Sun 14th Apr: CCQF: St Helens v Warrington Wolves KO 16:30 (BBC)

[meast]

3 hours ago, Damien said:

That mistake from Lomax killed Saints. Warrington well on top after that.

Pretty poor how he tried to blame others too.

I thought Welsby kicking out on the full did for them, Wire just tore loose after that.

Edited April 14 by meast

[Harry Stottle]

3 hours ago, andyscoot said:

Saints having a mare today. I'll enjoy whilst it lasts cause it won't last long.

It will with those halfbacks and the coach, Lomax past it now this version this season not as good as previous and Dodd not up to the standard you expect from a Saints No 7, Saints attack has complemented their defence for years the attack is very wanting and that has to be put down to the coach.

[Harry Stottle]

3 hours ago, sam4731 said:

Well the worse team definitely lost. Here's hoping for a Huddersfield vs Rovers final.

Get a few quid on it Sam,you will get pretty good odds I am sure.

The cup is coming back to West of the Pennines.

[Szymala]

21 minutes ago, Coggo said:

Worst Saints performance I can remember since before Justin Holbrook took over. A towelling, really.

Certainly the worst since Hull won 47-18 at Saints in the Cup in 2016 - before going on to win at Wembley for the first time.

 

 

 

[WN83]

Saints are going to need to find some points from somewhere. I was gutted to lose on Good Friday but I felt the sort of effort Saints had to put in cannot be replicated over a full season. Not only is it physically draining but it’s hard mentally for the players to keep getting up for it and when you have an off day in defence, you’ll pay. Wigan were exactly the same under Lam for a couple of years and lost big games in a very similar manner to how Saints lost today. 
 

It’s been well over a year now that Saints haven’t been scoring decent amounts of points and the personnel isn’t going to change massively, so it’s on the coaching staff to find a way of opening the team up. 

[The British Lion]

Ill be honest - I had hope we (Wire) would win today, but, I thought Saints would beat us by a close one. A great game by Wire, and encouraging times. We looked determined. It was particularly good to see us trying some more adventurous plays as the game was going. Confidence was rising.

As an aside (as a Warrington fan) I'm getting really discouraged by the behaviour of a small proportion of our fans who are throwing beer bottles onto the pitch when we score. Thyre plastic, I know, but theyre hitting your own players! It aint pleasant, and i'd love our club to uncover the culprits.

However, Saints will still be there come the end of season, and im sure they will come better and good despite today. 

[WN83]

1 minute ago, The British Lion said:

Ill be honest - I had hope we (Wire) would win today, but, I thought Saints would beat us by a close one. A great game by Wire, and encouraging times. We looked determined. It was particularly good to see us trying some more adventurous plays as the game was going. Confidence was rising.

As an aside (as a Warrington fan) I'm getting really discouraged by the behaviour of a small proportion of our fans who are throwing beer bottles onto the pitch when we score. Thyre plastic, I know, but theyre hitting your own players! It aint pleasant, and i'd love our club to uncover the culprits.

However, Saints will still be there come the end of season, and im sure they will come better and good despite today. 

I’m liking the looks of Burgess as a coach. He seems pretty level, doesn’t get too high or low and is clearly a great motivator. The biggest plus point for him so far is the way he’s trusting the young players. That has been needed at Wire for donkeys years and he seems to be driving a great culture. It’s not been as flashy as the start to last season but the signs look far more positive in terms of it lasting. 

[Chris22]

Since the start of March, we have scored 12, 20, 18, 20, 12, 8 and 8 points in our matches. We have won 4 of those 6 matches, ironically, one of those defeats coming in one of the two matches where we did crack 20 points!

Our defence is usually excellent so despite being low scorers, we win more than we lose. But based on the season so far, if a side can score three tries against Saints, they will probably win.

On a day like today where our defence was not good, we were comfortably defeated. I don't say this to take away from Warrington's win (I thought they were very good, especially Williams) but I doubt their players came out of the match thinking that was a particularly tough game.

You can't win them all, but when you do lose, you at least want to feel that your opponent was pushed to its absolute limits to win. That didn't happen today, which is a concern.

 

[The British Lion]

48 minutes ago, WN83 said:

I’m liking the looks of Burgess as a coach. He seems pretty level, doesn’t get too high or low and is clearly a great motivator. The biggest plus point for him so far is the way he’s trusting the young players. That has been needed at Wire for donkeys years and he seems to be driving a great culture. It’s not been as flashy as the start to last season but the signs look far more positive in terms of it lasting. 

