Foster doesn't drop the ball every time. He can catch. I saw him do it against Widnes. But Foster needs to have confidence in the support of his centre, and I don't think he has either.

Foster has said openly that Gidley was his mentor, that he is still in contact with Gidley. I think Gidley was teaching Foster a lot, as well as looking out for him, and Foster gained confidence from that. Meli gives the impression of not doing any of that. Meli is a poor centre with a very poor attitude and a debatable level of skill.

I was there. To be honest, I was so cold that by the last 10 minutes I'd almost stopped caring who won because I wanted to go home ! Still, for what it's worth :

Roby made the biggest contribution. Looked fresh, rubber-limbed and almost impossible to put down on occasion.
Lomax had the best game I've seen him play. He was absolutely dominant in the Saints back line, and heavily involved.
Gaskell's kicks were a bit hit and miss, but usually found the ground. Saw him get knocked off a couple of tackles, and he didn't seem to get his hands on the ball as much as I'd expect, but he was fine.
Hohaia, particularly early on, was a real threat, with a very high work-rate. Good footwork and pace that Wello hasn't offered for a long time.

If settled, these four could be the best key foursome we've had since Wello, Long, Pryce and Cunningham were winning everything for us. I would be loathe to shift them around to accommodate Wello, but I think Gaskell might have to do a bit more to shore up his place from a reshuffle putting Hohaia there.

Perry was good going forward, and made decent yards. Lacked match fitness from the look of it. Hardly surprising.
LMH looks to have beefed up. The key difference was that he no longer hits the floor early agfter contact, and repeatedly drove extra yards with tacklers hanging off him. I thought it was a solid and promising performance.
Other forwards were a bit much of a muchness. Did their job, but were well matched by the strongest London pack for years.

I don't see where the Foster criticism comes from. Some of it might be that Saints fans still expect easy wins over London, and aren't willing to give fair credit to good attacking play from the Broncos. They scored past him, but it had more to do with some very good angles and passing than it did with Foster.
Wheeler looked ok, but didn't seem to get much ball.

Meli was enormous. Possibly the biggest man on the pitch. Has he been on the sweet potatoes ? He did a couple of hit-ups which were painful to watch, and I feared for the defenders. Looked mean. Maybe he was just hating the cold.

That's about it, really. Good performance against the best London side since the nineties. The performance of Saints needs to be judged against that. This wasn't an error-strewn performance against a crap side, but a well-disciplined win in horrible conditions against a good side.

St pete wrote:Didn't we beat london away first game of the season once before? I think cayless made his debut that day. http://www.saints.org.uk/saints.org.uk/ ... 7&seq=4572 Daniel Anderson said that the Quins on the day were the worst team he'd seen for a long time. IN the club bar after the match we watched Wigan get beat by the Cats in their first outing - great day!

St pete wrote:Didn't we beat london away first game of the season once before? I think cayless made his debut that day. http://www.saints.org.uk/saints.org.uk/ ... 7&seq=4572 Daniel Anderson said that the Quins on the day were the worst team he'd seen for a long time. IN the club bar after the match we watched Wigan get beat by the Cats in their first outing - great day!

I listened to most of it. Sounded like London have stepped up from where they were last year. Sounded like a tough but good win.

Sounded like there were errors all over the place. Perry gave away the ball a few times, Lance messed up somewhere leading to handing the broncos the ball near our line, foster seamed to miss or drop a couple, think even Roby handed the ball over and after all of us lauding Gaskell, seams Royce was not too impressed with the kicking game.

Let's face it a first game against a tough side in tough conditions and we pulled of a win, restricting them to 1 try in the second half.

Royce's comments also seam positive, he is going to rotate, so everyone is playing for a place. So I would not be surprised if Gaskell gets benched next game. Makinson rotated to FB and Gardner given his chance on the wing.

I'm glad he put Lance at FB, shows he is picking on form, so we can't moan if Gaskell gets dropped if the kicking was poor.

Hope he is also open to rotating the back on the bench policy too?

Was that the game where Lyon did that flick pass right on the touch line?

I wouldn't read too much into that. London made as many. Considering it was the first match of the seaosn, when everyone's a bit rusty, there weren't oo many errors. Add into the mix the fact that the conditions were awful. I mean, it was absolutely bloody freezing. Their fingers must have felt like frozen sausages attached to a block of wood. I'm amazed the handling was as good as it was.

I think it is encouraging that our handling was as good as you say it was because that means when the weather warms up a bit it will be even better!

Incidentally, Powell is quoted as saying that in his opinion the Broncos looked fitter than Saints. Would you agree with that assessment or is he just bigging up his side? It sounded from commentary as if we didn't look tired or fade at all but that's Ray French, so I can't really tell!

That was for domestic consumption. The Broncos' pitch to their fans has been loads about their new fitness trainer and how he's been flogging the lads really hard. So the comment was more of the same. I didn't see any significant difference between the sides on fitness. In fact, after 15 minutes, a lot of the London forwards seemed to be struggling to get back in line after Saints kicked deep. But they got with the pace after that.

Last year, London lost an awful lot of games in the last 20 minutes when a lack of fitness/concentration saw teams run away with it. So Powell's comment needs to be seen in that light. Saints looked perfectly fit (except maybe Perry), but just a little rusty.

So far no shocks in the opening matches. Everyone is a bit rusty and the losing sides are holding their own for the first 50 to 60 minutes. But in the end those that you would expect to win have had enough to make the difference.

So most people are going away happy after seeing what can be described as competitive matches, even if the result may not have gone in their favour.

Salford got over 5k which is not bad at all considering the conditions. I had to drive home through that last night and it was a nightmare nearly 30 all the way to Leeds.

Can see salford bringing a bigger contingent than usual to Saints next week.

I'm glad Royce is looking at rotation to allow everyone a chance to impress, should also keep the players fresher. I think we have to take into account that we also bombed a few chances and had some chalked off. I think I recall 4 oppertunities missed. There may have been more earlier as I only started listening after 20 mins.

Lance had one taken off, as did gaskell, (both probably rightly so, but shows we where creative in attack if not clinical).
Think Lomax had the ball knocked out of his hands in the act of scoring, from another break by Gaskell.
Foster double movement after another break away try oppertunity.

So I'm happier hearing all that than I was after listening to the Widnes game and very optimistic that we'll be even better next week when I get to see my first glimps of the new line up (whoever is rotated in and out) and the new Stadia.

COYS, COYS, COYS, I would continue but we rarely get more than 3 in a row until your singing on your own.

Congradulations on the win Saints. A bit too much for us this time. Big thanks to all those who travelled down. Hope you enjoyed yourself in the Kings bar after the game. It was bl***y COLD!

See you in the playoffs.