Saints 10 Leigh 28 - Did You Expect Anything Else?

The Same, Only Worse

Saints lived down to expectations in a 28-10 loss to the Leopards at Leigh Sports Village.  It’s a result which guarantees they will finish fifth and will travel away from home in the first week of the playoffs.  It is looking more likely than not that Paul Wellens’ side will have to return to the scene of this – their latest crime against rugby league.

The 10 points Saints managed is the most they have registered since the 16 they cobbled together in a narrow win over Hull FC on August 22.  Since then, in games against Hull KR, Wigan and now Leigh they have scored a total of 22 points.  Just over seven per outing. Like any TV show that starts with the word ‘celebrity’, It’s been a hard watch.

Deepening the listlessness is the fact that Saints’ points all arrived while Leopards hooker Edwin Ipape was in the sin bin. When Adrian Lam’s side had a full complement of 13 on the field Saints reverted to type, looking lost in attack.    

Confused…? Wellens is…

Wellens made another confused attempt to shuffle his ailing pack.  With Morgan Knowles still out he dispensed with the idea of Jack Welsby at loose forward. The honour instead went to Joe Batchelor.  Welsby partnered Moses Mbye in the halves leaving captain Jonny Lomax on the bench.  Tristan Sailor continued at fullback leaving room on the wing for Deon Cross. 

George Delaney’s return from suspension saw Wellens move Curtis Sironen back to his starting second row role alongside Matt Whitley.  With Lomax on the bench Jake Burns missed out leaving Mbye as the stand-in hooker behind Daryl Clark.

Former Leigh coach – now Salford boss Paul Rowley – suggested that Wellens doesn’t know his best team.  This selection seemed to serve as further evidence of that.  At this point – and with only one more game left before the playoff series starts – it looks like Wellens is throwing as much mud at the wall as he can find and hoping that some of it sticks.  Maybe  he’s throwing something a little smellier than mud.

Pack Knack

Already without Knowles, it didn’t help when Alex Walmsley left proceedings in the first half.  The giant prop failed a head injury assessment and didn’t return.  He will also miss the visit of Castleford as the regular season ends this weekend.  If the Knowles situation is anything to go by, Walmsley could be out for longer. 

Without him there is very little go forward.  Matty Lees is revered by the fans but is rarely a factor in the unglamorous world of metre making.  Aganatius Paasi’s stats from this one were an eye watering three carries for six metres.  And this guy has a new deal for 2026.  What are Saints spending that money on? Even if he is a cheap option compared with bringing in a new face from outside that doesn’t justify it.  I’ve never understood the argument that if you can’t afford what you want then go out and buy something cheap that you absolutely don’t want.  Try it on your spouse’s next birthday and see what happens.

Stats are not the be all and end all but they matter.  They tell a story.  Paasi’s stats are Jackanory.  In today’s grinding, go-through-the-process energy battle once you lose field position life becomes more awkward than Sailor under a high ball.  

Walmsley may be getting on a bit but he is indispensable in his role. Paasi’s display – and many of his others this year before this one – highlight that even further.  It may be that he has never been the same player since the horrible knee injury inflicted on him by John Asiata in the 2023 Challenge Cup semi-final against the Leopards.  But you can’t keep a player around because his bad performances aren’t really his fault.  That sort of sentiment will hold you back.

Am Dram

Another underwhelming performance was hardly illuminated by the antics of Kyle Feldt.  The Australian has started to attract criticism for his often languid style.  A spot of play-acting – diving in football parlance – hasn’t done anything to endear him to his critics.  Finding his space cut down on the right flank during one of Saints’ rare threatening attacks, the ex-North Queensland Cowboy stepped inside a Leigh defender who reactively threw out an arm. 

There seemed to be very little contact on Feldt who nevertheless hit the deck holding his face like Rivaldo starring in an adaptation of Platoon at his local amateur dramatics club.  It was an embarrassment.  Many rugby league fans are ex-football followers disillusioned by the round ball game’s tolerance of players feigning injury.  League is a sport which prides itself on the toughness and honesty of its players.  Even Mikey Lewis.  We can’t have this sort of shenanigans. 

