Up The Jumper - Are modern tactics killing our game?

I should have written this sooner. In the midst of Saints’ four Grand Final wins in a row between 2019-2022 I was one of the few dissenting, often mocked voices who wasn’t fulfilled by the ride. Now, with Justin Holbrook and Kristian Woolf part of our history and on the back of two straight titles for our friends over the hill it’s just going to be viewed as sour grapes by many. Especially with trailing in meekly in sixth place. But indulge me, you never know.

I’m not sure it began with Saints’ unprecedented run of success but the game has changed for the worse. It has gradually become a stulted and frustrating spectacle since the advent of full-time professionalism in 1996. Change is  healthy - even if I am personally spooked by it in both my personal and working life - but there’s been a definite shift towards a more conservative style not only at Saints but across the sport. Perhaps I feel it more keenly with Saints because they are my team and because I grew up watching them in an era when entertaining people rather than winning trophies seemed to be the preoccupation. But I think Paul Wellens’ side are far from the only culprits.

You could make a very obvious argument that the move towards a more safety first approach has improved standards. If you could match both at their peak the Saints teams of my youth would very probably be blasted off the park by even the underwhelming rabble led by Wellens last year. The 2024 Saints would be too strong and powerful for a side fitting in games between shifts at the warehouse. Or the office for those who had managed to acquire a couple of O Levels. Yet they would also be undone tactically as the current mob pound down the middle - risk free - dominating possession even more thanks to the old boys’ penchant for an improbable offload or a chip and chase. Yet I know which I’d rather pay to watch.

Woolf was only one of many coaches to have success through minimising risk.  This really started in Australia. Even as I enjoyed seeing the Saints of the 80s fail gloriously by pushing the envelope it was clear at international level that the two hemispheres adopted differing philosophies. Back in then it was said that not only did the Australian Test teams of the day have greater depth to call on but they also employed a more rigid style of play which usually gave them a competitive advantage. Great Britain had stars like Ellery Hanley, Garry Schofield and later Martin Offiah and Jason Robinson who were arguably the equal of any Aussie in their position. But what we poms didn’t have was a mentality which prized winning over putting on a show. And I didn’t mind that. It was far more enjoyable to watch and the victories we did manage to pull off were all the more memorable for it.

Minimising risk is now the be all and end all. The most successful coaches all know that in the professional era - when the physical gap between teams at the top is narrower than in days gone by - errors can be critical. Fatal even. If you can all but eradicate them you can dominate possession. If you can do that then you are statistically far more likely to win. Eventually the team that has spent more time on the more physically draining activity of defending will run out of gas. I don’t know who it was but somebody once described the Australian State Of Origin games - now considered the highest level of the sport even above internationals - is just 34 blokes running at each other until one of them falls over. This is possibly an extreme way of phrasing it but it is largely true. The dullards on Sky Sports and the BBC don’t call it an energy battle for nothing. 

It’s not just at the very top where set completion is king. Although they are not as good at it the risk free possession game has filtered down to the lesser teams. A team that makes two passes from the ruck is considered expansive these days. But even in games between sides with lower expectations the tendency is to stick to one. The role of the hooker at dummy half is lauded because he has become what passes for the most creative force in the side. Halfbacks - scrum halves in old money - are for tactical kicking.

The timing and accuracy of your number nine’s passes straight from the play-the-ball are crucial in allowing he forwards running on to it to make ground and get their team down the field. If you have James Roby and Alex Walmsley in these roles for over a decade you’ll go far. Roby had a great all round game but Walmsley lives and dies by how many metres he makes, all slavishly calculated in this data heavy era. Like Roby he’s a legend of the game but I’d argue that he doesn’t have the power to take your breath away in the way that George Mann did. But what did he win I hear you ask?

The open, exciting rugby league of my youth is considered naive and far less likely to succeed now. Consequently there is far less attacking variety in the game. When teams get into the opposition 20 metre zone they might abandon the up the jumper stuff but it’s replaced by a predictable attacking structure that has become almost uniform across the sport. One ball handler  runs sideways vaguely threatening the defensive line. As he does so one potential receiver runs the line for a short ball but invariably becomes a lead dummy runner whose job is to attract defenders to create space for another runner who goes ‘out the back’. There is precious little variation on this to the point where the ball almost always ends up with the wingers to apply the finish. What’s more, all wingers tries essentially look identical. Even the flying finishes pioneered by Tommy Makinson when the rules were changed to make the corner post part of the field of play have become humdrum as so many others have perfected the skill.

