It's taken nine years, but Saints have finally lost to Leeds Rhinos at Headingley. A hoodoo going all the way back to 2017 ended with another of the kind of waning second halves that have characterised Saints in 2026.
With fans demanding changes from the abject loss at Castleford last time out there were mixed feelings at Paul Rowley's selection. Jack Welsby was restored to fullback and George Whitby to halfback with Jackson Hastings out suspended. Many have been calling for this combination ever since Welsby returned to fitness following his shoulder injury on the opening weekend.
Yet Rowley revealed that this was not the team he was going to select until all of Deon Cross, Lewis Murphy and Owen Dagnall were rendered unavailable. The coach's solution to the sudden winger shortage was to move in-form Tristan Sailor to the flank and fill the stand-off role with veteran Jonny Lomax.
It started well enough. Saints were well in the game and led 16-8 after a first half that swung several times. Alex Walmsley scored early following great work by Daryl Clark out of dummy half. The returning Kyle Feldt scored the 33rd try of his 29-game Saints career to date, and there was a quality link up between Welsby and Sailor as the former's kick to the corner was hunted down for the 27th try of Sailor's time in the red vee. Time which incidentally will be extended by a further two years after he scribbled his name on a new contract this week.
But the way Chris Hankinson scythed straight through the middle of a scattered Saints defence wasn't the only point of concern in that opening 40 minutes. Saints discipline was atrocious, while their ability to save their handling errors for when they were in their own half was uncanny. They led by eight at the break but that was as good as it was going to get.
David Klemmer's late sin binning didn't affect the outcome. By then Saints had already resigned themselves to a 24-16 defeat following second half tries from Maika Sivo and Harry Newman. But the early exit of the Australian prop seemed to sum up the disciplinary problems Saints had. He was already going for a late hit on a passer but Klemmer hastened his departure by arguing with referee Jack Smith before the explanation for the decision had even been given.
Saints haven't been great in the second half of games recently. They have failed to score a try after re-emergence from the dressing room in games against Toulouse, Wakefield, Wigan, Huddersfield and now Leeds. They didn't score in either half against Wigan or in the first half of the 30-10 debacle at Castleford. It's not that Saints can't play at all, they just can't sustain it for more than the 20 minutes that was the average life expectancy of pilots in Commander Lord Flashheart's flying Squadron. It's not going to get it done.
When Saints did get opportunities to register after the break they were guilty of taking wrong options. Feldt was sent free down the right channel but inexplicably cut back inside instead of going for the corner. Finishing tries is one of the things the much criticised winger usually gets right. But this effort was a distant cousin of the infamous failure of Waqa Blake to score at Leigh with half the field to himself in 2024.
Welsby too was culpable. He found himself in space just to the left of centre within striking distance of the Leeds line but his failure to pass was terminal. For reasons best known to himself he chose instead to try to fend off everyone who crossed his path in a Leeds shirt instead of letting the ball do the work.
It was perhaps symptomatic of the muddle that his game has been in of late as Rowley struggles to work out how best to integrate both he and Sailor. It smacked of a man desperate to do something spectacular instead of just making the right play.
When Rowley arrived to replaced Paul Wellens the talk among many fans was of style of play more than results. We wanted to be more competitive but we wanted to enjoy the journey towards triumph or disaster. The first half of this one showed that there are glimpses of that stylistic improvement but they're all too fleeting. And the lulls arguably go beyond any level of hopeless tedium seen under Wellens.
Whether that's all Rowley's fault depends on how much say he's had in the underwhelming recruitment since he was appointed. The new players are probably not good enough for the level we need without being objectively terrible. If you're hitting an attacking wall in a big game against an opponent like the Rhinos you need the kind of inspiration that cannot be provided by your Joe Shorrockses and your Shane Wrights.
Meanwhile Nene McDonald is constantly missing through injury and Jacob Host unfortunately suffered a broken leg in early March, just four games into his Saints career. Daniel Suluka-Fifita has arrived this week but few know what to expect from a player who was out of favour at Canterbury. It all just feels like we're making do, which inevitably affects performance whoever your coach is and whatever his preferred style might look like.
The end of a nine-year unbeaten stretch at Headingley isn't all that surprising. The surprise is that the Saints class of 2026 came so close to extending it.