Saints 2019 squad is one player lighter today after Ryan Morgan joined London Broncos on loan. The Australian centre heads to the capital on a season-long deal after spending two seasons with Saints.
Initial reaction from the fans suggest he won't be missed. With Kevin Naiqama arriving from Wests Tigers this week there had to have been some doubt about how much first team action Morgan would have seen had he stayed. Announcing the move Saints Grand Fromage Mike Rush alluded to that by seeming to confirm that Naiqama is here to play as a centre. That was always the likeliest scenario despite some speculation that the Fijian captain could fit in at either fullback or wing. All of which may have left Morgan to fill the Matty Smith role of highly paid star on the sidelines.
Be that as it may we may yet have reason to lament Morgan's exit. Nobody quite knows how the Naiqama signing will work out. His quality is not in question but there's always an element of risk in bringing in NRL stars with big reputations. For every Ben Barba there's a Josh Perry. We need Naiqama to hit the ground running and, perhaps more importantly, stay healthy to ensure that he becomes the upgrade on Morgan that we hope and expect he will be.
Another worry is the dark mutterings coming from social media about the future of Tommy Makinson. The England man has just won the Golden Boot as the international player of the year and was perhaps the key man for Wayne Bennett's side in the recent 2-1 series victory over New Zealand. His recent admission that he would one day like to try his luck in the NRL has got the cogs whirring among the rumour-fanciers. It is believed he is still in Australia with some suggesting that he will not return without an NRL deal in his back pocket. Makinson has this coming season remaining on his contract and may well honour that. He will still only be 28 at the start of the 2020 season which still leaves him potentially at his peak for a tilt at the best league in the sport. But might a player who has already suffered two serious knee injuries in his career want to strike while his proverbial iron is hot? Brad Fittler might not have heard of Makinson but you can rest assured that those in charge of recruitment at NRL clubs will be a touch more enlightened. His performances for Engand will not have gone unnoticed and it will be a surprise if he hasn't had at least tentative offers.
The decision to allow Morgan to depart could leave Saints vulnerable if injuries hit. That would only be exacerbated should Makinson find the lure of the NRL too strong. Adam Swift and Regan Grace offer depth on the wings but if there are any problems with Naiqama or Mark Percival then there isn't the same level of talent at centre. Matty Costello has let nobody down in his young career but he still represents a significant step down in class from Saints other options, including Morgan.
Morgan is an under-rated, often under-appreciated performer. Many fans haven't forgiven him for his brain explosion in the Super League semi-final at Castleford last year. Having crossed for what looked to be the winning score in the final minutes Morgan gave away a needless penalty for obstructing Michael Shenton as the pair chased a kick towards the Saints try line that neither was ever going to reach. Some fans wanted Morgan out there and then as Saints went on to lose to Luke Gale's extra-time drop-goal. Some of the abuse he received was puerile at best and vile at worst.
Yet the former Melbourne Storm man is a defensively reliable centre whose attacking instincts have often been curbed by the imbalance of the Saints attack. Much of the good attacking ball seems to arrive on their left edge with Morgan and Makinson often reduced to scraps served up on last tackle kicking plays. Meanwhile, we saw in the Super 8s defeat to Wigan in August how much Morgan's defensive qualities can be missed. Morgan left that game in the first half with one of a series of concussions which plagued him throughout 2018. When he did Wigan continually attacked the space he had left down the right edge of Saints defence. It was a key to a result which further highlighted Saints vulnerability to others. By the time Warrington edged Justin Holbrook's men in the semi-final it barely qualified as a surprise.
Morgan probably won't pull up too many trees in London. He's not a difference maker by himself and you probably won't find him topping the try-scoring charts in 2019. The Broncos could struggle and if they do there will be those who will use that to support the belief that Morgan isn't good enough for a Super League contender like Saints. But I can't help but think that Holbrook's side would be in a stronger position to contend with Morgan than without him.
What's The (Golden) Point?