The amount of stats and data now available to coaches and other employed analysts contributes further. The obsession with completion rates trumps any desire for anything off the cuff - even among most fans. The position of most supporters is that if their team has won a big game then they have been entertained. And if they haven’t they don’t care. Log on to your team’s Twitter after every big game and there will be scores of posts lambasting anyone guilty of a rare attempt at creativity that hasn’t come off. Ask the coach about it and he’ll lament that ‘we lost our structure’ or - to quote one of Wellens’ more berserk favourite criticisms of the dullest Saints team in living memory in 2024 - ‘we tried to score on every play’. We haven’t done anything like that since Neil Holding’s pomp. And I don’t mean with a microphone.

As the tactics have changed so too have the roles of the players and even the way they shape their bodies. They all look the same to the extent that Sione Mata’utia played prop, second row and in both centre positions in 2024. It’s not because he’s some kind of Swiss army knife of a player. It’s has more to do with second rowers and centres becoming indistinguishable from each other in much the same way that props and loose forwards have latterly. 

Ball playing loose forwards like Hanley, Paul Sculthorpe, Andy Farrell and Kevin Sinfield have been phased out of the game altogether. They are just not produced by youth systems any more. Everyone is a battering ram - a situation exacerbated by the amount of interchanges now available to coaches. 

These are necessary for player welfare but do nothing to improve the spectacle. If defences don’t tire they will be ever more comfortable to defend the predictable attacking raids they face. Many foamed at the mouth at the defence on show in Saints’ 8-4  2020 Grand Final win over Wigan. I felt that - save for it’s incredible denouement of the Makinson drop-goal hitting the post to set up Jack Welsby’s astonishing winning try - it was one of the most boring games of any sport I have ever seen. Unlike many Saints fans I have never sat through it again since writing the review for these pages.

You may feel that much of this is nostalgia from a child of the 80s. But there are some things about that era that I don’t miss. One hundred year old grounds with no accessible toilets or refreshment kiosks spring to mind. Nor do I miss the first come-first served, let them in free attitude towards wheelchair users at the time. I’d much rather pay for my ticket and have good facilities and a great view than be let in for nothing but have to get in an hour before kick-off in all weathers just to make sure I’d be able to see the pitch. And professionalism has at least stopped Wigan from winning everything even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. 

However I genuinely feel like the game is crying out for a club to achieve success a different way. Another evolution needs to happen. At a time when we are trying to compete with other sports for new eyeballs tedium is the last thing we can afford. Dare I say it more change. Even if it isn’t Saints, won’t somebody please win a title by taking risks, having an actual centre or loose forward in their side or by being chock full of pace instead of power. 

At the moment it feels a long way away.

Warrington Wolves 23 Saints 22 - Playoff Eliminator Review

It’s the hope that kills you. 

Saints’ 2024 season was eventually put out of its misery but not before an unexpectedly heroic effort as George Williams’ golden point drop-goal put Warrington just one win away from Old Trafford. 

The result was expected. Predicted by almost every Saints fan even if the pundits still think this is peak Woolf era. Even the more delusional among us struggled to make a case for Paul Wellens’ side pre-game. This observer suggested we would do well to get within 20 points of Sam Burgess’ side. After all, they’d already beaten Saints three times in 2024 by an aggregate score of 71-20. They’d also finished third in the Super League table during the regular season while Saints had set this tie up by crawling into the sixth and final playoff spot with late season wins over Huddersfield and Castleford. So it was not the result but the manner and the closeness of it which caused the surprise. 

As much as it was a hard luck story in the end it is hard to argue that Saints’ season deserved any better. They were not worthy of a semi-final spot in all honesty, much less a trip to a Grand Final. They have been functional at best when everyone was fit and anywhere from average to outright diabolical when the injuries took hold. It’s only the barmy nature of the mediocrity friendly playoff system which made further progress even a faint possibility. Yet to have hope, so much hope, and have it snatched away through mostly suicidal decisions and slapstick farce still feels cruel.

Saints welcomed Alex Walmsley back into the side after he had been a late withdrawal from last weekend’s match at Leigh. That sent George Delaney back to the bench while former Wolf Daryl Clark got his first start since August 8. With Moses Mbye still out with a calf problem Jake Burns kept his place in the 17 but started on the bench.

Warrington had their own front row talisman back as Paul Vaughan returned after a three-game suspension. Rodrick Tai came in at centre to replace Arron Lindop while Joe Philbin was on the bench as Max Wood missed out from the team which had beaten London Broncos 54-0 a week earlier. 

