You have just got to face it; the once mighty saints are no longer. At 1. Wellens lack of pace is is really being shown up, he is now missing tackles that were run of the mill to him two years ago and he is certainly slowing the line down when he links up. At 2 & 5 been the weak link when Saints were the top side. At 3 & 4 Shenton is just not good enough and Wheeler needs to put some time in; probably the worst three quarter line in the top half of the league. At 6 Lance Oh No is turning out to be an embarrassment of a signing. Whatever he is it is certainly not a stand off. At 7 I believe a star in the making. At 8 Perry has turned out to be a poor signing and has never really been match fit during his time at the Saints. At 9. We are blessed with the best in the game. At Ten an average prop. At 11 Soliola is playing at his full potential at the present, I would hope there is more to come. At 12 Wilkin Tries hard. At 13 Flannery is to be blunt past it. On the bench Lafranchie (spelling) puts in a good shift if only he was a true prop and a stone bigger. The rest apart from T P are an average lot. This in my opinion adds up to an average side that will win nothing.

Really?

I'm surprised we are even in the 8, never mind only 5 points behind top spot

...and let the loony typical Saints fan kneejerking begin.... We're a #7, 1 or 2 props and decent tactics/coaching away from being a genuine trophy force again. Any 2 of those 3 happening would be good enough even.

More of a long transition, our chairman has had to battle on all fronts. Deliverying the new stadium was the top prioirity, signing the best players around was secondary and he had to change policy and look at youth. The problem with this is that we are competing in a period when there are quite a few teams who have well established experienced players in the key pivotable positions.
We had a long period of dominance and competiveness which no other team has been able to replicate, when you look at most of superleague years a LARGE percentage of those years, Saints were always in a final.
Its the clubs need to revaluate team policy now that we are up and running in the new stadium and to make sure our "Spent Force" is a temporary one.

Sport is cyclical. Wigan had a long period as our inferiors and had to take their medicine. It was great for us and very tough indeed for them.

We're back on their coat-tails now, but our time in the sun will come again as their team breaks up. You've got to try and make the most of these disappointing days and remember them for when we have our day again - will make it all the sweeter.

Oh dear me I forgot smallhampton will not have a bad word said about his beloved Shenton. Well tough; he is garbage.

You sir, are a prat.

To be fair, he hasn't been very good has he? Garbage is a bit strong, but nothing like we all hoped for

He hasn't been helped, though, by the fact that we never pass the ball to the right. He and his winger (be it Ade or Tommy) must spend half their lives getting frostbite.

Shenton improved as the season went on last year and he was great in the Grand Final. But I really don't think he is over his injury. That elbow has an incredible amount of strapping on it. I hadn't seen it up close until today, at Wigan. It might have been better if he'd had an operation rather than just rehab.

Saying he was great in the GF is rather over egging the pudding IMO. He was ok, and his injury was a major factor in our loss, but that was more to the loss of organisation and us having to shuffle the team around even further.

I understand the thoughts about giving him time after a major injury, the problem is that he's had half a season so far and he's not getting any better. Cunningham was given a lot of time to recover from his injury, but he was a key player, Shenton is not. How much longer do we give him until we at least take him out of the firing line to recover some confidence and to improve our team? He's adding very little at the moment.

I also wonder how much of our play not going down the right is due to a lack of confidence in him from other players. I may be way off, St Pete seems to know players and he may have more of an idea, but I can't remember a time when we've ignored one side of the pitch so much before.

I disagree in that it was his defensive strength that we missed when he went off rather than having to shuffle around. But that's history now anyway.


I doubt it as we were the same last season. I notice Robes often passes to the left and everyone else just seems to follow. That's a very simplistic way of describing the process but at Wigan today I really noticed it. I think after standing behind the sticks at Langtree Park, where we are much further away from the action, seeing the team so close as I did today meant I noticed a lot of stuff I just haven't been seeing previously.