If you surveyed rugby league fans who have been watching the game for any length of time you would probably find that the vast majority agree that the on-field product needed a shake-up. Nowhere outside the Sky Sports commentary box is the game still considered the spectacle that it was perhaps 10 or 15 years ago. We’re waking up from a slumber. At a certain point rugby league decided it was the most entertaining sport in the world and began resting lazily upon its laurels. It became perceived wisdom that the game was the most entertaining of any sport around, something we just told ourselves without ever looking inward and asking ‘are we really all that?’
Yet the need to win in the professional era had stealthily brought about a change in approach. Teams were winning ugly, five-drives-and-a-kick-ing their way to the playoffs and Grand Final. Defensively cynicism had also crept in, with the ability to wrestle valued at least alongside if not above the ability to tackle. Now, with Super League having gained some direction with the appointment of Robert Elstone as CEO, it is setting about addressing some of these issues with the announcement of at least one rule change, with more set to be ratified by the clubs in due course.
Let’s be clear, we are talking about the way the game is played here, the aesthetic value of it to the viewer. There is nothing too much wrong with it from a competitive standpoint even if the 2018 regular season was largely dominated by Saints and the identity of the top four playoff teams was revealed weeks before the Super 8s met its end. Generally in recent years the salary cap has evened out the competition, even if it has done so by dragging down the standards of the top clubs rather than raising those of the bottom clubs. Now any game can be won by either team involved on any given day in Super League. The cream generally rises to the top come the business end of the season but largely results are unpredictable. An influx of some surprisingly high quality NRL talent looks set to make 2019 even more competitive with most clubs making significant recruitment moves. It’s how we arrive at that unpredictability, the journey from minute one to 80, that needs further examination.
So in their wisdom, to try to manufacture a little more excitement to proceedings the Super League’s first measure is to introduce Golden Point extra time for drawn games. From 2019 if the scores are level at the end of 80 minutes of any Super League regular season game there will be two five-minute periods of extra time played, with the first team to score any point be it a drop-goal, penalty goal or try declared the winner. If at the end of the two five-minute periods the scores are still level the game will be declared a draw and the teams will receive one point each.
It’s interesting that the decision to introduce Golden Point, which has been in use in the NRL since 2003, comes at a time when Super League has also decided to automatically relegate the team that finishes bottom of the table at the end of the season. It is possible that a club could be relegated having lost a vital point during the extra period. A point that they had worked hard for 80 minutes for and which previously would have been a fair reward for their efforts. It has been suggested that teams keep their point for drawn games and play for an extra one in the Golden Point period, but doesn’t that afford an opportunity to a team to win a game that over 80 minutes they haven’t justified with their performance? Why should that team get more time to find a winning play? Just as it might be unfair to take a point away from a team after 80 minutes, so it might be to allow extra time to secure a second. Only four games were drawn in all of Super League last season so admittedly the odds are long on Golden Point being required in a game and perhaps even longer on it influencing the relegation issue or even a playoff issue should that extra point see a side jump from say sixth to fifth, but it is fair to run that risk?
If the risk seems unfair the rules around Golden Point within the context of a single game also seem a bit squiffy. As things stand and unless Super League make a subsequent announcement to suggest otherwise, the team receiving the ball from the extra-time kick-off must have a significant advantage. They only need to gain around 50 metres from their set of six to get close enough to have a shot at the drop-goal and should they make it there will be no opportunity for the other team to respond. The NFL amended their system in 2012 so that both teams have at least one possession in the extra period unless one side or the other scores a touchdown. If we must go down the Golden Point route then this seems a fairer approach. If a team is good enough to receive the opening kick-off and go all the way down the field for a try in their first set then maybe you say well done and accept the result. Maybe. But if all they have done is plod their way downfield for a drop-goal it doesn’t convince you that they have proved themselves superior on the day.
