Quote TimPB="TimPB"Can't take losing Saints fans, 1 loss is season over!!!
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Can I just confirm there has been very little knee jerking on the Saints forum on here. If you look back at the posts made last season about Slick Mick you will find many debates about his suitability for the role, his lack of experience and his total and utter lack of charisma or personality.
The thing that has annoyed Saints fans the most, really got under their skin isn't the losing. We had many, many years of being the bridesmade and winning nothing (If you can remember pre-96). It is the total disregard for the clubs ethos that has wound the fans up.
Entertaining rugby has been a part of the St Helens RLFC makeup for decades, it's something that has transcended coaching reigns, line ups, eras and decades. Even when we were poor compared to the other sides we still threw it around and played positive rugby league. Under Brian Potter [size=85(Not a mistake) [/size we have abandoned attacking rugby in favour of going for a nil nil draw every week. We have no set moves, no adventure, no organisation, no offloads and no off the cuff stuff at all. We ignore the importance of the kicking game and our last tackle options under Potter have been a total shambles. The last 12 months has seen many threads on saints forum about it being boring. I thought for a good while it was the sport that was no longer keeping me interested throughout the 80 minutes, until I started watching Catalans games on the internet and saw some great stuff in the playoffs last year. But it's not, it's just Saints. We've gone from being Brazil to being Wimbledown (But without the fun or the characters).
Some of the change in emphasis occured under Daniel Anderson, he certainly shored up our defense and stopped the recklessness we displayed at times. He also brought about 5 major trophies during his time though, and we top scored or near enough every season. Okay the squad is slightly weaker under Potter, but not that significantly to cause the drop off in performance levels. People say Saints are past it or too old, but there aren't many old players (Less over 30s than Hull for example) and some of the young players at the club are tremendous prospects. We COULD have a backline featuring Lomax, Wheeler, Eastmond and Pryce but he hasn't got the bottle to drop the regulars.
Harry Potter is going to be the first coach to lose a proper game against Warrington for a very long time. He's going to be famous in Warrington, people will regard him as a hero in 30 years time. Smith will be a god. But as Ski put on our site, it really doesn't need to be like that. We COULD have a very strong side playing the Saints way and it would be successful (Might not beat Leeds to win the GF, but it would be too good for most sides).