Hopefully Wellens will have a stern word behind closed doors but his public reaction was arguably just as cringe-inducing as the dive itself.  He blurted out something about a hip flex injury that Feldt has been managing which he allegedly aggravated when he stepped inside.  Would that be why he then went down clutching his face?  A mortifying episode all round for which Feldt was handed a green card.  Perhaps ironically the brainchild of former Saints boss Kristian Woolf, the green card requires any player requiring treatment which holds up play to leave the scene for a two-minute period.  Feldt sheepishly got to his feet and departed for his spell in the blush box. 

Brief Resistance

Ipape ended up popping off for a little longer.  High contact with Clark saw him sin-binned towards the end of the first half.   During that period Saints briefly flickered into life.  Tries from a fully recovered Feldt and Harry Robertson reduced the arrears to just two points at 12-10 early in the second half.  Then Ipape returned and normal service was resumed. 

Slow service from dummy half, a total absence of halfbacks capable of taking on the line and the obligatory unhelpful kicking game prevented Wellens’ side from getting close to scoring again.  Meanwhile at the other end Jack Hughes, Ipape and Owen Trout breached Saints’ normally miserly defence to complete a 28-10 win.  

Defence - An Off Day Or A Sign Of Weariness?

Despite their shortcomings Saints had not conceded more than 20 points in a game since the end of May. This was the night that even defensive excellence gave way, consequently failing to keep Saints in the fight.  We hadn’t seen that in the defeats by Hull KR or Wigan.  Which might be a cause for even further concern.  It’s one thing to believe that you only have the faintest hope of winning.  It is quite another to go into a playoff game fearing that you might get blown out.  For now we can cling to the hope that it was an off night for Saints defensively.

A Bitch Called Hope

If you were uber positive about things – or you were a beleaguered CEO looking for solace – you could spin Saints’ fifth place finish as an improvement on last year’s sixth placed effort. That led to a playoff exit in week one but not before Saints turned in an uncharacteristically stirring performance in losing to Warrington by a single point. 

There is still a chance they will raise their game for the knockout stuff.  But that is kind of the problem. As much as it would be great to win at Old Trafford it just doesn’t seem possible despite the opportunities afforded by playoff formats. Hope is slaughtering us. It feels like a season which needs to be put out of its misery.      

All Leigh have to do is win at home to Huddersfield Giants to secure third place and a home tie with either Wakefield or Hull FC.  Most likely the former after they shocked Hull KR at the weekend.  In that scenario Saints would go to Headingley, where they have fared rather better this term.  

They knocked Brad Arthur’s side out of the Challenge Cup there and claimed an unlikely 6-0 win in their league visit in July.  At this point a trip to Leeds seems to represent a more winnable assignment than a visit to the LSV.  When they are good, Leeds are really good.  But the Rhinos are still capable of throwing in a terrible performance here and there.  They lost at home to a poor Catalans side in their most recent outing. There’s that hope again.

Coaching Conundrum

It seems implausible that there will be a change in the coaching position at Saints before the end of the season. The upturn in fortunes brought about by Justin Holbrook’s arrival in 2017 was aided by making the decision to sack Keiron Cunningham much earlier in that season.  A change now would likely leave either Lee Briers or Eamonn O’Caroll in interim charge while a suitable replacement is found.  

Yet it feels like a matter of time for Wellens now, unless he can produce a miracle in the playoffs.  League position may have improved by one place since 2024 but the tactics and the level of entertainment on offer haven’t moved a jot.  

Dead Rubbers And Dad Uncle Dancing

The Cas game is a dead rubber and a no win situation for Wellens.  If Saints cruise past the Tigers – which seems likely despite everything – it will hardly cause a ripple.  Saints have been beating the bottom six sides comfortably all year.  Except Warrington somehow.  The Red Vee have become too good for the bottom six sides but not good enough to beat any of the sides above them.  

It’s another chance to give experience to Whitby or try Robertson at six.  But it won’t happen.  Mbye is the immovable object at halfback until Clark needs a rest, at which point we get Lomax trying to conjure up another magic trick while his body disintegrates before our eyes.  

The opportunity to rest players may still come into Wellens’ thinking.  Welsby has only recently returned from injury and probably still needs the game time but someone like Mark Percival or even Clark might benefit from a week off.  