The madness began early. Tommy Makinson - playing what turned out to be the last of his 336 games for the club - looked into the early evening sunshine as the opening kickoff sailed towards him and shelled it just a few metres from his own line. That start didn’t instil any great belief among us doubters that Saints would make a game of this. That feeling was only exacerbated when Toby King went over in the ensuing set. Danny Walker, Josh Drinkwater, Matt Dufty and Williams were all involved in the move that saw King go over on the left. Josh Thewlis couldn’t convert from the touchline but it seemed as if a proverbial marker had been laid down by the home side.

Yet Makinson hasn’t accrued 336 Saints games by falling in a heap in response to an error. This here is a champion player. A five time Grand Final winner and a former Golden Boot winner to..er..boot. Within 10 minutes of his auspicious start he had Saints right back in it. Clark, Lewis Dodd, Jonny Lomax and Jack Welsby shifted the ball towards Makinson on his familiar right wing where he performed a trademark flying finish at the corner. It feels like no player has profited more from the change of rule which saw corner posts become part of the field of play rather than a part of touch. A bit like when a young kid named Lew Alcindor was the only slam dunker in town.

Referee Liam Moore sent it up to Chris Kendall for review as a try which proved crucial in its award. Thanks to a handily positioned water carrier (or was it Ade Gardner on a secret mission?) and a melee of bodies attempting to make the tackle the TV angles were inconclusive on whether any part of Makinson’s body was grounded in touch before he got the ball down. In such cases the on field call rules and Saints led 6-4 after Mark Percival’s touchline conversion. 

Moore seemed reluctant to award a try without consultation from Kendall all night. He was at it again when Saints astonishingly increased the lead. This time it was Percival, going over after another combination featuring Clark, Dodd, Lomax and Welsby. It looked a pretty obvious grounding by the Saints centre as he stretched over but Moore called for confirmation anyway. Perhaps like the players referees are especially terrified to make mistakes in playoff game. You can’t completely avoid that but I suppose the best way to minimise it is to refer everything to the man in the booth. Even if that man is Chris Kendall. Percival converted his own try and Saints were in rare air for 2024, two scores up against a fellow top six side.

It got better just after the half hour mark. It was Makinson again, scoring what would prove to be the last of his 207 tries for Saints. This time the review from Moore was much more necessary as Makinson slid over under a pile of bodies. Welsby had provided the assist and again the on field call of a try helped. There was no clear evidence to suggest that Makinson’s hand had come off the ball at any point. A moment where the ball was not visible was not enough to overturn the call. Percival could not add the extras this time but Saints still led 16-4.

Indiscipline with and without the ball has plagued Saints this year. Failure to do the basics right can be costly and we saw that again before halftime. Joe Batchelor - whose 2024 form has come under greater scrutiny after a few stellar years earned him his own Shakira inspired terrace ditty - played the ball incorrectly on his own 20 metre line to gift Warrington an opportunity to get back in it before the break. They didn’t sniff at it.

When it came it was Matty Ashton who got over, benefiting from Williams’ imaginative round the corner offload after he had been found by a combination of Drinkwater and Walker. Thewlis then showed that he can land them from the sideline - crucially as it turned out - to pull Warrington to within a converted try at 16-10. It stayed that way until the break, with just the sense that the failure to hang on to that two score lead at that point could be decisive.

These days Wire rely on more ex-Wigan players than is good for anyone. Here’s hoping it sinks them when they inevitably discover that it isn’t their year again. However three such former cherry and white wearers combined for the try that tied the scores in the second half. Sam Powell is very much second fiddle to Walker but found time during his spell on the field to hit Williams whose sublimely timed pass hit King in stride. 

King - who was a Grand Final winner with Wigan while on one of the  strangest loans since diversity champion Joey Barton went to Marseille - was able to get between Sione Mata’utia and Makinson to slice over untouched. Another Thewlis conversion had us locked up at 16-16 with just over a quarter of the game to play.

And so to the suicide and slapstick in the week that Joaquin Phoenix’s mentally ill Joker makes his return to the big screen. Excuse me for not laughing when - with 15 minutes left - Saints took a shotgun to both of their metaphorical feet. In possession inside their own half Saints were looking to build another attack to go back in front on the scoreboard. Instead, Clark produced a pass from dummy half as bad as anything we’ve seen from Saints in this most underwhelming, difficult of seasons. 

It went behind everyone for whom it may have been intended, hit the deck and was batted by Drinkwater to King. He handed it on to Ashton and the race - if you can even call it that - was over. Nobody got near the Warrington flyer as he crossed for his second try. Thewlis’ third conversion gave Burgess’ men a 22-16 advantage. 

