5 Talking Points From Warrington 14 Saints 34

This was no phoney war

There has been a lot of talk this year about how the Super 8s throw up too many dead rubbers. So much so that the Super League clubs drew up a plan for immediate change last week. That brought about the improvements they wanted even if the methodology was highly questionable.

Once the new structure was voted through everyone seemed to agree that the Super 8s was a bunch of nonsense after all. So when Wigan's win over Huddersfield on Thursday rubber stamped the semi-final match-ups with most teams still having two games to play many people would have been happy to climb into Bill and Ted's phone box and skip the next couple of weeks. In particular, Saints visit to Warrington was expected to be a phoney war with neither side thought likely to put too much on the line ahead of their last four meeting on October 4. That prediction turned out to be about as accurate as my tips on Wakefield on the WA12 Rugby League Show. Tune in on Monday at 6.00 for another chance to laugh at my hapless inability to forecast the fortunes of Chris Chester's side.

From the very beginning both teams played this one with a level of intensity up there with any Super League match in 2018. To their credit, both sides added a flair and expansiveness to that intensity which made for a stunning spectacle until Warrington fell away in the second half. Yet it was less a capitulation from Wire than a scintillating display from Saints which simply overwhelmed Steve Price's side. Ben Barba's performance was on a par with his stunning displays at the start of the season, Regan Grace won a wonderful wing duel with Josh Charnley and the returning Ryan Morgan beefed up Saints edge defence.

It could be explosive when these teams meet when it really matters in nine days time.

Offloads were the key

In among the biff and bash in the early going there was some exhilarating rugby league being played. Both sides seemed desperate to keep the ball alive and were able to do so without resorting to wild speculators. Most of the passes stuck which made for an entertaining game before Saints swamped Wire in the second half.

It was that ability to offload on a consistent basis which wore down the Warrington defence. Jack Ashworth was instrumental in this, managing to get rid of the ball in the tackle on four occasions in a team total of 17. Ashworth wasn’t born when the likes of George Mann and Kevin Ward were lighting up Sunday afternoons at Knowsley Road with this kind of shenanigans, but here he evoked memories of some of the best Saints front rowers playing in the once feared style of the entertainers. Saints had been averaging just over nine offloads per game before this one, even under the Holbrook regime which is widely viewed to be far more expansive than the sterile fair served up by Keiron Cunningham’s side. To be fair, I boiled an egg the other day which was a culinary act more expansive than the sterile fair served up by Keiron Cunningham’s side. Yet the added risk in Saints approached reaped dividends. With so many men thrown into the tackle in the modern game a well-placed offload can kill a defensive structure. Saints almost doubled their average number of offloads per game at the Haliwell Jones and it was a joy to watch.

All of which was quite fitting on the 18th anniversary of the much feted Wide To West try, when Saints snatched a last-gasp playoff win at home to Bradford Bulls thanks to Dwayne West’s improbable break which followed Harlem Globetrotters-like antics from Seans Long and Hoppe and Kevin Iro before Chris Joynt finished it off and Bernard lost his head. Here it wasn’t just Ashworth serving up the second phase play. In a brilliant return to form Barba chipped in with two, as did the usually sticky-handed Luke Douglas along with another returnee Zeb Taia. Mark Percival matched that tally in another all-action display from the England centre, the highlight of which was a quite dreamy flicked pass inside to send Jonny Lomax over for a second half try in the middle of a dizzying, positively Saintsy spell. We shouldn’t forget about Barba’s role in that try too as he danced outside his man to create the space before handing on to Percival. That ability to get outside a defender has been missing from Barba’s game in recent weeks but was a feature of his devastating form in the early months of the season. If that is back for the rest of the season we could be in for a climax more thrilling than an elongated bomb diffusing scenario on Bodyguard.

Card capers

Before Saints cut loose after the break the physical intensity of this contest threatened to boil over on more than one occasion. Three players received first half yellow cards while the guiltiest culprit escaped like Michael Scofield and his witless brother. A tattooed update on Bill and Ted. Mike Cooper started it all off with a quite scandalous forearm smash to the head of Saints young back rower James Bentley. The former Bradford Bull was playing just his second Super League game for Saints and is very lucky that he remains fit enough to play any more before 2018 draws to a close. Cooper had no intention of making a legal tackle and should have been instantly red carded. Instead referee Chris Kendall saw fit to award a scrum to Warrington for the inevitable dropped ball by Bentley as he lay on the ground looking for his marbles.

This understandably angered one or two of the Saints team and when Matty Lees flew in at Tyrone Roberts, missing him completely but sparking him out with a stray knee the whole thing had gone off. Lees was sinbinned, which was unfortunate in many ways because there was little intent to hit Roberts with a knee. But there was arguably too much aggression in the way Lees went about his business following the Cooper flashpoint. It is not as if it is something we haven’t seen before from the young prop. He is making great strides but he needs to be able to learn to control that aggression. There are many who would be pleased to see him develop into a dog of a player who offers physical presence but may walk a disciplinary tightrope. But can you really expect, no matter how hard you think you are, to intimidate a rugby league player? I don’t really believe that any professional rugby league player is genuinely scared of any other. You need physicality especially when other teams not too far away live and die on their shithousery, but I’m romantic enough to believe that we can be successful without the need for a bully in the pack.

