Sat 9 Oct: SLGF: Catalans Dragons v St Helens KO 18:00 (Sky)

[RayCee]

I picked saints to win by 1-6 points. Can I prove it? No, but trust me I did. 

Great game although I listened to Radio Merseyside on the Beeb so for any contentious calls I can't comment without actually seeing them. Hopefully on a highlights video later I will get a view. 

[yipyee]

23 minutes ago, fcl said:

The touch, the punch, penalty try, not to mention two or three more contentious decisions (the last foul whistled on Sam Tomkins). there is something not to be happy about when a match is played with 2 points of difference

Should have been a penalty try although it was the same as the 3 in the first half that went unpunished.

Just to even it up, knees to the head that has gone on report. On report is designed for games without a video ref, the officals bottled it here also.

Coote foot in touch twice, once his foot was on the line when jumping, 2 when he took a step out of bounds. He got the benefit of the doubt as he did it last week.

The contact with Tomkins from LMS was laughable.

The obstruction that was played at by Catalan number 10 with 3 mins to go.

The ball steal that was a penalty from batchelor, why wasnt this just a play the ball?

[yipyee]

23 minutes ago, Chris22 said:

Yeah, the decision not to award an 8 point try and a yellow card for Yaha's knee on Naiqama in the act of scoring was quite contentious, I agree.

Slid in dangerously with his knees and the refs bottled it.

[unapologetic pedant]

2 hours ago, Johnoco said:

I’m not biased but if I was trapped in a burning house and St Helen’s Fire brigade turned up, I’d surely perish in a blaze of 70’s carpet fumes and melting ceiling tiles- but at least it would be an honourable death.  Ultimately, that’s better than giving St Helen’s any credit whatsoever.

What rotten luck that St. Helen owns the fire brigade in Idle. Try the Co-op. Don`t think they have any firefighters, but they do insurance and funerals.

[Davo5]

3 hours ago, yipyee said:

Slid in dangerously with his knees and the refs bottled it.

He really didn’t & he really didn’t but it’s a nice story.

[George Watt]

Loved the match enormously and congratulations to the St Helens side for a hard fought win and to Catalans for their valiant effort - also to the 10 of 89 tipsters who correctly forecast the margin at the start of the thread.

My special award goes to Jack Welsby who during every match that has been shown live in Aus. throughout this season has been the only player, without fail, to play the ball correctly by getting to his feet, placing the ball on the ground and then playing it back with his foot. An amazing achievement!

 

[glossop saint]

Well that must have been the perfect final for this forum. Plenty of empty seats to discuss, a Saints win to please the anti expansionists, a dodgy ref performance and a brilliant opportunity for people to vent their frustrations against Saints using a keyboard. If only there was a way to bring in Leigh or Fev and it would tick all the boxes. 

[Bob8]

27 minutes ago, glossop saint said:

Well that must have been the perfect final for this forum. Plenty of empty seats to discuss, a Saints win to please the anti expansionists, a dodgy ref performance and a brilliant opportunity for people to vent their frustrations against Saints using a keyboard. If only there was a way to bring in Leigh or Fev and it would tick all the boxes. 

Well, we can segwey into the weekend's big game later today...

[lucky 7]

A tough tough game and the players certainly deserve the R & R they will get now

[LongbridgeH]

Very Grand Final wasn’t it? More experienced team coming good in the pressure cooker.
 

The ref’s performance was inconsistent but we are talking debatable decisions rather than absolute errors - that’s sport. 

[LongbridgeH]

9 hours ago, Cumbrian Fanatic said:

Just got home from watching  this in the local rugby league club, not willing to trawl through 24 pages of opinion on the game but just wanted to say what a fantastic advertisement of our sport. After it finished the television in the club was switched on to the England football game and it was like switching to slow motion.

Not really a fair comparison isn’t? 
 

The England v Andorra game would have been akin to Australia playing Malta at RL. 
 

RL (and it’s fans) let themselves down with needless comparisons to other sports. Celebrate the spectacle of the Grand Final as it’s very own event - it’s superb enough!

[Northern Eel]

Well done Saints. They just edged it, but it was a superbly entertaining game.

I thought the game changer was Walmsley in the last 20. Until then the Dragons forwards had won the battle. I thought Kasiano was exceptional, but just ran out of steam.

Saints played the sin-bin brilliantly. Just bread and butter sets in attack for the whole 10 mins. It bought time and field position at the most important time.

The rub of the green wasn’t with Catalans, and whilst I would have loved to have seen them scrape home, at the back of my mind is the sensible notion that Saints were marginally the better team at key moments.