At this point you doubted whether Saints had it in them to get up off the floor. It would have been easy - reflecting on how the year has gone and what was likely to happen had Saints got through to a semi-final - to accept their fate. But they had one more ultimately cruel twist in store for us. One more shred of hope for us to cling to in this relative binfire of a season. I say relative because there are plenty of clubs with players, coaches and fans who would love to be as underwhelming as Saints have been. Leeds Rhinos and Hull FC - to name but two - currently aspire to underwhelming. For those clubs and others like them it is a rung up the ladder from utterly abject. 

Anyway. Saints scored again. With less than two minutes on the clock and thoughts turning to the launch of the Christmas merchandise range Burns, Dodd, Lomax and Mata’utia moved the ball sharply out to the left where Jon Bennison was able to squeeze in an at the left corner. Again Moore’s initial suspicion of a try needed corroboration from Kendall but somehow, miraculously, Saints were within a Percival conversion of extending this bonkers campaign into a period of golden point extra time. 

Percival kicks around 73% of his goals this term. Compare that to almost 89% landed by the league’s top goalscorer Marc Sneyd of Salford. Though Percival has improved he still has the look of a man who’s only doing the job until the recruitment people find someone to do it regularly. He always looks nervous, almost haunted by previous failures. Still, if he missed at least we could say we put up a good fight in a game that we all expected to lose comfortably. 

But he didn’t miss. 

Nervelessly, he curled an absolute thing of beauty right through the middle of the posts as time expired. Joy. Maybe it was going to be our year again after the disappointment of last year and not only not managing to secure that fifth Grand Final win in a row but also of having to hand over the trophy to the grubbiest mitts in sport. It could be, we allowed ourselves to think. Well, it certainly wasn’t going to be Warrington’s year so why not?

Into the extra period. Warrington had first use, and were greatly helped when Batchelor was penalised for a ruck infringement as Walker got up to play the ball. Slowly, methodically they worked their way downfield and acquired perfect position for Williams to end this thing. His drop-goal attempt was met with the kind of rejection that the late Dikembe Mutombo would have been proud of. Out of nowhere Morgan Knowles had thrown himself at the attempt as if his very life depended on it. It was a spectacular play and it gave us even more of that duplicitous bitch they call hope. 

Now Saints had their chance to set up for a one-pointer. Only the Wire defence stood firm. Still inside their own half on tackle six Saints needed a good kick downfield. The ball was with Lomax. Captain. Leader. Legend. Surely he would buy us some territory and lead the charge for the defensive effort to follow. Yet the skipper saw something else. He faked before running right. Assessing his options he found Percival. He clearly did not rate Saints chances of launching a telling raid on the last play and so decided to hoof it to the other end. Game management is the preferred euphemism. 

Unfortunately, decisively, he shanked it. The man who had been so icy under pressure in converting Bennison’s try at the end of normal time shat the proverbial bed on this one and hoiked it straight into touch on his own 40 metre line. 

Sitting there watching Warrington up-the-jumper their way to the inevitable, I considered the irony. Saints - a team we have all rightly criticised for being far too obsessed with conservative rugby and making the safe play under Woolf wannabe Wellens - killed themselves with their ambition. Nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine times out of a million in 2024 Lomax kicks that ball away and sets the defence up in enemy territory. 

Yet it’s hard to be too critical. We want expansive rugby. We want risk and excitement. Yet we also want to win. We want it all and we’ll be the first to criticise any tactical decision that doesn’t pay off even if it’s one we’ve been longing for all year. That’s fandom. 

There was no Knowles-Mutombo synergy this time as Williams made sure with his second attempt. No small measure of relief for the home fans and the crashing disappointment of one who has been teased with something special among the Saints fans. It’s finally over for another season.

It’s over for good as far as their Saints careers are concerned for Makinson, Dodd and Mata’utia. In all seven players will leave with the much derided Waqa Blake also going along with Sam Royle, Ben Lane and McKenzie Buckley. They’ll be remembered with varying degrees of fondness or otherwise. For now, the dark muttering has already started around how Konrad Hurrell and Ben Davies managed to avoid the exit list This is sport. This is Saints. There’s always something to get irritated or even exasperated by. Expect those two to remain on most fans’ shit list.

Twenty-tweny-five will bring with it some much needed changes. Hometown boy Lee Briers lends his next big thing in coaching credentials to the cause while another much derided figure in Laurent Frayssinous departs. North Queensland Cowboys winger Kyle Feldt comes in to replace Makinson while the speedy Tristan Sailor and Lewis Murphy will hopefully add some much needed pace to the back division. 

Can we challenge again? 

It’s the hope that kills you.

