THE last four weeks have not been great, have they?

A Challenge Cup knockout followed by three defeats which have whittled away the once seemingly adequate cushion over fifth-placed Castleford has sent a shudder through the club on both sides of the perimeter wall.

Going off the text messages I was getting all Thursday night plenty of fans have made their own diagnosis and are pretty forthright with the prescription.

It is a good job rugby league is not run like the gong show or else there would have been plenty of shepherd’s crooks poking out from stage left.

The feelings of frustration, disappointment, annoyance and anger are understandable.

People work hard for their money and want good entertainment in return if they slap down, in some cases, the equivalent of half a day’s pay on the turnstile, so you can understand when some of the criticism can be a bit over the top.

But it is about much more than getting value for money; it is not like going to watch a bad film at the pictures or a gig where the singer is bad.

The hopes and dreams of supporters are very much intertwined up with fortunes of our town team.

Players come and go, some jump on the club’s timeline and whether it is for a match, two years or 18 seasons they write their own lines and then move on.

But for supporters Saints are with you for life, even when you drift away for a year or two muttering profanities about Gary Grienke or Mike Carrington.

You never grow out of it. Plenty of us sulked for days after losing to Leeds in the cup and the less said about the reactions post Hull the better.

But I reckon those feelings expressed by the fans are being felt just as much by the players and coaching staff.

Sure, they are the pros, they have to deal with it and ultimately provide the answers. They take the brickbats as well as the adulation.

It is plain that something is not right at the minute.

The downward cycle that the players have descended into is a far cry from March when, with six wins from six, one of the rugby league trade papers splashed ‘Can anyone beat KC's sensational Saints?’ across the front page.

They are missing skipper Jon Wilkin and Atelea Vea but there is still plenty of quality out there.

Saints’ crop of 2015 are not the first side to get themselves into a hole; a run of bad form where losing becomes a habit, confidence sinks into the boots, players go into their shells and their anxiety shows through with every laboured pass.

We have been here before under far more experienced coaches than Keiron Cunningham. Towards the end of 1979 Saints under Eric Ashton, a highly respected genuine legend of the game, lost seven in a row, including a cup semi final loss to Wakefield.

And in 1985-86, shortly after Alex Murphy, another vastly experienced coach, had taken over Saints lost six on the spin before finishing the year with a flourish.

And in 2004 under Ian Millward Saints went into free fall after May, losing nine of the last 14 matches and not beating another top six side.

All that should remind us that these things happen in sport.

It may sound like whistling in the dark, but Saints are one game away from everything clicking back into place.

Surely the lessons from last year tell us that there is always hope if you just hang in there and keep your nerve.