Derby Day!

[Ipinwigan]

Have to stop wasting a spot on the bench, either play Nsemba or put a different player on the bench you are confident playing.

Still very disappointed with the reffing, Kendall was a disgrace, missing high tackles against us and giving marginal ones against them, no sin bin for tripping or shoulder charges that caused an HIA.

Yes, should of picked Harvie Hill

[Ipinwigan]

The soft Red card decisions this season in games are ruining the game

[Firestarter]

The unused sub thing does my head in because if we aint gonna use a forward/player then replace him with a gamebreaker.Surely that makes more sense.I was suprised hill was t on thebench

[Ipinwigan]

Not great today, far too many errors and penalties, attack very lackluster apart from one bit of magic by French, otherwise never looked like scoring

[robbobillinge]

Tough question for the coach: why pick a player & not use him? We will never know whether it would have made a difference, but why? If you’re not willing to play him don’t pick him.

[DaiJones]

Intense game, two very well matched sides going for it, a proper occasion and what RL should be about. Thought the red and the yellow were probably the correct decisions.

Ultimately, that game meant miles more to Saints after our achievements last year and if we'd held on to win such a tussle when not at our best. they would have felt that the baton had been well and truly handed over so they had real motivation to keep at it. I'm happy for them to have that one if we win our other meetings. Long unbeaten runs are for August and September not March. If we'd kept scraping through close games you'd worry that we'd have a reckoning coming, hopefully now we can reset and work on our attacking shapes before the business end. We need to. Having said that I still think we could well have held on without the red.

Other observations:

-Field hasn't got going this season so am hoping he will come good later in the year when it matters.
-Keighran hasn't added a lot to us so far but again hoping that will click.
-Thompson was excellent, looks like he will become a big factor as he settles in
-We have never been able to handle Walmsley and he was the difference today. Best player on the pitch. Put him in a Wigan jersey and we win that by 10. I hope that Walters might give us a little of what he does when he finally appears next month. We have beefed up our pack but they were better than us up front with stronger carries and clever short passing. Maybe a bit more Mago and Nsemba would have given us a bit more punch?
-Is Leeming still not fit? He did a very short stint and much as O'Neill is magnificent, I think getting the best out of Leeming will be important to making us better in attack. If we aren't going to use him we may as well have kept Sam Powell or put Forber in the 17.
-We laughed at Saints using the World Club Challenge as an excuse last year but the exact same thing has happened to us, we clearly peaked for that and have struggled to quite raise ourselves since. Let's hope we get ourselves back into that headspace for the knock outs and then this will be irrelevant

[DaveO]

Can’t blame the ref when you lose if the opposition only scores 12 points.

I am not surprised we have lost today given the performances since the WCC which have have been lacklustre. We have been scraping through games and that was the reckoning as Dai put it.

On paper we have what looks like the best squad in the league but they still need coaching and the fact we have had another poor performance is for Peet to fix. There is more to being a successful RL side than signing the best players and sending them on the pitch. That is what Leeds used to do in the 80’s and 90’s. The fact we won the WCC is no excuse for the form since.

[Ipinwigan]

Can’t blame the ref when you lose if the opposition only scores 12 points.

I am not surprised we have lost today given the performances since the WCC which have have been lacklustre. We have been scraping through games and that was the reckoning as Dai put it.

On paper we have what looks like the best squad in the league but they still need coaching and the fact we have had another poor performance is for Peet to fix. There is more to being a successful RL side than signing the best players and sending them on the pitch. That is what Leeds used to do in the 80’s and 90’s. The fact we won the WCC is no excuse for the form since.

The attack is looking very blunt, other than French magic moments

[Southern Softy]

Scruffy match where, I'm assuming, neither side wanted to lose and it was a bit of a stalemate.
Field saved us a try and cost us a try - French created a try out of nothing but let Walsmsley make his crucial run.
I didn't think the game was reffed that badly - both sides were to blame for the mess at the PTB and I'm not sure any other ref could have sorted it.
Dupree's was a yellow and not a red because it started on the chest and went up but he was a bit lucky and I imagine the Disciplinary Panel will have something to say about it. Under the rules this season Byrne's was a red card all day. Direct initial contact with the head is a red and those are the instructions that refs are given.
I wasn't impressed by a lot of play acting from Saints players, feigning injury after fair tackles and they did whinge an awful lot. Field was lucky not be binned for demanding a sin bin from what looked like not a trip but a probably illegal hip throw.
All in all, it wasn't great watching and I hope there's no hangover at Leigh on Thursday.
O'Neill's defence was unbelievable and I think he only got spelled because there was a danger that he was beginning to lose his head. Thought him and Thompson were outstanding.
We need to sort our tackle technique out. Too many pens and we couldn't blame an idiot ref this time.

[ian.birchall]

The soft Red card decisions this season in games are ruining the game

But to be fair Bilko thought Dupree was a red even under the old rules so knowing Kendal he was probably correcting his earlier error.