I’d lost love with Super League before this game, but hope that might be the catalyst for a change of mind. That said, I sat in front of two absolute whoppers (Saints fans) who made a laughing stock of themselves around a fairly neutral area of the stadium. They were simply a caricature of flat-capped, ref-bashing, anti-expansion twerps, with seemingly little knowledge of the rules of the game or the history of the sport, despite proclaiming their deep and loyal history to the club. Everything they saw, they had a problem with, except if it happened in a Saints shirt! Their rose tinted glasses were incredible. I laughed it off, and filed it in the ‘every club has one’ folder. 

[sentoffagain2]

   Saints deserved to win just.But how about giving the Ref some credit for not blowing up every other set for six again.I thought it was one of the better Finals in recent years.

[Dave T]

Games like last night fascinate me. Sure it would have been nice to have had a couple of great tries with free flowing handling, but I always enjoy the ebbs and flows of momentum and last night had me absolutely hooked. 

Saints were worthy winners, but I dont think there was much in it at all, they had the first half, but I thought Catalans were outstanding to absorb the pressure and be 2 pts down at half time. 

In the 2nd half, whilst Saints had spells where they were on top, I thought Catalans were more effective. This is where I thought they had a bad run of luck. 

Three key decisions in that 2nd half went against them.

The foot in touch would have given them an attack in Saints half. 

I 100% think it was a penalty try, a foul that prevents a try is an easy decision imho. 

And finally taking the ball of Catalans with 2 minutes to go when Tomkins played the ball stood up whilst being interfered was bizarre. 

On top of this Catalans were forcing drop outs, a 40-20, Tomkins was looking lively and we had seen some gaps in that Saints defence (Tomkins and Maloney making breaks) - they were creaking. 

I can understand the unhappiness around the knees in the head during the try, but I do think it was accidental rather than the nasty tactic some adopt in situations like that. 

But overall, it was an outstanding game of rugby, despite the tries being attrition Al I thought it was a really good open game with both teams trying to entertain. 

A bit of controversy and some talking points are not bad things, that's sport, it happens, it's all part of the fun. 

 

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

1 hour ago, glossop saint said:

Well that must have been the perfect final for this forum. Plenty of empty seats to discuss, a Saints win to please the anti expansionists, a dodgy ref performance and a brilliant opportunity for people to vent their frustrations against Saints using a keyboard. If only there was a way to bring in Leigh or Fev and it would tick all the boxes. 

..... and Toronto 

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

7 minutes ago, Johnoco said:

I’ll look forward to watching the highlights later today. Quite often you don’t see things at games that people on TV can see and your opinion on an incident can be very wrong from what you thought you saw. Even the big screen isn’t that big from the other end of the ground. 

It really isn't from the other end and why aren't there two screens

I was sure it was a penalty try from my end but no one else was shouting for it except me (and it was all Catalan fans around us) 

Watching it on telly tonight so I'll fume more then 

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

46 minutes ago, Northern Eel said:

 I sat in front of two absolute whoppers (Saints fans) who made a laughing stock of themselves around a fairly neutral area of the stadium. They were simply a caricature of flat-capped, ref-bashing, anti-expansion twerps, with seemingly little knowledge of the rules of the game or the history of the sport, despite proclaiming their deep and loyal history to the club. Everything they saw, they had a problem with, except if it happened in a Saints shirt! Their rose tinted glasses were incredible. I laughed it off, and filed it in the ‘every club has one’ folder. 

The Saints fans we met were all great in fairness.

[ATLANTISMAN]

3 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

It really isn't from the other end and why aren't there two screens

I was sure it was a penalty try from my end but no one else was shouting for it except me (and it was all Catalan fans around us) 

Watching it on telly tonight so I'll fume more then 

100% penalty try no doubt about it the Dragons were robbed

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

You couldn’t fault last nights entertainment on the pitch, but the RFL really need to work out why RL fans aren’t returning to watch big games when it doesn’t seem to affect other sports.

10 years ago the Challenge Cup Final was selling 80%+ of final tickets, Grand Final pretty much sold out every year and we had, what I always thought was a successful Tri-Nations tournament which was also very well attended.

those 3 alone are huge income streams for the RFL, so little wonder they are struggling for cash when they can’t fill a stadium for major events.

The covid excuse, although still relevant to a point isn’t knocking people off attending other events and playing overseas teams shouldn’t affect the ‘floating supporter’ as they would usually have bought their tickets weeks or months before the finalists were confirmed.

My own reasons for non attendance: I have attended quite a few grand finals over the years, my mates are casual supporters,  but they didn’t want to go this year as they all think super league has got very stale and boring. You certainly couldn’t say that about last nights game, but has the game gone stale and how does the RFL make the game exciting again and get supporters to once again buy into ‘the big game’ experience ?