He is bringing a different culture. One alongside the players, and seems to be inspiring the younger (and all) players to give their best and seek to develop their ability. The biggest thing was their will to keep at it - as a unit/team. I dont think we (Wire) were anything truly of brilliance today, (Matty Ashtons try was exceptional to get the ball down). But as a fan - the dogged determination to keep at the game was fantastic. Culture will bring the future for sure.

[The British Lion]

39 minutes ago, Chris22 said:

On a day like today where our defence was not good, we were comfortably defeated. I don't say this to take away from Warrington's win (I thought they were very good, especially Williams) but I doubt their players came out of the match thinking that was a particularly tough game

It was unusual today to watch Saints make errors I certainly wouldn't have expected. You know a games going in your favour when things like Lomax putting his foot behind the dead ball line happen (uncharacteristic). But for one day, I think Wire brought it better than Saints did. The season is long.

 

I'd agree that Wire would have not thought as players that was a battle hardened win - but they would have taken confidence from it for sure. 

[bobbruce]

57 minutes ago, Chris22 said:

Since the start of March, we have scored 12, 20, 18, 20, 12, 8 and 8 points in our matches. We have won 4 of those 6 matches, ironically, one of those defeats coming in one of the two matches where we did crack 20 points!

Our defence is usually excellent so despite being low scorers, we win more than we lose. But based on the season so far, if a side can score three tries against Saints, they will probably win.

On a day like today where our defence was not good, we were comfortably defeated. I don't say this to take away from Warrington's win (I thought they were very good, especially Williams) but I doubt their players came out of the match thinking that was a particularly tough game.

You can't win them all, but when you do lose, you at least want to feel that your opponent was pushed to its absolute limits to win. That didn't happen today, which is a concern.

 

The worrying part from Saints point of view is in pre season I’m sure Wellens made a point of saying they were looking to work on attacking structures. We know the limitations of Saints outside backs but even so there doesn’t look to be much if any improvement. 

[NRLandSL]

Saints absolutely dreadful, whole spine very poor. No organisation and way to many errors.

[Barry Badrinath]

I know saints were below par but warrington deserve some credit,  saints have two very obvious weak areas to attack.

 

Bennison has been very poor in most games this year(benefit of all games being televised) on receiving kicks and in defence, we exploited that and his head went.

 

Also, well know, konrad hurrell I'm defence. 

Go back to the kr game that we won, there was a 15 minute period where we ran riot down the lefthand side, we did the same yesterday,  lachlan fitzgibbon runs some amazing lines to open up space for dufty,  king and Ashton to exploit.

We did that perfectly yesterday in the 2nd half.

[Dave T]

Interested to see where this Wire team goes from here. We are back now playing at the level that we were before Powell came in and did a disastrous job. We have always had a good squad, and under Price we were a top 4 team, playing in Cup Finals and a Grand Final, winning one Challenge Cup. 

It looks like we are back there - but there was a reason we moved on from Price - we were often negative imo, and we never really looked like making that step from being a top 4 team to being a champion team on a regular basis. That is the challenge Burgess faces - it'll be interesting to see whether a) he sticks around long enough to test himself, and b) whether he can pass that challenge. 

But, so far so good.

[Snowys Backside]

23 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Interested to see where this Wire team goes from here. We are back now playing at the level that we were before Powell came in and did a disastrous job. We have always had a good squad, and under Price we were a top 4 team, playing in Cup Finals and a Grand Final, winning one Challenge Cup. 

It looks like we are back there - but there was a reason we moved on from Price - we were often negative imo, and we never really looked like making that step from being a top 4 team to being a champion team on a regular basis. That is the challenge Burgess faces - it'll be interesting to see whether a) he sticks around long enough to test himself, and b) whether he can pass that challenge. 

But, so far so good.

The level I’m hoping you go back too is Leigh’s level so we can bring you back down to Earth with a bump on Sat

Well played Wire. Saints don’t offer much to me and have scraped through a lot of games by great defence. Williams pulled the strings and had Saints disjointed left and right throughout the second half. 
 

Special mention to Richard Marshall who no doubt puts together most of Warringtons attacking structures. As a team a blooding the kids through, Burgess is fearless in making the final team call.

A big well done from a currently sombre Leyther exiled in Warrington

[Barry Badrinath]

23 minutes ago, Snowys Backside said:

The level I’m hoping you go back too is Leigh’s level so we can bring you back down to Earth with a bump on Sat

Well played Wire. Saints don’t offer much to me and have scraped through a lot of games by great defence. Williams pulled the strings and had Saints disjointed left and right throughout the second half. 
 

Special mention to Richard Marshall who no doubt puts together most of Warringtons attacking structures. As a team a blooding the kids through, Burgess is fearless in making the final team call.

