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Saints domination - boring?


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1 hour ago, Dunbar said:

I think you are overstating this 25 year dominance.

When Super League started, Saints won 4 of the first 7 titles.

They have won the last 3.

In between these two bookends, Saints won 2 titles in 16 years.  That really isn't 25 years of dominance.

Alternately, there are 10/25 years where we didn’t win one of the three available trophies (GF, LLS, CC).
3/10 years were part of the “5 in a row” where we were varying degrees of 80mins away from winning something, 2/10 were the Cunningham years, 2/10 were effectively due to the stadium moving distracting our board, 1/10 was Millward forgetting you need props in a squad, 1/10 was Percival not being able to kick a goal in Castleford (though if we would have gotten over our voodoo of Leeds in finals is another conversation) which leaves 1998 which saw the end of McRea.

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3 hours ago, Dunbar said:

I think you are overstating this 25 year dominance.

When Super League started, Saints won 4 of the first 7 titles.

They have won the last 3.

In between these two bookends, Saints won 2 titles in 16 years.  That really isn't 25 years of dominance.

That’s fair - it’s still 17 of LLS and GF wins by my reckoning. If it doesn’t count as dominance yet by some measure, we can come back to this subject in 2024 and ask the same question, by which time it’s likely to be 20+. In a way it’s irrelevant that it’s Saints - it could be anyone - how much dominance is too much dominance? 

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52 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

That’s fair - it’s still 17 of LLS and GF wins by my reckoning. If it doesn’t count as dominance yet by some measure, we can come back to this subject in 2024 and ask the same question, by which time it’s likely to be 20+. In a way it’s irrelevant that it’s Saints - it could be anyone - how much dominance is too much dominance? 

Saints have still only won as many Grand Finals as Leeds and it's only the last 3 years that have seen them go past Wigan. Hardly 25 years of dominance.

Edited by Damien
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On 20/04/2022 at 10:36, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

It's looking like they will walk both competitions again 

I enjoy watching them to an extent but they are just too dominant over all other teams.

For me it's bad for the game....I have no answers how to fix it by the way

 

Nope, one team dominating actually improves the profile of the sport and creates a household name.

For example, man u , Liverpool

Wigan Rugby , Leeds Rhinos

Michael Schumacher , Lewis Hamilton 

Tony McCoy

Phil Taylor 

All blacks union

It becomes a goliath that is instantly thought of when mentioning a sport and people can identify the sport to that champion or support every underdog hoping they get knocked off their perch. 

 

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31 minutes ago, Damien said:

Saints have still only won as many Grand Finals as Leeds and it's only the last 3 years that have seen them go past Wigan. Hardly 25 years of dominance.

Well Saints are the only club to always finish in the play offs. Also they finished top and never made the final or got beat several times (5 in a row!)

Leeds had a few good runs but one could argue they were far from dominant when winning several titles. In fact if it was the old system of finishing top Leeds would be nowhere near top of the stats and Warrington would have a few league titles along with Catalan and Huddersfield.

Saints are consistently there or there abouts for 25 years. I would call that dominance on a level with Man Utd of old.

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7 hours ago, yipyee said:

Well Saints are the only club to always finish in the play offs. Also they finished top and never made the final or got beat several times (5 in a row!)

Leeds had a few good runs but one could argue they were far from dominant when winning several titles. In fact if it was the old system of finishing top Leeds would be nowhere near top of the stats and Warrington would have a few league titles along with Catalan and Huddersfield.

Saints are consistently there or there abouts for 25 years. I would call that dominance on a level with Man Utd of old.

Being there or there abouts is hardly being dominant though,consistent yes.

The fact that winning the comp is decided by whoever wins the GF means that yes Leeds we’re dominant for a period just as Saints are now,but reaching the playoffs every year hardly means they have been dominant for 25 yrs now does it.

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1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

Being there or there abouts is hardly being dominant though,consistent yes.

The fact that winning the comp is decided by whoever wins the GF means that yes Leeds we’re dominant for a period just as Saints are now,but reaching the playoffs every year hardly means they have been dominant for 25 yrs now does it.

One man’s dominance is another man’s shrug of the shoulders, of course. As I mentioned above - how many years before it counts as dominance and, if it does then count, would it be boring? Incidentally, my test here was LLS and GF wins. Leeds’ ability to win GFs was remarkable, but week in, week out Saints won far more games. So, you could argue strongly that Saints were dominant week by week, but Leeds were great when it had to be, which is another form of dominance. 

If no one else is bored by it now, we can come back to it next year or the year after, because it isn’t going to change. 

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1 minute ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

One man’s dominance is another man’s shrug of the shoulders, of course. As I mentioned above - how many years before it counts as dominance and, if it does then count, would it be boring? Incidentally, my test here was LLS and GF wins. Leeds’ ability to win GFs was remarkable, but week in, week out Saints won far more games. So, you could argue strongly that Saints were dominant week by week, but Leeds were great when it had to be, which is another form of dominance. 