Delaney won’t feature having picked up another suspension, his second in the space of three weeks.  Impressive from a certain point of view.  Resting players could affect rhythm but at this point Saints have all the rhythm of your uncle Les at your wedding party.  There isn’t an awful lot to lose when it comes to form and continuity.  If one or two are left out Saints will still beat Castleford at home.  If they don’t the ‘outside noise’ will be deafening, but it won’t matter one iota in terms of league position or playoff prospects.  

Drifting

Saints aren’t exactly charging into the playoffs.  They’re barely even walking.  There’s a distinct limp about their gait. Three straight losses against what we would consider title contenders have led to more naval gazing and an understandable loss of faith from the support.   Wellens is under pressure if not in the short term then surely for next season.  He seems incapable of turning it around especially when you consider how little help he is receiving with recruitment.   This isn’t a team heading for Old Trafford. Not now the cricket season is drawing to a close at any rate.  

It’s a team drifting toward another early elimination and in need of a rebuild.  

Leigh Leopards v Saints - Wellens’ Men In Stasis As Playoffs Loom

A top four finish is still theoretically possible for Saints, yet going into this week’s visit to Leigh Leopards it feels more like Paul Wellens’ side are in a state of stasis until the playoffs get under way.

The Red Vee still have a mathematical shot of finishing in the top four and securing the home playoff that comes with it.  Yet having secured a top six spot even in defeat to Hull KR a fortnight ago it feels more likely that they will finish in the fifth place that they currently occupy.  That could mean another trip to Leigh in the first week of the playoffs or else a visit to Headingley to face Leeds Rhinos.  

Moving into the top four would require a win at the Leigh Sports Village this weekend. Given the level of their performances against not only the Leopards but also Rovers and Wigan in recent weeks that seems spectacularly unlikely.

The attack has been repeatedly blunt, scoring just 16 points against those fellow top four contenders across the three recent games against each of them.  That’s less than six points a game.  Wellens may be foolish enough to think 14-18 points is enough to win any game – it isn’t – but even he would concede that if you are only scoring at a rate of less than a converted try per contest you are going to end up on the wrong side of the scoreline. 

The principal reason for the anaemia with the ball is Wellens’ own stubbornness in sticking with the ‘safe’ but slow and predictable halfback pairing of Jonny Lomax and Moses Mbye.  Neither has the pace to attack the line and so our sets – if they are completed at all – end with another hopeful Mbye bomb.  

This can be quite effective if Kyle Feldt happens to be in the vicinity. Otherwise it is meat, drink and a box of yum yums for the league’s best defences. All of which is made more pitiable by the fact that in Feldt, Mark Percival, Harry Robertson and Deon Cross, not to mention the currently injured Owen Dagnall Saints have a group of three-quarters who would get into most other teams in the league.  

Yet they receive little ammunition as set completion remains the mantra.  All while Saints are busy making almost 10 errors per game, more than all but four teams in the competition.

If we thought some semblance of relief was on its way with the return of Morgan Knowles we can think again.  The soon to be departed loose forward is not named in Wellens’ 21-man squad.  He has not recovered sufficiently from the knock he took early in the Rovers defeat which forced him to fail an HIA and miss the derby loss to Wigan last time out.  

This is a savage blow to Saints’ already meagre hopes of winning at Leigh, where they haven’t won in Super League since Adrian Lam’s side returned to the top flight in 2023.  

Wellens’ attempted to solve the Knowles conundrum last week by shifting Jack Welsby into the loose forward role.  However, despite having all the skills to play the role Welsby was burdened by a heavy defensive workload.  He made 32 tackles which is a massive contrast to the fewer than six per game he is required to complete when he operates at fullback.  That meant he had to be spelled towards the end of the first half. When he came back his effectiveness with the ball was reduced after Saints enjoyed a strong opening 25 minutes. 

So perhaps this week Wellens might abandon that idea and go back to the modern way of filling the 13 role. That is with a no frills workhorse who will cart the ball in and be more comfortable making a large number of tackles in defence.  Shane Wright has been drafted into the squad having recovered from injury since his loan move from Salford Red Devils.  

