Optimism

[blindsideprop]

Super League a strong competition? St Helens GF winners for the last 3 years,CC cup holders and top of the league again. Warrington and Leeds usually up in the top 4 are in dire straights. Castleford down in the basement since Powell left and Hull promise every year and win nothing.Only Cats look capable of getting anywhere near Saints but were beaten soundly by them early in the season.As for the rest can anyone see them winning a GF this year?,it would be a brave man to bet on them going all the way and that includes Wigan .If that is a strong competition i would hate to see a weak one.

I think there about as many plausible GF winners in SL as there are in the NRL.

Really,after only 4 teams won the GF since the start of SL?,think again

[archiekeith]

Last year we were top of the league after several games. But ended up with nothing. Without 2 Harry Smith’s 2 drop goals and Field’s tries we would be lucky to be mid table. The one real test was Catalans away and we were blown off the park. The next two performances will show whether we have the right to be optimistic for the rest of the season. A tricky tie at Wakefield who are playing with confidence and St Helen’s side who are streets ahead of everybody else.

Last time I looked Field and Smith were in our team so if we won due to contributions from them, then our TEAM won. It's a nutcase idea to take every winning contribution out of the equation and then say "but without them we'd have lost!" Well duh! You think? Take the best players and winning contributions out of any team and they lose. We might just as well say "if Faz hadn't made that run to set up the drop goal then we don't win" or "if the pack hadn't stood up to theirs then we lose". The point is he did, they did, Field did and Smith did. That's how a TEAM works.

You obviously need to be pragmatic and less emotional of course the players mentioned are in our team but "the team" didn't kick the goals it was the Aforementioned players did. It's a matter of fact who actually kicked the goals and Scored the tries Which you freely concede in your post I don't accept your comments re- nutcase idea but I Would accept the point of your post was unnecessarily critical of another posters opinion

[moto748]

Super League a strong competition? St Helens GF winners for the last 3 years,CC cup holders and top of the league again. Warrington and Leeds usually up in the top 4 are in dire straights. Castleford down in the basement since Powell left and Hull promise every year and win nothing.Only Cats look capable of getting anywhere near Saints but were beaten soundly by them early in the season.As for the rest can anyone see them winning a GF this year?,it would be a brave man to bet on them going all the way and that includes Wigan .If that is a strong competition i would hate to see a weak one.

I think there about as many plausible GF winners in SL as there are in the NRL.

Really,after only 4 teams won the GF since the start of SL?,think again

Roosters, Storm, Penrith, Parra. Can't see anyone else threatening. 3 or 4.

[medlocke]

Apologies to Morley and others for my Happy clapping comment, I should have used a different analogy

[moto748]

That's OK. I ignore trolls.

[Wintergreen]

If you think that our current league position is a consequence of the team performance rather than the individual ability of one or two players then you are either not watching the games, or not understanding them.

[Flash]

Last year we were top of the league after several games. But ended up with nothing. Without 2 Harry Smith’s 2 drop goals and Field’s tries we would be lucky to be mid table. The one real test was Catalans away and we were blown off the park. The next two performances will show whether we have the right to be optimistic for the rest of the season. A tricky tie at Wakefield who are playing with confidence and St Helen’s side who are streets ahead of everybody else.

Last time I looked Field and Smith were in our team so if we won due to contributions from them, then our TEAM won. It's a nutcase idea to take every winning contribution out of the equation and then say "but without them we'd have lost!" Well duh! You think? Take the best players and winning contributions out of any team and they lose. We might just as well say "if Faz hadn't made that run to set up the drop goal then we don't win" or "if the pack hadn't stood up to theirs then we lose". The point is he did, they did, Field did and Smith did. That's how a TEAM works.

You obviously need to be pragmatic and less emotional of course the players mentioned are in our team but "the team" didn't kick the goals it was the Aforementioned players did. It's a matter of fact who actually kicked the goals and Scored the tries Which you freely concede in your post I don't accept your comments re- nutcase idea but I Would accept the point of your post was unnecessarily critical of another posters opinion

So you're saying whoever kicks the goals and scores the tries in any given game shouldn't count in assessing a team performance? Of course only certain players score in each game. That is the nature of any team sport. In order for Smith to kick the winning drop the forwards had to match Hull's, Farrell had to make that run, Mago had to get the offload and the pass from dummy half had to be delivered crisply enough to create the time and space for him to make the kick. You can't just say "take Smith's kick out of that and we don't win".
Take any of the pieces out of that list and we don't win either.

A nutcase argument sums it up perfectly.

And just for balance, your post is equally critical of another's post. Mine. Or does it only work one way?