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

1 minute ago, ATLANTISMAN said:

100% penalty try no doubt about it the Dragons were robbed

Seems even Saints fans on here aren't making much of a case against it

Well at least Tolouse can make it a French success today 

[Northern Eel]

9 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

The Saints fans we met were all great in fairness.

I’m sure the vast majority of folk are. Walking around with my young family in Catalans gear garnered a range of responses, many nice, but some along the lines of ‘Catalans are W*%nkers’, right in our faces. Neanderthal idiots. That’s all it is. Bumped into Jonny Vegas who had some light-hearted banter with the kids, just how it should be! 

One major observation for me was the distinct lack of other club colours compared to previous years. Did you get the same impression? 

[Northern Eel]

11 minutes ago, Death to the Rah Rah's said:

You couldn’t fault last nights entertainment on the pitch, but the RFL really need to work out why RL fans aren’t returning to watch big games when it doesn’t seem to affect other sports.

10 years ago the Challenge Cup Final was selling 80%+ of final tickets, Grand Final pretty much sold out every year and we had, what I always thought was a successful Tri-Nations tournament which was also very well attended.

those 3 alone are huge income streams for the RFL, so little wonder they are struggling for cash when they can’t fill a stadium for major events.

The covid excuse, although still relevant to a point isn’t knocking people off attending other events and playing overseas teams shouldn’t affect the ‘floating supporter’ as they would usually have bought their tickets weeks or months before the finalists were confirmed.

My own reasons for non attendance: I have attended quite a few grand finals over the years, my mates are casual supporters,  but they didn’t want to go this year as they all think super league has got very stale and boring. You certainly couldn’t say that about last nights game, but has the game gone stale and how does the RFL make the game exciting again and get supporters to once again buy into ‘the big game’ experience ?

That’s a very close summary to my own feelings, although as it was the Dragons, we went without question. 
 

And the reason why we enjoyed it as a game was the intensity, which has been missing for a while now. Saints started like an Aussie International side and some of the hits from both sides were unbelievable - and they just kept coming!

[Northern Eel]

5 minutes ago, Saint 1 said:

Some of the players could barely walk post-match, really showed how much they had given.

While I agree that we probably had the share of luck (the Coote one was a howler), there were also questionable/wrong decisions that went against us, just nobody is talking about them because 1) we won anyway 2) everyone wanted Catalan to win.

As one example, there was an offload from Walmsley that was ruled a knock on on half way and ended up with us defending our line, instead of Catalan defending theirs. There was also an obstruction during one of the sets Catalan were attacking our line, lead line at an outside shoulder and Tomkins stepping back into that space. 

It was the same in 2019, where everyone wanted Salford to win and therefore insisted the refs gave all the decisions to Saints. Unsurprisingly the same discourse wasn't present in 2020 when all the neutrals wanted neither team to win! 

In the end, When it all came out in the wash, I think a 2 point victory was an absolutely fair reflection of what we saw between the two teams. 

[ATLANTISMAN]

14 minutes ago, Northern Eel said:

I’m sure the vast majority of folk are. Walking around with my young family in Catalans gear garnered a range of responses, many nice, but some along the lines of ‘Catalans are W*%nkers’, right in our faces. Neanderthal idiots. That’s all it is. Bumped into Jonny Vegas who had some light-hearted banter with the kids, just how it should be! 

One major observation for me was the distinct lack of other club colours compared to previous years. Did you get the same impression? 

100% very few fans from other clubs and if 45000 were they then I am Boris Johnson.

Great game though reminded me of a good old GB v Aus test match at times.

Problem we have is that many fans don't support the game just their clubs in what is becoming a diminishing market.

Had a long 3/4 hour chat with an Ex SL CEO and Ex SL coach and one of the greatest ever players over the last decade after the game and there is without doubt a serious worry that the game is in decline and needs a major overhaul off the pitch.

Everyone agreed on several points and one of them was franchising.

 

Paul

[RS]

15 minutes ago, Northern Eel said:

I’m sure the vast majority of folk are. Walking around with my young family in Catalans gear garnered a range of responses, many nice, but some along the lines of ‘Catalans are W*%nkers’, right in our faces. Neanderthal idiots. That’s all it is. Bumped into Jonny Vegas who had some light-hearted banter with the kids,

——————

 

I generally don’t go to the GF but went yesterday. Mine and the wife’s experience was ruined by drunken aggressive behaviour (and we were near half way in relatively expensive seats) as a straw poll for low attendances for what it’s worth I don’t think we will be going again.