He is an option, as is James Bell or any one of the back rowers such as Joe Batchelor, Matt Whitley or Curtis Sironen.  The latter was employed as a bench prop last week in the absence of George Delaney through suspension.  Delaney returns this week to give Wellens the option of restoring Sironen to the second row.   

Remember Jon Bennison?  You know?  Fairly slight, played on the wing before Dagnall’s emergence.  Mostly reliable but nobody’s idea of a world beater.  He has been on loan at Widnes recently but is recalled for inclusion into this week’s squad amid rumours of a permanent switch to Warrington.  

It’s extremely difficult to see Bennison forcing his way into the team ahead of Cross or Feldt on the wings.  Come to think of it, it’s extremely difficult to see him forcing his way into the Warrington team even with the recent retirement through injury of Connor Wrench and the impending wind down of Stef Ratchford’s career.  

Wellens appeared to have moved on from Bennison from the moment he hauled him off to accommodate Lomax half an hour into the Magic Weekend debacle against Leeds Rhinos in May. Yet here he is again.  In the unlikely event that he is called upon he won’t let anyone down.  But nor will he inspire in the way in which Saints are desperate for someone to do.

We all know who will play in the halves but just for a bit of fun let’s speculate on what Wellens could do were he to ditch his dogmatic inertia over Lomax and Mbye.  

If we assume that Wright will play at loose forward then Welsby is always a candidate for a halfback role, or there is youngster George Whitby or Aussie import Tristan Sailor.  Those two could potentially play together with Welsby at fullback to give Saints far more sparkle in possession.  

We are also constantly hearing that Robertson’s best position is stand-off, and that in fact he is one of the most talented to come through in recent years.  If that is the case let’s see it.  We won’t because the playoff system offers us a modicum of hope.  Hope that an uber pragmatic coach like Wellens isn’t prepared to risk on a youngster who is a mostly untried six at this level and has spent the season playing in the centres.  Wherever you look for creative options you come back to the bald fact that Lomax and Mbye will play.  And we will be impotent as a consequence. 

Just as we were the last time these two sides met.  The 16-4 home defeat to the Leopards in July is routinely referred to by the rugby league media and some less than self aware fans as a tight contest.  A twelve-point deficit backs that up, but in reality there was a chasm between the teams on that night.  

Saints’ outstanding defence kept them in it as it does so often, but ultimately their failure to threaten the line regularly enough ensured their downfall.  Only a very late handling error as Josh Charnley failed to gather a Saints restart set up the position from where Robertson got over for Saints’ only points.  

That is as perilously close to being nilled on their own patch as Saints have come in the Super League era, yet it is billed as a hard luck story.  The defeats to Rovers and Wigan had almost identical storylines.  What evidence is there that things are going to change this time?  Especially with Knowles out, Wellens wedded to a halfback combination which isn’t ever going to work and a consequential shifting of round pegs into square holes to accommodate the pair.  Mbye won’t be at Saints next season and there is a compelling argument that Lomax – legend that he is – shouldn’t be either.

Nor should Wellens.  At the moment fans are feeling a bit of a disconnect with the club which is eerily similar to the sentiments during the fag end of Keiron Cunningham’s two-year spell in charge.  It feels like we are being kept in the dark a little - not only about recruitment with a dozen or more players off contract and Knowles, Bell and Batchelor’s exits already confirmed – but also about the future of Wellens.  

It started gloriously for him with that World Club Challenge win in Penrith against the Panthers but much of the very nearly three full seasons since have been underwhelming.  He was able to reach a semi-final in his first season with the personnel left to him by multiple Grand Final winner Kristian Woolf but saw his side regress to sixth last year and a probable fifth in 2025.  

But more than the results it is the failure to adapt in both style of play and team selection which frustrate fans the most.  At best he has a monumental stubborn streak and an unwavering ambition to succeed his way.  At worst he is failing to learn.  That should cost him his job, sad to say.

The blame is not all his.  I don’t think any of us are naïve enough to think that recruitment is all down to the coach.  The hierarchy and in particular CEO Mike Rush have a big part to play in that and over the last two seasons it has not been good enough.  