A big well done from a currently sombre Leyther exiled in Warrington

absolutely wrong about marshall

[JohnM]

Saints were not below par, in my view. It's just that teams are learning how to handle Welsby, Roby, Hurrell etc. Couple that with Wire protecting George Williams to give him the space and time to deliver his best performance for ages. Couple that with their "go forward" and positional vision, they could have beaten anyone.

[WN83]

6 minutes ago, JohnM said:

Saints were not below par, in my view. It's just that teams are learning how to handle Welsby, Roby, Hurrell etc. Couple that with Wire protecting George Williams to give him the space and time to deliver his best performance for ages. Couple that with their "go forward" and positional vision, they could have beaten anyone.

I watched the guys on Red Vee TV previewing the game and the view was that Wire wouldn't get any players in a combined 17 outside of Ashton and King. We all like to back our own teams but the conversation around Williams verses Dodd and Lomax was interesting to say the least, with them saying he Williams wouldn't get in over either. Now there's backing your players and then there is being totally deluded. Williams is a better player than both and by a fair distance nowadays. Lomax looks on the downward slope and Dodd is up and down and has never got close to Williams level in his career so far. 

[FearTheVee]

Fair play to Wire - very good performance and a cracking result. Well done.

Haven't watched it back but thought we were really poor with some basic uncharacteristic errors. Our game relies on us being pretty error free but the last couple of weeks we've falled way short in that regard and when we do it becomes very difficult for us given lack of pace across the backs and halves.

Edited April 15 by FearTheVee

[JohnM]

2 minutes ago, FearTheVee said:

Fair play to Wire - very good performance and a cracking result. Well done.

Haven't watched it back but thought we were really poor with some basic uncharacteristic errors. Our game relies on us being pretty error free but the last couple of weeks we've falled way short in that regard and when we do it becomes very difficult for us given lack of pace across the backs and halves.

That's what happens when a team is under pressure from a highly motivated and eager opposition. Pressure forces mistakes. Mistakes engender anxiety, anxiety engenders mistakes. Add to that excellent refereeing and you have a losing combination for Saints.

 

[Lowdesert]

25 minutes ago, JohnM said:

That's what happens when a team is under pressure from a highly motivated and eager opposition. Pressure forces mistakes. Mistakes engender anxiety, anxiety engenders mistakes. Add to that excellent refereeing and you have a losing combination for Saints.

 

And that is what happened.  It wasn’t a game of saints being poor (they had plenty of good position and play) but what they were allowed to do.

Will we see a better try than Ashton scored?  Fantastic game to watch.  

[FearTheVee]

32 minutes ago, JohnM said:

That's what happens when a team is under pressure from a highly motivated and eager opposition. Pressure forces mistakes. Mistakes engender anxiety, anxiety engenders mistakes. Add to that excellent refereeing and you have a losing combination for Saints.

 

That's fair enough but Saints have faced a lot of highly motivated and eager opposition in recent times and not made those sorts of errors. In fact our success has been based on calmness in those situations which went missing both last week vs Catalans and this week vs Wire.

As I said though - Wire were great and fair play to them.

Edited April 15 by FearTheVee

[graveyard johnny]

21 hours ago, Loiner said:

You need to get shut of Dodd

and quite a few of his diddy men - Konnie looks one more steak bake away from retirement - Lomax struggling to take the mantle - bet wire are glad they offloaded Clark who's not fit to clean Roby's boots - good player 8 years ago- but now? nah - how did Leeds lose to this rabble at home 2 weeks running? must be a concern for Leeds fans!

[phiggins]

Just now, graveyard johnny said:

and quite a few of his diddy men - Konnie looks one more steak bake away from retirement - Lomax struggling to take the mantle - bet wire are glad they offloaded Clark who's not fit to clean Roby's boots - good player 8 years ago- but now? nah - how did Leeds lose to this rabble at home 2 weeks running? must be a concern for Leeds fans!

Imagine how concerning it is to have lost to both Saints and Leeds!

[GeordieSaint]

11 hours ago, FearTheVee said:

That's fair enough but Saints have faced a lot of highly motivated and eager opposition in recent times and not made those sorts of errors. In fact our success has been based on calmness in those situations which went missing both last week vs Catalans and this week vs Wire.

As I said though - Wire were great and fair play to them.

The way to beat Saints is moving the ball around the pitch at pace. Leeds have consistently troubled us by doing that in recent years. Salford won by doing that earlier in the season. Now Warrington. If you play down the middle and keep it tight, in most cases (not all), Saints will grind down the opposition on the back of a well drilled defence. 

Warrington did this superbly - supported by a hugely impressive forward display as well.