If no one else is bored by it now, we can come back to it next year or the year after, because it isn’t going to change. 

But it will change, and it's important not to overstate this period of dominance.

I mean they have made 2 Challenge Cup Finals in the last 13 years and won only 1.

In those same 13 years they have won only 3 LLS. 

Their 'dominance' has been around the Grand Final. In those 13 years they have played in 7, winning 4, losing 3.

But out of 39 potential trophies during that period, they have won 8 of them. That seems a modest return for such a dominant team. 

They are as susceptible to the knockout format of the current game as the other teams. 

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8 hours ago, yipyee said:

Well Saints are the only club to always finish in the play offs. Also they finished top and never made the final or got beat several times (5 in a row!)

Leeds had a few good runs but one could argue they were far from dominant when winning several titles. In fact if it was the old system of finishing top Leeds would be nowhere near top of the stats and Warrington would have a few league titles along with Catalan and Huddersfield.

Saints are consistently there or there abouts for 25 years. I would call that dominance on a level with Man Utd of old.

Some are calling dominance, personally i'd think of it more as consistency for 25 years with several periods of dominance within that timeframe.

As Yipyee said Saints are the only team to have played every single finals series and hence put themselves in a position to win the title every year. They've finished top of the league more times than anyone else and over 25 years have scored more points than anyone else.

If you look at the other teams who have had SL success its been mirrored by periods of pretty disasterous seasons. Bradford went from Champions to Championship and both Leeds & Wigan went from title winning teams to being in relegation battles within a few years of winning.

What Saints seem to do better than anyone else is achieve consistency and have the patience to stick to a long term plan of invest in their own juniors and make sure there's nearly always someone ready to step up and take the place of a 1st teamer who leaves. Yes they still have to buy players in as its virtually impossible to bring through half a dozen 1st team ready young players year after year, but they buy in to compliment their own not the other way round as other clubs seem to do.

This may sound strange given the success they've had over the years but the one club who I think have massively underachieved is Wigan. They have a fantastic youth system and year after year their Academy are the ones battling it out with Saints for honours. They also bring a lot of their own through into the 1st team, but then something seems to go wrong and I can't quite understand what it is. So many of their youngsters get into the 1st team and then fail to kick on, or Wigan seem to lose patience with them if they don't bring instant success and then ditch them. To me it seems like there's something wrong behind the scenes at Wigan. Barring having their own stadium they have everything they need to be every bit as consistent & dominant as Saints but never seem to be able to achieve it.

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23 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

If I may say, mate, you have a slightly odd patronising manner. I get that you draw a lot of your self worth from following Saints - good on you. You don’t need to project onto others, though, just get your full replica kit on and re-watch all your triumphs and you’ll feel fine.

I don’t worry in the slightest - I think it’s a shame that the winners are and will be a foregone conclusion for the foreseeable future, and I suppose that holds us back as a game. It’s still a privilege and a pleasure to watch the greatest game, even at the lower levels that everyone else plays them. Oh, and we can come back to this when Penrith again choose to play a preseason friendly in 2023 instead of coming over here. 

Nope - I just know nonsense when I see it.

Penrith would not have played any English club last year, but if it suits you to cast that as a case of Saints being less of a draw than other clubs then you go for it.

Edited by FearTheVee
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9 hours ago, yipyee said:

Well Saints are the only club to always finish in the play offs. Also they finished top and never made the final or got beat several times (5 in a row!)

Leeds had a few good runs but one could argue they were far from dominant when winning several titles. In fact if it was the old system of finishing top Leeds would be nowhere near top of the stats and Warrington would have a few league titles along with Catalan and Huddersfield.

Saints are consistently there or there abouts for 25 years. I would call that dominance on a level with Man Utd of old.

Thats not 25 years of dominance. Consistency is not dominance.

There have only been 4 different Super League winners and Saints are tied with Leeds. They have only gone ahead of Wigan with the recent 3 in a row.

RL, unfortunately, is a very shallow pool with few real competitors. Being consistent or being there abouts is par for the course most of the time for the big clubs. The fact that the other clubs have been so poor the last 3 years is somewhat of anamoly and just highlights the lack of real competition that Saints have had. That is of course entirely the other clubs fault, not Saints.

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7 minutes ago, Damien said:

Thats not 25 years of dominance. Consistency is not dominance.

There have only been 4 different Super League winners and Saints are tied with Leeds. They have only gone ahead of Wigan with the recent 3 in a row.

RL, unfortunately, is a very shallow pool with few real competitors. Being consistent or being there abouts is par for the course most of the time for the big clubs. The fact that the other clubs have been so poor the last 3 years is somewhat of anamoly and just highlights the lack of real competition that Saints have had. That is of course entirely the other clubs fault, not Saints.