The battle is won….but not the war

For all this game’s ferocious intensity and high level of skill we should not get too carried away, or assume that victory over Warrington in the semi-final will be a formality. Saints have certainly laid down a marker if I can wipe myself down with the towel of cliche for a moment. Still there are plenty of examples throughout Super League history of a team bouncing back from a bit of a chasing to walk away with the spoils in the end.

Our very own Saints are masters of this sort of chicanery. In 1999 Saints were walloped 40-4 at Odsal by Bradford Bulls in a playoff game only to edge home 8-6 in the Old Trafford Grand Final just two weeks later. Michael Withers’ infamous knock-on is rugby league’s grassy knoll moment. Everyone has their own theory on whether or not he got a fingertip to that ball before Leon Pryce streaked away to score but since Withers later signed for Wigan it probably served him about right in any case.

Similarly Saints shipped in 50 points at the Bulls in August 2002, a season which culminated in Long’s late, late drop-goal breaking Bradford hearts again. This is the nature of playoff football and is what we signed up for when we agreed to ditch the notion of first past the post. It could just as easily happen to us in the semi-final if we do not continue to build on this kind of form. Remember beating Leeds Rhinos in the 2007 playoffs only to lose at Old Trafford? And that after having won the League Leaders Shield, one point clear of Leeds. Or what about 2008 when we gubbed Leeds 38-10 in the playoffs and then, yes, lost against them in the Grand Final? You get the picture. The battle is won, but the war is far from over.

The Departed

Before we go we must just mention the elephant in the room, the announcement today of Barba’s departure to North Queensland Cowboys for the start of 2019. It had seemed inevitable for weeks before it was confirmed, with Saints chairman Eamon McManus assuring fans that the club have received an ‘acceptable’ transfer fee and will make a further announcement on an ‘NRL signing’ soon. Quite how much an acceptable transfer fee is we don’t yet know. Perhaps Mr McManus will address this question at this Wednesday night's forum at the club. Tickets are still available and I along with several other members of the WA12 Rugby League Show will be in attendance.

Some will feel that the fee better be big. Barba signed a two-and-a-half year contract on his arrival last year but as he did so my immediate reaction was that if we could get one full season out of him it would be a triumph. His recent dip in form means his legacy may now rest on whether Saints can pick up the Super League trophy in a few weeks from now, but there is no doubting that at times Barba has been majestic, wonderful to watch and devastatingly effective. Despite the recent lull he would still get my vote for the Steve Prescott Man Of Steel (if I had one) and I say that in the context of another superhuman year from James Roby and even considering the heroic efforts of Luke Thompson who was named the club’s player of the year at their annual awards dinner on Monday night.

A departure can still be sad regardless of how long you have been expecting it, so there’s a disappointment in the air at today’s news. But Grand Final or not Barba goes with my best wishes and thanks for some great memories. But if he wants to be remembered alongside Mal Meninga and Jamie Lyon we need less of the money-counting and just one other thing, a big fat trophy with the Super League logo on it.

Also departing Saints at the end of 2018 will be the much less trumpeted Matty Smith. Smith was a controversial signing when he was brought back to the club for a third spell from Wigan, particularly after his badge-kissing histrionics while wearing their shirt. He immediately broke his leg in a pre-season friendly against Widnes and has not managed to regain his place since losing it to the emerging talent of Danny Richardson. Smith looks likely to join Catalans Dragons, much to the absolute fury of current Dragons halfback Josh Drinkwater. He has dragged Steve McNamara’s side up by the short and curlies. The league’s worst side in the first half of the season ended August with the Challenge Cup on the sideboard thanks in no small part to Drinkwater's influence.

Now Drinkwater will be cast aside for Smith who, at 32, is nearing the end of his career which to be fair to him has taken in appearances for England and two Grand Final victories for that lot, in 2013 and 2016. He’s been unfortunate in all of his spells at Saints, first blocked by the legend that is Long, then discarded as Saints gambled and lost on Kyle Eastman. His latest spell has been hamstrung by injury and the arrival of a coach who wanted that bit more from a half. And given the results of that decision it is hard to argue a case for Smith's retention at the club. Saints will probably be taking a large chunk off the cap by offloading Smith which makes sense since he has consistently failed to make even the 17 man squad throughout this season. There is no justification in a salary capped sport for paying big money to players who aren’t featuring. I wish Smith all the best across the channel except when Saints visit or he rocks up back in his home town.


Much of this and much more was discussed on this week's WA12 Rugby League Show which you can listen to now at wa12radio.net