Warrington Wolves: Dufty, Thewlis, King, Tai, Ashton, Williams, Drinkwater, Yates, Walker, Musgrove, Nicholson, Bateman, Currie. Interchanges: Vaughan, Powell, Philbin, Harrison.

Saints: Welsby, Makinson, Mata’utia, Percival, Bennison, Lomax, Dodd, Walmsley, Clark, Lees, Whitley, Batchelor, Knowles. Interchanges: Paasi, Bell, Delaney, Burns

Referee: Liam Moore

Video Referee: Chris Kendall 

Warrington Wolves v Saints - Super League Playoff Eliminator Preview

Just about showing signs of a pulse, Saints look to avoid the killer blow to their Super League Grand Final hopes when they visit Warrington Wolves in the playoff eliminator on Saturday night (September 28, kick-off 5.30pm).

Although they were beaten for a 12th time in 27 league outings last week - this time 18-12 at Leigh - Saints scraped into the top six to earn themselves the dubious pleasure of visiting Sam Burgess’ third-placed Wire. A solid if stupefyingly boring first half of the campaign saw Saints hanging out in and around the top two. Yet all hopes of finishing that high vanished in a fog of injuries and tedious tactics under second year Head Coach Paul Wellens. Sixth place was Saints’ worst finish for seven years.

Meanwhile Warrington kept up their top two challenge throughout before doing what they are famed for and just falling short. Hull KR’s last day win against Leeds Rhinos denied Wire who - like Saints last term - might yet find that missing out on a home semi-final proves costly. Though they’ll go in as favourites they’d probably admit that they’d rather not face an extra game before the semi-finals against a club which has a history pissing on their metaphorical chips throughout Super League. 

Wellens is forced into one change from last week’s initial 21-man squad. Moses Mbye pulled out with a calf injury during the warm up at Leigh and has not recovered in time. On the plus side Alex Walmsley - who was also a late withdrawal at the LSV - has recovered from illness and should take his customary place in the front row alongside 2024 Super League Dream Team member Matty Lees. Unsurprisingly after something of a shit show of a season by recent standards, Lees is the only Saint to make it in to the all star selection. 

Despite Mbye’s absence Saints still have decent options at hooker to complete that front row. Wellens has been keeping Daryl Clark on the bench since the ex-Warrington man returned from injury and must decide whether to do so again or else unleash him on his former colleagues from the outset. Jake Burns is the likely alternative. He has impressed at times since breaking through this year but neither he nor Clarke can boast Mbye’s kicking game. They do offer speed out of dummy half.

Curtis Sironen is not yet ready to return so there is unlikely to be a change in the second row. A position in which Saints looked stacked at the start of the year has looked flaky of late. Sione Mata’utia - who is one of three Saints for whom defeat would signal his final appearance for the club - has played the last two at centre as Wellens finally lost patience with Waqa Blake. The coach even allowed his bonkers blind faith in Ben Davies to fizzle out. Jonny Vaughan is another option as he returns to the 21 in place of Mbye. If it is to be Mata’utia continuing then the out of form pairing of Matt Whitley and Joe Batchelor will no doubt go again with Morgan Knowles at loose forward.

Knowles will be backed up on the bench by James Bell who is likely to be joined by one of Clark or Burns as well as any two of George Delaney, Agnatius Paasi and Noah Stephens.

In the backs there seems little prospect of change. Jack Welsby looked out of sorts at Leigh but is always capable of brilliance at fullback while Tommy Makinson joins Mata’utia not only on the right edge of the attack but also in the club of those hoping to avoid an early farewell. Makinson will join Catalans Dragons whenever Saints’ season is put out of its misery. For now he’ll be in his regular wing spot outside Mata’utia and opposite Mark Percival and Jon Bennison on the other flank. The likely halfback combination is between captain Jonny Lomax and Lewis Dodd - the third member of the departing trio hoping to extend their stay by another week.

The headline for Burgess is that he can once again call on prop Paul Vaughan after suspension. The former St George-Illawarra Dragon is over 1,000 metres down on what he made in his debut season for Wire in 2023 but is still their key yardage maker among the forwards. Joe Philbin is also back to strengthen a front row group that potentially includes Luke Yates, James Harrison, Tom Whitehead and Zane Musgrove. 

Between the props the hooking duo comprises of another Dream Teamer in Danny Walker backed up by ex-Wigan veteran Sam Powell. Matty Nicholson and the much traveled pantomime villain and one time England centre John Bateman form the back row along with Ben Currie.

Matt Dufty returned at fullback for last week’s 54-0 win over London Broncos. He will add the kind of pace that Saints can only dream of at present. Wire already have Matty Ashton and Josh Thewlis on the wings with Rodrick Tai returning to partner Toby King in the centres. At halfback Josh Drinkwater and George Williams can shift a bit, too. In the unlikely event that Saints pull this one off it will be Drinkwater’s last game for Warrington.