I'm not sure why this line about the other clubs being so poor keeps getting rolled out. 

In the last 3 years Saints have been pipped to the top spot in SL twice, by Catalans and Wigan, and only beat them by one score in very tight Grand Finals. 

They have won one Cup Final, losing one to Wire at Wembley and losing in the QF to them the year later. 

Other teams have been doing the business and defeating and competing with this 'dominant' team (and I am aware you aren't claiming them as dominant). 

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21 minutes ago, Damien said:

There have only been 4 different Super League winners and Saints are tied with Leeds. They have only gone ahead of Wigan with the recent 3 in a row.

 

I think you'll find Saints have 9 SL titles and Leeds have won 8. Leeds fans like to pretend the first 2 years of SL didn't exist because they didn't use the GF system to decide the champions.

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1 minute ago, Dave T said:

I'm not sure why this line about the other clubs being so poor keeps getting rolled out. 

In the last 3 years Saints have been pipped to the top spot in SL twice, by Catalans and Wigan, and only beat them by one score in very tight Grand Finals. 

They have won one Cup Final, losing one to Wire at Wembley and losing in the QF to them the year later. 

Other teams have been doing the business and defeating and competing with this 'dominant' team (and I am aware you aren't claiming them as dominant). 

I agree and I do agree on the Challenge Cup and said that on page 1. I do think that competition is more of a lottery. I'm just trying not to repeat what I've already said.

I concentrated on Grand Final wins because the last 3 years of winning the Grand Final seem to be the argument for then arguing for 25 years of dominance.

I do think the other big clubs have been poor and way off where they should be. My own club Wigan have been poor for a whole host of reasons, Leeds have been woeful, Warrington are way off the team they were. Hull FC have just been Hull FC. That's not to take away from Saints but it's about the only Super League period when I can't recall at least two teams very closely matched and competing hammer and nail for every Grand Final.

As you say though, and as I said on page 1, despite that they still only won two of those three Grand Finals by a try.

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12 minutes ago, Saint Toppy said:

I think you'll find Saints have 9 SL titles and Leeds have won 8. Leeds fans like to pretend the first 2 years of SL didn't exist because they didn't use the GF system to decide the champions.

I think you'll find the argument was 25 years. If you want to make it 26 then why stop there, let's just extend it to 30 years.

Nice to see you are back. It's really odd how you dip in and out of threads and ignore replies that prove you are wrong or question your past statements.

Edited by Damien
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6 minutes ago, Damien said:

I think you'll find the argument was 25 years. If you want to make it 26 then why stop there, let's just extend it to 30 years.

Nice to see you are back. It's really odd how you dip in and out of threads and ignore replies that prove you are wrong or question your past statements.

I was merely correcting your incorrect statement which said "There have only been 4 different SL winners and Saints are tied with Leeds".

The fact is Saints aren't tied with Leeds, they've won 9 SL titles and Leeds have won 8. The SL competition started in 1996

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I would have written 26 years if I had done the maths correctly - as the league winners also won the GF, that possibly counts double, making it 19 LLS/GF/titles. Now, it’s possible to argue with all of that, and It’s probably only me suggesting they have been dominant over 26(!) years. 

This thread though is whether it’s boring - I think only the OP and I think it’s boring. Toprov is loving it and would love it to be the era that lasts 1,000 years. For those that are relaxed about it, how many more years before it either becomes boring or counts as dominance? 

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6 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I would have written 26 years if I had done the maths correctly - as the league winners also won the GF, that possibly counts double, making it 19 LLS/GF/titles. Now, it’s possible to argue with all of that, and It’s probably only me suggesting they have been dominant over 26(!) years. 

This thread though is whether it’s boring - I think only the OP and I think it’s boring. Toprov is loving it and would love it to be the era that lasts 1,000 years. For those that are relaxed about it, how many more years before it either becomes boring or counts as dominance? 

It a bit late to change your own parameters. If you are talking league winners as being Champions then there is simply no need to stop at 26 as there was no difference in format to what went before. That's just being very selective to suit your own argument.

Its no different than me changing the argument to 30 years and adding another 4 Wigan league wins and another 4 Wigan Challenge Cups into the mix. Or saying the last 15 years where Leeds have been the dominant force winning it 7 times and Wigan and Saints 4 each. You are trying to be awfully specific in your window to try and back up your opinion with 26 years (now) being a period that starts with Saints winning 3 out of 5 and finishes with Saints winning 3 out of 3.

You are quite correct though in that it seems to be only two people that seem overly bothered by it and see it the way you do.

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4 minutes ago, Damien said:

It a bit late to change your own parameters. If you are talking league winners as being Champions then there is simply no need to stop at 26 as there was no difference in format to what went before. That's just being very selective to suit your own argument.

