our own half, it's no surprise he's made a low number of carries and a higher than usual number of tackles. That's just how the game plan is.

[Stirlin]

For anyone that missed the two playoffs SL show on beeb 2 at 1630 today.

[GeordieSaint]

Are the stats anywhere?

[Exiled Wiganer]

2 hours ago, Saint 1 said:

None of that makes a prop making 2 carries for 11 metres any less embarrassing.

You described him as laughable. 

[Davo5]

3 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I remember Clubb rushing back into the side as soon as he could after having a kidney taken out. Now, there is a man who puts his hand up for the cause. A proper geezer, with a World Club Challenge (which you get for beating the NRL champions in case that has you shaking your head uncertainly), and won a Grand Final last year. Possibly Gravesend’s finest. 

That’s great but doesn’t disguise the fact that he’s way past his best.

[Exiled Wiganer]

1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

That’s great but doesn’t disguise the fact that he’s way past his best.

Possibly, but it does deserve to be considered in the round in the context of a glory hunting no mark laughing at him.