This will be the fourth meeting between the sides in 2024. Saints haven’t won any of the previous three, so quite how anyone expects them to win this one is beyond my comprehension. The first of those three defeats came in the Challenge Cup quarter final in April and was arguably the worst of the lot. A Saints side missing only Lees from what you might call it’s strongest 17 was blown away 31-8 at home. 

In mid-July - again at home - Harrison’s dismissal and a yellow card for Nicholson was still not enough to awaken Wellens’ narcoleptic attack as Saints went down 24-10. Most recently the attack was the big problem again as Saints were held tryless in a 16-2 defeat at the Halliwell Jones. 

The teams met at this stage of the playoffs last year though it was Saints who had finished third in the regular season and enjoyed the home advantage over the then sixth placed Wolves. I suspect that fairly soon I’ll have far happier memories of that 16-8 win - earned courtesy of tries from Makinson and Dodd and four Percival goals - than I will of this one. My only doubt about Warrington is that they may be going into it a little untested. That 54-0 win over London was preceded by an even sillier 66-0 shoeing of Huddersfield Giants. 

For all the pessimism in these words I don’t expect a defeat on that scale. There isn’t too much wrong with Saints defence. Statistically it is still the fourth best in the competition. It’s their inability to score points that will probably be their undoing. The attack is too slow and predictable. That’s in contrast to Wire’s pacy attack which should be more than capable of getting enough points to earn a home semi-final with Leigh Leopards next week. 

Squads;

Warrington Wolves;

1. Matt Dufty 2. Josh Thewlis 3. Toby King 4. Stefan Ratchford 5. Matty Ashton 6. George Williams 7. Josh Drinkwater 8. James Harrison 9. Danny Walker 10. Paul Vaughan 11. Ben Currie 13. Matty Nicholson 14. Rodrick Tai 15. Joe Philbin 16. Zane Musgrove 17. Jordy Crowther 29. Tom Whitehead 32. Sam Powell 34. Arron Lindop 41. Luke Yates 42. John Bateman 

Saints; 

1. Jack Welsby, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Waqa Blake, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Jon Bennison, 6. Jonny Lomax, 7. Lewis Dodd, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. Daryl Clark, 10. Matty Lees, 11. Sione Mata’utia, 12. Joe Bactchelor, 13. Morgan Knowles, 15. James Bell, 17. Agnatius Paasi, 19. Matt Whitley, 20. George Delaney, 21. Ben Davies, 24. Jake Burns, 30. Jonny Vaughan, 31. Noah Stephens.

Referee: Liam Moore

Video Referee: Chris Kendall

Leigh Leopards 18 Saints 12 - Review

The road to Old Trafford goes through Warrington and Wigan after a seemingly narrow loss to Leigh which flattered Saints. 

The defeat meant Paul Wellens side finished sixth - their worst performance in a Super League season since 2017. That season started with club legend Keiron Cunningham at the helm like Ted Striker in Airplane, eventually saved from the toxicity to be replaced by Justin Holbrook. Saints will now have to travel to face Sam Burgess’ Wolves in the first round of the playoffs. That’s grim news considering that Wire have already beaten Saints three times this season by a combined score of 71-20. 

In the unlikely event that Saints survive that they’ll likely face League Leaders Shield winners and defending Super League and world champions Wigan at what they’re now calling The Brick. God speed, lads…God speed. Yet for now, worrying about facing Wigan feels a little bit like worrying about whether Joss Stone’s parents will like me when she takes me round to meet them. 

Adrian Lam’s Leopards have also made it in to the six. This win enabled them to leapfrog Saints into fifth from where they’ll face Salford Red Devils on the road. Matching last season’s league placing marks Leigh out as a genuine, established contender. Proof positive that promotion can work if you throw a shitload of money at it. It is all the more remarkable for the fact that they started the year with just three wins from their first 10 league games. They have won 10 of their last 12 to seal their spot in the knockout stuff. 

Making every attempt to avoid using Super League 2024 buzzword ‘mitigation’ (doh!) it didn’t help Wellens that two of his senior players were ruled out late. Alex Walmsley seems to miss every other game these days and was again ruled out while Moses Mbye made it at least as far as the warm-up before pulling out with a calf injury. Jake Burns had initially been left out of the 17 but earned a reprieve. He started the game with Wellens again choosing to keep Daryl Clark on the bench. The only other change from the side which beat Castleford last week saw Noah Stephens back in on the bench while George Delaney stepped up to fill Walmsley’s regular starting role.