Its no different than me changing the argument to 30 years and adding another 4 Wigan league wins and another 4 Wigan Challenge Cups into the mix. Or saying the last 15 years where Leeds have been the dominant force winning it 7 times and Wigan and Saints 4 each. You are trying to be awfully specific in your window to try and back up your opinion with 26 years (now) being a period that starts with Saints winning 3 out of 5 and finishes with Saints winning 3 out of 3.

You are quite correct though in that it seems to be only two people that seem overly bothered by it and see it the way you do.

I can change my own parameters whenever I feel like it. Out of interest, how many more years would it take either to count as dominance, or become boring, or is it too early to tell? 

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12 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I can change my own parameters whenever I feel like it. Out of interest, how many more years would it take either to count as dominance, or become boring, or is it too early to tell? 

I've no idea, I obviously don't view these things as you do and don't view it as a 25 years of dominance so I'm not waiting to be bored by it.

I'm also firmly in the camp that it up to other clubs to raise their game and the other bigger clubs should be performing better.

Edited by Damien
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1 hour ago, Damien said:

 

I do think the other big clubs have been poor and way off where they should be. My own club Wigan have been poor for a whole host of reasons, Leeds have been woeful, Warrington are way off the team they were. Hull FC have just been Hull FC. That's not to take away from Saints but it's about the only Super League period when I can't recall at least two teams very closely matched and competing hammer and nail for every Grand Final.

 

I think this is the bit where I disagree slightly (only to an extent I would add). Super League is meant to be about teams rising and falling, the SC is meant to add a touch more balance and so on. And I think that is all we are seeing with the likes of Wire, Wigan, Leeds etc. I don't think they are being particularly poor, but they aren't just able to fix things quickly with big signings as they may have done in the past to cover for any shortfalls. Part of that is due to the SC, but also the pandemic and the NRL cap and exchange rate etc. 

But Catalans have been good, Salford have had a decent year or two, Wire have still been challenging, Wigan have been pushing Saints - we may both be slightly downbeat about our respective teams in recent years with the style of play and negativity, but they have still been there and challenging. 

That is ultimately the area where Saints do deserve the credit - it is that they have been consistent - they haven't really dropped too low at any stage.  But then neither have Wigan - a quick scan (so could be errors) shows that Wigan have been outside of the top 4 only once in the last 13 years, and more often than not in the top 2. Wire generally also make the playoffs every year, and have finished outside the top 5 only twice in recent years.

I don't think the others have been too bad, it has just been a competitive league with Saints just ahead of the pack. 

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12 hours ago, yipyee said:

Nope, one team dominating actually improves the profile of the sport and creates a household name.

For example, man u , Liverpool

Wigan Rugby , Leeds Rhinos

Michael Schumacher , Lewis Hamilton 

Tony McCoy

Phil Taylor 

All blacks union

It becomes a goliath that is instantly thought of when mentioning a sport and people can identify the sport to that champion or support every underdog hoping they get knocked off their perch. 

 

 

12 hours ago, yipyee said:

Well Saints are the only club to always finish in the play offs. Also they finished top and never made the final or got beat several times (5 in a row!)

Leeds had a few good runs but one could argue they were far from dominant when winning several titles. In fact if it was the old system of finishing top Leeds would be nowhere near top of the stats and Warrington would have a few league titles along with Catalan and Huddersfield.

Saints are consistently there or there abouts for 25 years. I would call that dominance on a level with Man Utd of old.

Aren't these two posts a little contradictory.  In the first you name Leeds Rhinos as a name that has dominated and subsequently improved the profile of the sport while in the second you say that Saints have dominated for the 25 years during which the Rhinos dominated?

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33 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

 

Aren't these two posts a little contradictory.  In the first you name Leeds Rhinos as a name that has dominated and subsequently improved the profile of the sport while in the second you say that Saints have dominated for the 25 years during which the Rhinos dominated?

6dg9up.jpg

 

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3 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I would have written 26 years if I had done the maths correctly - as the league winners also won the GF, that possibly counts double, making it 19 LLS/GF/titles. Now, it’s possible to argue with all of that, and It’s probably only me suggesting they have been dominant over 26(!) years. 

This thread though is whether it’s boring - I think only the OP and I think it’s boring. Toprov is loving it and would love it to be the era that lasts 1,000 years. For those that are relaxed about it, how many more years before it either becomes boring or counts as dominance? 

We won the CC 96 and 97 as well don’t forget that. 

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5 hours ago, Dunbar said:

 

Aren't these two posts a little contradictory.  In the first you name Leeds Rhinos as a name that has dominated and subsequently improved the profile of the sport while in the second you say that Saints have dominated for the 25 years during which the Rhinos dominated?

You can have 2 clubs dominating at the same time, saints dominated the week to week, Leeds got the calls in the big games and won the GFs..

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