Rush has spoken about his desire to see a Saints side competing with up to 80% home grown players in the squad.  Which sounds like a pitch for not bothering to recruit domestically with any real enthusiasm or belief. It would be much cheaper that way. 

We have a lot of talented youngsters but it is stretching credibility to believe that filling 80% of your team from your academy is a sustainable model for challenging for trophies and titles in the longer term.  

So far Rush’s public pronouncements on the subject amount to complaints about ‘outside noise’ from fans.  A very clear message that our opinion is deranged and he knows best so can everyone please just shut up now.  All the while the unspoken elephant in the room is the possibility that the clubs’ losses – which most Super League clubs have endured this year – are preventing them from recruiting the kind of quality we have become accustomed to.  

So you get rumours about Oli Partington and Bayley Sironen.  Players who aren’t terrible but who don’t appear to improve a squad that is declining.  File Wright in that cabinet too.

We are at a point where we must change or die.  We have done it before.  Justin Holbrook came in to replace Cunningham part way through the 2017 season and immediately led us to a very narrow semi-final defeat at Castleford.  He then gave us the unforgettable spectacle of Ben Barba in the red vee and a League Leaders Shield in 2018 before delivering a Grand Final success in his final season in 2019.  

Saints need that kind of figure to come in now and to do so on the proviso that the club will start to take recruitment for 2026 seriously.  That is if it isn’t too late.  Look at the difference Brad Arthur has made at the Rhinos or John Cartwright at Hull FC.  If there is to be a change of coach he doesn’t have to be Australian but he should be a proven strategist and motivator. Not just a hugely likeable guy who was one of the greatest fullbacks to ever run around Super League.

That’s just not enough.

Saints 4 Wigan 18 - Flat Track Bullies Defer To Genuine Contenders

Saints 4 Wigan 18 - Flat Track Bullies Defer To Genuine Contenders

Don’t let the scoreline fool you. 

 

The derby with Wigan ended as the more perceptive Saints fans feared it would. Reasonably close on the scoreboard but in reality a sizeable gulf in quality between the sides. Saints went down 18-4 to the Warriors thus ending any pretensions of a top two finish.  Hopes of a home playoff tie which comes with a top four finish were also significantly jeopardised.  Another loss against a team placed higher in the league. Flat track bullies.

 

Another Reshuffle 

 

Saints went in without defensive lynchpin Morgan Knowles. The Cumbrian was out due to concussion protocols after being clunked around the head by Rhyse Martin in last week’s 12-8 loss at Hull KR. Head Coach Paul Wellens also had to do without George Delaney who had engaged in a bit of head clunking of his own on Rovers’ Eribe Doro. The young prop picked up a one match suspension for his troubles. 

 

To combat the loss of the virtually irreplaceable Knowles, Wellens took the bold step of moving Jack Welsby to loose forward. Well…it would have been bold had it not been predicted by Wigan Head Coach That Nice Matty Peet earlier in the week. 

Either he had a mole in the Saints camp or he successfully pulled off some kind of Jedi mind trick in making Wellens select the team he wanted him to. Joe Batchelor? Curtis Sironen? James Bell? These aren’t the 13s you’re looking for. Move along.

 

The Welsby move gave Deon Cross a reprieve as occasional winger Tristan Sailor slotted into Welsby’s regular fullback role. Kyle Feldt returned from his concussion enforced week off. Wellens stuck by his slow and steady halfback pairing of Jonny Lomax and Moses Mbye. It is very hard to argue that the decision wasn’t costly.

 

Delaney’s absence meant that Sironen moved into the prop rotation but only from the bench as Batchelor started at second row alongside Matt Whitley. 

 

Did The Welsby Move Work?

 

Welsby has all the skills to play loose forward the old fashioned way. He’s a playmaker with a reasonable kicking game who benefits his team when he has his hands on the ball as much as possible. The concern was in how much defence he would have to do. Having predicted or been tipped off about the switch surely Peet would get his unattractive collection of doormen to run at Welsby to sap his energy. 

 

In the event Welsby made 32 tackles. His season average across 16 previous Super League appearances this term was less than six.  Wellens was sufficiently concerned about the workload that he had to spell his star man towards the end of the first half. He trotted back out on to the field just after Jai Field’s length of the field effort early in the second half had effectively settled the contest. The conversion which followed that breakaway try ended the scoring for the evening.