Lam made only one change to his lineup, bringing back hooker Edwin Ipape for Matt Davis. 

The controversy arrived early in this one. Ten minutes in Tommy Makinson dived over in the right corner for what he thought was the opener. However, referee Liam Moore wasn’t convinced and ordered a review. His suspicion was that Sione Mata’utia had obstructed Lachlan Lam to create the space for Makinson. 

For some time now obstruction by a lead or dummy runner has been judged solely on whether there is contact with the defender’s outside shoulder. Knowing this, defenders who fear that they won’t get across in time to make a tackle can initiate this kind of contact and theatrically hit the deck. It’s almost impossible to prove that Lachlan Lam deliberately stepped into Mata’utia to win a penalty and the Saints man knows that he has to try to avoid that contact. 

So according to the modern interpretation the decision to penalise Mata’utia and chalk off the try was the right one. But it’s a bad rule which must have a better alternative. I used to refer to it as the TV rule as it only ever tended to be seen when video reviews were available. Now that they are  in use at every match at least everyone is playing to the same rules every week. Even if they are an over simplified nonsense.

Not every decision was going against Saints. Like the tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists on social media Moore missed Jack Welsby’s cheeky flick away from Ipape as the Leigh man got up to play the ball near the Saints goal-line. Then when Darnell McIntosh coughed up possession on his own 25 metre line Moore was similarly blind to the fact that Matt Whitley had got a foot to the ball which knocked it loose. Not that it helped Saints’ attack particularly on that occasion as the set ended with Lewis Dodd tackled standing upright and appealing that the ball had been touched by a Leigh hand.

Saints were about to be on the end of a ropey decision, but not before Welsby made the biggest of several errors in an unusually fraught first half performance. Lachlan Lam boomed a 40-20 attempt down towards Saints territory but was unfortunate to see it hold up rather than cross the sideline. Welsby was in position and got to it first, only to slide a toe on to the sideline. It made contact just for a split second but it was enough for the touch judge who raised his flag.

Even so, Leigh were somewhat fortunate that the try they scored soon after was allowed to stand. It rubbed salt in the wound that the scorer was arch nemesis John Asiata. Even signing for Hull FC doesn’t seem a strong enough punishment for the man responsible for the serious injuries suffered by Walmsley and Agnatius Paasi last year. Here, he shrugged off the tackle of Burns to stretch over the line. 

Moore wasn’t convinced about the grounding so sent it upstairs again to Ben Thaler with an initial ruling of no try. This usually means that sufficient evidence has to be found to overturn the original call. I’m not at all sure that Thaler found that evidence. From the angles viewed there was a hint of separation but nothing conclusive. But nor were those angles conclusive in proving that Asiata had applied downward pressure. 

It really needed a look from an angle on the other side of the posts to be sure. But that never came. Not to the TV audience at any rate. Nevertheless Thaler had seen all he needed and made his decision as the modern mantra goes. The decision was to overturn Moore’s call and with Matt Moylan’s conversion Leigh led 6-0.

Saints were three minutes away from reaching the interval at that score. Given the woeful nature of the attack under Wellens that wouldn’t have been a disaster. Yet it wasn’t to be as the Leopards grabbed their second through Ricky Leutele. Moylan was the creator, sending Mata’utia out for the proverbial hot dog before finding Leutele who held off Jonny Lomax to score. 

The departing Mata’utia has been quite vocal this week about his regret at making a few important mistakes on the night. He hasn’t cited this one in particular, focusing instead on a couple of handling errors made late in the game. Yet he should not carry the load alone. Yes he should have defended better on that play and yes he should be able to catch or keep hold of the ball under pressure. But it’s not his fault he’s having to play centre due to a combination of injuries and the fact that neither of the two specialist centres Wellens could use is good enough. That’s all part of a deeper malaise amid some very iffy recruitment. Moylan could not have cared less, popping over another two points to give his side a 12-0 lead at the break.

The former Cronulla Shark had an opportunity to wrap this one up without too many dramas 10 minutes into the second half. Leutele put Josh Charnley free down the left but when he found a wide open Moylan on his inside the Australian couldn’t reel the pass in. It looked simple. A one in a thousand error for a player of that calibre. Yet it arguably kept Saints alive. Had they gone 16-0 or 18-0 down at that point it would surely have been all over. Unlike many of the teams he graced as a player, Wellens’ class of 2024 is hardly built for a comeback. There’s more chance of Ringo and Sir Paul reuniting to play Shea Stadium than there is of this Saints side coming back from two scores down against decent opposition. And since Shea Stadium was demolished in 2009 it seems more than a long shot.

