Look through their team, they have some good solid players but no real stand outs and they also have some very average players who are playing out of their skin. I mean take Coote for example. He was nothing more than a solid player in the NRl, far from a stand out performer but over here he is killing it. Is Holbrook really some kind of coaching genius? Some of the rugby they are playing is top drawer and they seem to be unbeatable when they are at or near full strength. Why are Aussie clubs not knocking the door down to get Holbrook and a few of their players as they would be if it was Wigan?

Or is it just that the rest of Super League is so utter terrible with such low quality personnel that players like Coote and Lomax look like RL wizards?

They don’t. London beat them last week.

It’s a fairly simple formula. Relatively for squad + confidence & belief = wins.

Whilst I think both Coote and Lomax are good players, you've hit the nail on the head with that last para. You only need to look around the league to see that the top players are mainly good to average NRL level players. Austin, Fifita etc never got a sniff of origin etc.

Saints made a couple of astute signings and they've also managed to retain some decent club produced players too.

Not rocket science sadly.

Only 34 players can play Origin; Australia produces a lot more good players than that. Coote is a good player by any reasonable standard. He can hardly be criticised for not being Billy Slater or James Tedesco. He held down a regular NRL full-back position, which is more than ex Man Of Steel Zak Hardaker managed.

SL is a lower standard than the NRL, nobody disputes that. And in SL this year, Saints are the best of the bunch. Not by a massive amount, but they are. Buttressed by the fact they have a fairly settled squad and a smart coach.

Justin Holbrook

They sent a depleted team.

I had a little insight last year into the Saints club and was impressed with the attitude of the coaches, really positive and a sense of togetherness with the squad.

If they can keep relatively injury free they should win the GF. If not that will be their undoing as other than their first 18/20 players they are quite poor.

If we manage to play a knock out game against us I still wouldn’t write us off. They’ve lost pretty much every semi final they’ve played in the last 8 years.

The Saints front row (in addition to their fantastic coach) show just how important controlling that area is. In Walmsley, Roby and Thompson they have an international class front row that is winning pretty much every forward battle hands down. It’s buying space for their backs and making even average Joes like Grace and Fages look like superstars. At the back of that front row is a bog average second row also but again they feed of that World Class front row and the game is easy for them.

The coach is the main man though. He’s done an amazing job and he’ll clean up the three trophies this year with no fuss. Once he goes back to Australia and Roby retires, it’ll be interesting to see how they can recover. Things can change very quickly as we’re seeing at the moment.

My question though is how do Saints hang on to that front row whilst we couldnt even keep hold of Sutton?

It's hard not to see Thompson heading for the NRL.

Because they've haven't been as successful as the Wigan lads. If they win the league this year then there's obviously going to be more of a spotlight on them, but at the moment they've only flattered to deceive.

Holbrook has turned them around, but he hasn't won anything - as an example Madge had already won a GF by the end of his first season.

Budgie, Sutton, Bateman, Gildart etc have all won a couple of GFs, the Saints guys haven't. If I was a scout I'd go for the guys playing big roles in winning sides and it seems like that's what they've done;



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