[Wigan_forever1985]

Last time I looked Field and Smith were in our team so if we won due to contributions from them, then our TEAM won. It's a nutcase idea to take every winning contribution out of the equation and then say "but without them we'd have lost!" Well duh! You think? Take the best players and winning contributions out of any team and they lose. We might just as well say "if Faz hadn't made that run to set up the drop goal then we don't win" or "if the pack hadn't stood up to theirs then we lose". The point is he did, they did, Field did and Smith did. That's how a TEAM works.

You obviously need to be pragmatic and less emotional of course the players mentioned are in our team but "the team" didn't kick the goals it was the Aforementioned players did. It's a matter of fact who actually kicked the goals and Scored the tries Which you freely concede in your post I don't accept your comments re- nutcase idea but I Would accept the point of your post was unnecessarily critical of another posters opinion

So you're saying whoever kicks the goals and scores the tries in any given game shouldn't count in assessing a team performance? Of course only certain players score in each game. That is the nature of any team sport. In order for Smith to kick the winning drop the forwards had to match Hull's, Farrell had to make that run, Mago had to get the offload and the pass from dummy half had to be delivered crisply enough to create the time and space for him to make the kick. You can't just say "take Smith's kick out of that and we don't win".
Take any of the pieces out of that list and we don't win either.

A nutcase argument sums it up perfectly.

And just for balance, your post is equally critical of another's post. Mine. Or does it only work one way?

I think the drop goals is a loose argument but i think if field wasnt in the team we would be in a much worse position than we are now - we are reliant on 1 player at the moment giving us the crucial tries and more importantly because i do take on your argument that he is part of the TEAM but most of his tries are complete individual efforts they arent the result of good team play that he is finishing off they've been individual brilliance

he's had 12 try involvements so far this season 9 T and 3 A - nearly a 1/3 of all our points,

Now every team good team has a stand our finisher Tommy M for saints also has 12 try involvements - 10 T
but you have to make a distinction of whether the team is serving the player or the player is serving the team.

It matters because if we lose field its hard to see where that spark comes from in our team and we suddenly look very average - saints lose Makinson and someone else finishes the tries instead yeah they may only score 7 or 8 of the 10 he scored but ask yourself in our current team could anyone else score the tries Jai is scoring, French on form possibly but who knows when or if that form returns

[archiekeith]

Last time I looked Field and Smith were in our team so if we won due to contributions from them, then our TEAM won. It's a nutcase idea to take every winning contribution out of the equation and then say "but without them we'd have lost!" Well duh! You think? Take the best players and winning contributions out of any team and they lose. We might just as well say "if Faz hadn't made that run to set up the drop goal then we don't win" or "if the pack hadn't stood up to theirs then we lose". The point is he did, they did, Field did and Smith did. That's how a TEAM works.

You obviously need to be pragmatic and less emotional of course the players mentioned are in our team but "the team" didn't kick the goals it was the Aforementioned players did. It's a matter of fact who actually kicked the goals and Scored the tries Which you freely concede in your post I don't accept your comments re- nutcase idea but I Would accept the point of your post was unnecessarily critical of another posters opinion

So you're saying whoever kicks the goals and scores the tries in any given game shouldn't count in assessing a team performance? Of course only certain players score in each game. That is the nature of any team sport. In order for Smith to kick the winning drop the forwards had to match Hull's, Farrell had to make that run, Mago had to get the offload and the pass from dummy half had to be delivered crisply enough to create the time and space for him to make the kick. You can't just say "take Smith's kick out of that and we don't win".
Take any of the pieces out of that list and we don't win either.

A nutcase argument sums it up perfectly.

And just for balance, your post is equally critical of another's post. Mine. Or does it only work one way?

To your first point. No I'm not saying that at all. Frankly. I find your argument platitudinous and just for balance If there is a"nutcase argument it'yours. It leads to an infinite regress in some circles known as" Argument ad Adsurdum" My Post was factual not a criticism of you personally but criticism of your argument you are perfectly entitled to your opinions however nonsensical (platitudinously) they seem to me. End of discussion

[Southern Softy]

I don't want to intrude on a private argument but although good teams can score tries, great teams can absorb the loss of key players and adapt their play to still win matches. At the moment, Field is scoring tries from everywhere and mostly out of nothing. His second try last week came from a standing start and he still could beat every tackle, I'm not sure we could replace that at the moment from within our squad and we might have to adapt our play to try and make up for the tries that we would be lacking. I doubt that our coaching staff could implement that without major disruption.

I guess you might also say that we haven't had a forward who could score tries from close range (Sam Powell, occasionally) for a while, so Ethan Havard's try was the kind of alternative that we might need and was very welcome.

Let's just hope that Field stays fit and other coaches don't work him out like Cats did so we can enjoy what we're seeing.