 

A Good Opening Quarter 

 

And yet it had started well. Cross gave Saints a deserved lead just six minutes in. Welsby provided the assist - his 18th of the season - with a gorgeous looping pass following a link up with Lomax. Feldt couldn’t add the extra two but there was real energy inside the stadium at that point. 

 

Saints continued to dominate possession and territory in the early going.  When Wigan did get a chance to attack the home rearguard was holding up every bit as well as it does against less fancied opponents.  As much as it can be the case Saints were in control until around the 25 minute mark.  The wheels didn’t quite fall off at that point but they were definitely beginning to work themselves loose.

 

The Tide Turns 

 

It began with the inexplicable inability of anyone wearing a red vee to bring down uber consistent pensioner Liam Farrell.  The 35 year-old had a grand total of two clean breaks in 23 appearances coming into this one but that startling stat didn’t stop him riding roughshod over the league’s best defence.  A run which seemed endless from my vantage point in the North Stand set up the position from where Jake Wardle scored his side’s first try of the evening.  Perhaps this should have told us something.

 

When the far more frequently flying Liam - Marshall - added to Wigan’s lead we could probably have all gone home and watched Gogglebox.  Saints never looked likely to get back into it with their anaemic attack, continuously hamstrung by the pedestrian pace set by Lomax and Mbye

 

Misfires And Misery

 

Harry Robertson has received some criticism on social media but aside from the fact that he is playing out of position this ignores the fact that he gets very little useful ball from those inside him. On the other side Mark Percival was roundly praised for his performance but given his far greater experience some of his errors and decision making were much more damaging than any terrors perpetrated by Robertson.  

It is barely worth talking about wingers when it comes to Welloball but Cross took the one chance he had superbly while on the other wing Feldt had a strange sort of night in which he appeared somewhat passive except when a fight threatened to break out.  At no point did he threaten to add to the 17 tries he has bagged in his debut season with Saints.

 

Saints were put out of their misery early in the second half when another panicked Percival kick was scooped up by Bevan French and offloaded to Field.  The Wigan fullback raced the length of the field for his 22nd try of the Super League season.  Only Hull FC’s Lewis Martin can match that tally. Harry Smith’s second conversion of the game – he had added a penalty towards the end of the first half when Sironen came in late on Adam Keighran – put 14 points between the sides and ended the argument.  Such as it was. Saints would not have scored another 14 points if they were still playing now.

 

The Top Four – A Last Shot

 

Top four hopes are slipping away and they will likely evaporate entirely if Saints can’t win at Leigh this weekend.  Saints have not won there since the Leopards came back into Super League in 2023. Which is comforting, don’t you think? In the way that constipation is.

The sides met eight weeks ago with Adrian Lam’s side leaving St Helens with a 16-4 success. Like Wigan they weren’t allowed to run up the score and embarrass Saints but their win was more comfortable than the numbers on the scoreboard can tell you. I haven’t seen anything since that meeting to convince me that Wellens’ side can engineer a different outcome this time.

If they don’t - and if Leeds get anything at home to Catalans Dragons - then Saints will be resigned to an away date at either Headingley or the LSV in the first playoff round. A playoff place outside the top four is slightly below par from what I would have expected if you’d asked me at the start of the season. 

Having sat through 2024 and witnessed the squad changes since then I wasn’t expecting to see another League Leaders’ Shield added. But top four looked doable then. All the signs are that Saints will fall short of that. The chilling aspect of that is the very real prospect of the hierarchy focusing on the fact that we might see a slight improvement on last year’s sixth place finish. If you look at the way it’s been achieved and the continuing entertainment deficit it’s arguably been as bad if not worse.

Knowles and Delaney should come back in for the visit to the LSV which presumably means that Welsby will return to fullback and Sailor to the wing to accommodate the Lomax-Mbye Axis Of Feeble.   Which probably leaves Cross - a fine Super League player - in the undeserved position of being left out of a truly ordinary side. 

Unless the approach changes - which seems phenomenally unlikely - I can’t help feeling like Saints are ambling into a meek exit from Grand Final contention and a winter of not so much discontent but outright torment.