Sironen, Matautia and Knowles probably do get scrutinised more than most but there’s a reason for that. They keep making illegal challenges and have all been unable to stay on the right side of the rules this season. In the days of Maguire and at times Wane, Saints fans loved to call us grubs and they’re still doing so now, even though evidence suggests we’re a far far cleaner side. Now it’s a case that they’ve been harshly treated and are unlucky but we’re treated leniently.



It’s much the same with their hatred for Sam Tomkins in those days. A man who was the hero of a certain Jack Welsby and you can certainly tell that was the case. They didn’t have an issue with Welsby’s antics at Magic but they didn’t like Smith patting him on the head on Friday and we were the bullies. It’s one eyed support at its finest.

I can’t speak for all Saints fans obviously but that’s a side to Welsby I don’t like and I commented as such after Magic. He’s a young lad with a questionable temperament who will learn. He was awful on Friday and tried to do everything on his own and became more and more frustrated as the game went on and made subsequently more errors



However what I will say is that I don’t understand the love for what Smithies and Smith did. I was disappointed with our lads that they didn’t run in sooner and sort it.



From an England point of view we are in danger of creating hatred between the players like Saints and Leeds back in the day when they openly didn’t mix and their lack of mixing affected England. We aren’t far away from this now in my opinion.

Peet's had a word with Smith and Smithies about their reaction to Welsby, from a fans point of view he had it coming to him, but from a coaches point of view it's obviously unprofessional

Wasn't it at Magic Mr Notre dame did something similar to French???



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I’ve literally just said above that I didn’t agree with his antics at Magic. At least read my posts before you respond.

What I will say is that I hope we leave it at that now with Welsby. He has hopefully learned a lesson and realised going all Jake Connor won’t do him any favours and by the same token, we won’t benefit from keep getting distracted. I think there was an element of Smith and Smithies winding up a lad I presume is a mate. Those 3 will have played plenty of junior rugby together and in particular they had that England academy series together against the Aussies, so I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s a problem that could go really deep and start impacting the national side in future years. The characters in your side and ours seem more sensible than some of the guys in those Leeds and Saints teams (Bailey, Long, Graham, Senior etc were all a bit nuts).

Can we keep this to the thread title please, thanks.



There's a separate thread for all things either side of Billinge Hill.

Bibby, Pearce-Paul centres, Isa 2nd row, Leuluai on bench, Byrne is the prop who misses out, no idea if that's rest or injury or form

Workman like, but my god Mago was terrible.



Edit :- Our players all seemed to pay a lot of attention to Chan at the end, they seemed impressed. He looked good to be fair. Wonder if there is anything in it or they were just being respectable. Didn't seem to bother with any of their other players.

I’m not so sure about this. Smithies got absolutely walloped by Stephen Chichton in I think, the first test around 2018. There was a bit of argy bargy afterwards and no England players got involved but when Harry Newman got walloped they were all in

Well that was a tough watch - particularly with the Cust injury. You could argue that Tommy's defensive qualities make him our best bet for the playoffs though - just depends on whether he can get through the 80 minutes.



I hope Bateman doesn't get some pedantic ban for his high tackle.