Things looked rosier when Leutele earned himself a spell in the sin bin. The ex-Huddersfield man attempted to put a shot on Welsby but when you do that you are invariably incapable of preventing head contact. It’s a familiar story. Nobody would have minded the challenge too much in days gone by but everyone knows the rules now. Even if nobody seems to have yet worked out how to abide by them. Regardless, it’s a yellow minimum.

It has been suggested by more than one Saints fan - and I’m sure fans of many other clubs - that had Leutele not transgressed then the red vee might not have scored any points at all in this one. As it was they scored two tries - both converted by Jon Bennison - while Leutele was off the field. The first came from Makinson who dived in at the corner from Lomax’s pass. This time Thaler was right to overrule Moore’s initial hunch of no try. Replays clearly showed that the Saints winger stayed in the field of play. And he grounded the ball with a good deal more downward pressure than Asiata had mustered earlier.

Just moments later Makinson was involved again. He was first to Lomax’s hopeful bomb, batting it back to Dodd who had Morgan Knowles on his shoulder with a clear run to the line. Suddenly - and having showed few signs of attacking life in the previous hour - Saints were level going into the last quarter. They couldn’t, could they?

No.

Four minutes after Leutele returned to the action Adrian Lam’s side were in for their third try of the night. One of those Mata’utia handling errors set up the field position from where Ipape, Asiata, Lachlan Lam and Moylan all combined to put Charnley in on the left flank. In crossing the ex-Wigan and Warrington man equalled Danny McGuire’s tally of 247 Super League tries. Now only Ryan Hall has more. You have to feel for McGuire. You hold a record for five years and then two people reel you in the space of a few short weeks. Alright, you don’t have to feel for him.

Moylan couldn’t add the extras to that score but he did manage two more points when Leigh were awarded a penalty in his range. Makinson was penalised for passing the ball off the ground in a rare show of attacking urgency from Saints. If you’re Wellens you were probably thinking that displays of attacking urgency are nothing but trouble as it edged the home side out to an 18-12 advantage.

Even at that stage there was still a chance that Saints could claw their way back. All of Mata’utia, Mark Percival and James Bell dropped their proverbial lolles inside the last five minutes. Bell’s was the last chance, putting down a Clark pass inside the last 30 seconds. While it looked like Saints had come up agonisingly short on the face of it, the truth is they never really had any semblance of control all night. 

When you look at the injuries Saints have suffered this year and also the apparent decline among the ageing senior pros it’s not that surprising to see them edged out by a side like Leigh. Until last week’s 24-0 drilling by Hull KR the Leopards were the league’s form horse. What’s harder to stomach for Saints fans is the repetitive nonsense that comes out of Wellens’ mouth post-match.

This week he surpassed himself by suggesting that although his side had lost it was actually a win  given the adversity they have faced. I’m paraphrasing but that was about the size of it. Fans, bloggers and podcasters like me can say that. But if you are the Head Coach of the club you can’t have that mentality. Regardless of circumstance this is a club with a rich tradition of winning trophies and doing so with a bit of swagger. It’s the most successful club in the Super League era. If I was advising Wellens I’d always be telling him to emphasise the disappointment and the need to improve after every loss.

There have been 12 of those this term in 27 regular season assignments. So the truth is - putting aside the mitigation - Saints are currently an average team who need to improve dramatically. They have maintained their record of appearing in every Super League playoff series because the competition rewards mediocrity. The media will bang on about how you never write off the Saints as long as they are still involved in a playoff scenario but that’s just to stop people turning their televisions off. It would frankly be amazing if Saints got close to beating Warrington at the Halliwell Jones this weekend. 

Wellens probably knows this and is trying to put a positive spin on things. As much for himself as for the players and fans. Yet he’s starting to look a little stressed by the job. Visibly ageing before us like his squad, but at a rate that’s closer to that of the bloke who drinks the wrong chalice at the end of that Indiana Jones movie. At this point whether we believe in him or not seems a moot point. It just seems incredibly unlikely that he’ll be in the job by the middle of next season. 

Leigh: 

Moylan, McIntosh, Hanley, Leutele, Charnley, Lam, O’Brien, Amone, Ipape, Mulhern, O’Donnell, Halton, Asiata. Interchanges: Dwyer, Hughes, Pene, Trout

Saints: Welsby, Makinson, Mata’utia, Percival, Bennison, Lomax, Dodd, Delaney, Burns, Lees, Whitley, Batchelor, Knowles. Interchanges: Bell, Paasi, Clark, Stephens 

Referee: Liam Moore 

Video Referee: Ben Thaler