team for saints

[Ellie from the Block!]

I think that's a pretty good selection AJ.
The only person (apart from Farrell's one man fan club) that would be upset by this is Farrell. I thought the whole purpose of selecting a team was so people fought for their place and to be quite honest I have seen better from some of the younger players who have been dragging this team through recently with sheer guts and determination when eveyone else has been injured.
Fair enough it wasn't always the easy wins we could have had, but I prefer to watch someone who is hungry to play for the first team rather than someone who expects to swagger on to the field and be hailed a hero.
SHOCK HORROR - A MILITANT I HERE YOU CRY!!!!!!!!

[AJ]

looks like plenty more footsoldiers are joining ur army john, does that mean i get to be a sergeant now! lol!

[Mike]

warriorjon posted:
... Faz is a good solid player ... but he does not have the impact week in week out that the likes of Sculthorpe does consitantly.

I'm not sure the Saints fans wouldn't agree with you about Sculthorpes performances at the moment. They are having as bad a run as us - without any injury crisis. We certainly have the best player of the Sculthorpe family this season. We'll find out about this on Friday anyway.

[Mike]

Here's my twopenneth...

Farrell a starter (some of you lot would complain just as much if he only took the ball up without occasional long passes - this time for his lack of creativity), but Hock back in at Loose forward and M Smith getting a long overdue start for that spark in the pack. Graham and Newton on the bench to cover a variety of pack positions (+stand off), with Kevin Brown providing us with a geniuinely exciting attacking player to bring on later in the game covering all 3/4 positions (+stand off).

Supprisingly, no place for cas(!), or one of dallas/carney, and - shock (for me) - I can't find a way to leave out Ainscough with weakening the team (although one more dodgy catch should do it)! I mustn't be feeling very well...

My Team:

briscoe
ainscough
hodgson
johnson
carney / dallas (depending on fitness)
o'loughlin
lam
o'connor
m smith
sculthorpe
tickle
farrell
hock

subs:
newton
graham
c smith
k brown

[warriorjon]

M Smith getting a long overdue start for that spark in the pack. Graham and Newton on the bench to cover a variety of pack positions (+stand off),

Cant understand the reason for putting Newton and Graham on the bench as these two are arguably our form players. Agree that M. Smith is a quality hooker but think he is much more usefull off the bench when the opposition pack starts to tire. As for O'loghlain instead of Graham cant justify that at all think we are in danger in o'loghlains case of giving him the Faz cant put a foot wrong syndrome on to this youg lad i honestly think he is a steady away player who can every now and again play very well but far too inconsistent for mine and almost vanishes for long periods in both attack and defence.

[Mike]

warriorjon posted:
Cant understand the reason for putting Newton and Graham on the bench as these two are arguably our form players.

Newton had to leave the field against Leeds complaining of dizzy spells. If you thought his first half performance was good, you must have been watching a different game from me. He looked lost half the time. Having said that, he did make an impact in the last 20mins, after recovering.

As for Graham - well where do you start? Against Leeds he cost us one try by missing Danny McGuire one-on-one, an error that Aussies never make. He made several crucial handling errors in our half, which led to at least one more try being scored. I didn't rate his creativity at all during the match. Now some people may blame Farrell for this, but I'd have to see more of the two of them together to comment. When Graham arrived at Wigan, he commented that the British game, although faster, was not as intense as the NRL. I think he is operating in a comfort zone and being dropped at least at the start of the match may give him a little impetus.

The only change I would make would be on the wing, where I'd stick Aspinwall in as both Carney and Dallas look doubtfull for fitness.

[John M]

nitsua posted:
You have a point, maybe I should not have brought you into it, but by the same token you should not have brought Dave-O into your posting.

I was only warning Dave of the dangers of using Vaseline Nitsua.

[John M]

I think your being harsh on Graham.He had a very solid match,particulary the first half in which he was one of our stand out players.He let himself and the team down with that missed tackle and dropped ball true,but Farrell did exactly the same only minutes later and didnt have half the overall game that Graham did.So in theory Mike,we should drop Faz as well.

AJ,your promoted,any more foot soldiers want to join the Anti Faz army that we apparently run? All because we think he should adopt a different style of play! He should play like a forward,the man is going on 18 stones and hes fairying about throwing hospital passes to stick insects on the inside!!

[DaveO]

pk posted:
haha nice one AJ

we worship farrell uncondtionally when really i think we struggle to name him as one of our top 3 players? mine would be rads, lam, scully...i rate these three more essential than faz

o'connor and scully were the best 2 forwards against leeds easily...id say cassidy and faz were the worst!

its all opinions DAVEO but AJ is right that you wouldnt criticise faz if he was givin games away every week as you and others seem to have backed yourselves into little 'i love faz' corners and dont look at the team as a whole.

i wouldnt drop faz to the bench

You are right it is all opinions and I think dropping Faz to the bench is nuts and when people come out with nutty ideas like that they deserve a good winding up!

As to being a member of the I love Farrell brigade people can think what they like but it is so monotonous that as soon as we have a duff game a post appears saying Farrell hogs the play or some other related comment.

We have had, remove the captaincy, drop him to the subs bench so I am just waiting for drop him altogether to come along followed quickly by sell him.

As to critisising Farrell I think you will find over the years I have done just that when its warranted in the same way as I will critise other players. If we dropped every player to the bench if they were as "bad" as Farrell was v Leeds we would have about three players on the pitch.

A good example is Bibey. Plenty of critisism of him on the rlfans board after the Leeds game but if he does OK v Saints it will be forgotten.

If Farrell plays a stormer I can almost guarentee any praise will be grudging at best.

At the moment though there are two players in the team where opinions are polarised. Farrell and Ainscough.

With Farrell it certainly seems to me he gets blamed for all the ills of the team if we have a poor game. There may be a token mention of some other player who screwed up or made an error in an attempt to seem balanced but at the end of the day it all reverts back to Farrell.

In contrast (for example) it appears people just accept the fact our centres are not big enough to defend well enough against big sides like Leeds and that we look vunerable out wide.

IMO our problem is in that area, not the pack whereever farrell is playing in it, but it just gets forgotten in the urge to moan about him.

To me it just seems certain people are looking for him to fail, pick up on his errors more than any other player and almost can't cope if he does something good.

Dave

[John M]

Farrell is nearly 18 stones.If he should be throwing line breakers im John Monie! He should use his size and weight and hit a pass at speed,not fairying about throwing an inside ball to a young kid whos lined up to be smashed 6ft under! I will ask again,why has Nick Graham started to play his game all on the right since Faz returned? We saw the same with Johns and O'Neill as well.This is no coincidence. If Faz isnt hogging the ball he is certainly hogging the left hand side of the feild.

When John Monie returned in 98,i remember him saying that he wanted Faz to play his game across the width of the feild rather than just the left.