Does Golden Point add to the spectacle in any case? Currently the system is only in place in the UK for knockout games in either the Super League playoffs, Grand Final or the Challenge Cup. That is logistically sensible because replays are impossible given the already packed schedule and the issues around player welfare. And in that scenario it does add excitement as fans destroy their fingernails and use up every ounce of good will from whatever God they worship to try to will their team through to the next stage of a competition. But I’d argue that it adds nothing to the aesthetic beauty of the game. Fully aware that the easiest way to register the winning point is a drop-goal, teams spend all of extra-time methodically trundling their way down the field to set up the position for the one-pointer. And that after in all likelihood spending the final 10 minutes of normal time in a similar mode as they attempt to break the tie that has them heading to extra time in the first place. The game becomes a risk-free drop-goal contest with little or no room for any expansive rugby. Largely, it becomes rugby union.
Another issue for many fans will be the length of time added to the game. Kick-offs for televised matches were brought forward 15 minutes for 2018 because of complaints from fans and media that they were finishing too late. I’ve always felt this a lame excuse for excluding rugby league from newspapers given that football matches played at similar times always seem to find their way into every printed edition. In these times of electronic communication it should not be a stretch to be able to include a report on a rugby league game that finishes after 10pm. But to add more time to the game with a period of extra-time only gives the media another reason to ignore the game and justify it to themselves. The reasons why our game cannot afford that need no explanation. As for fans, I recall getting home after midnight from Huddersfield for a non-televised game on a Friday night last season. Add in countless video replays and the extra time reserved for a few more adverts for televised games and it is easy to see how an extra 10 minutes of drop-goal attempts could add to the frustration of fans who more and more now complain that the game is dragged out too much. Especially if they have an invariably closed M62 to negotiate on a Thursday or Friday night once the game is finally done and dusted.
I’ve heard it said that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with the relatively piffling matter of Golden Point, and that the game has bigger issues that it needs to deal with. I wouldn’t disagree that the game has bigger problems, but if we take the view that we shouldn't debate the smaller ones until we have solved the bigger ones then we shouldn’t debate anything including Brexit, gun crime and climate change because let’s face it we are all going to die anyway. It’s a nihilistic, nonsense argument the logical conclusion of which is anarchy and chaos. Clown shoes to be worn by every goalkicker? Why not, there’s bigger issues. One player to be given a golden shirt and be awarded 20 points for every try he scores? Sure, there’s bigger issues. It’s far-fetched but if you give Super League’s rule makers an inch they might take the proverbial mile.
To redress the balance some of the proposed but strangely as yet unannounced changes that Super League plans to make are more agreeable. A reduction in interchanges from 10 to eight is controversial for those who worry about player welfare, but there is every reason to believe that if players have to play longer minutes the game should open up as bodies tire earlier. Two fewer changes may also make coaches think about them a little more than they do now. Substitutions have become fairly formulaic with fewer coaches showing an ability to make a tactical change to really influence a game in recent times. Who knows, we may see more coaches employ Justin Holbrook’s favoured approach of naming a back on the bench rather than the bog-standard four forwards that have been the norm since Bull Mania. Interestingly, Holbrook abandoned that approach in key games against Wigan and Warrington at the back end of last season and it arguably proved costly.
Other measures are aimed at speeding the game up but seem entirely at odds with the introduction of Golden Point. It is proposed that a ‘shot clock’ is introduced at scrums and drop-outs to limit the amount of time spent with the ball dead and so reduce time-wasting. Scrums have increasingly become an opportunity for a breather and a chat about the weather, while almost every single drop-out seems to cause at least one player from the defending team to develop an injury requiring urgent attention. I’m less sold on the idea of allowing 100 seconds for conversions, partly because I think we are all still a bit confused about what this means. Are we talking about the game clock or real time? Currently kickers are allowed 60 seconds to take their kick before the game clock is stopped. If we allow 100 are we not losing 40 seconds of ball-in-play time per kick? With an average of around eight attempts per game could we about to see another five minutes of that ball-in-play time disappear? If so how does that enhance the product?
It is encouraging to see Super League taking some action. It shows at least that they are starting to think about the on-field product and to shake off the complacency that had undoubtedly set in about the game’s appeal. I’m just not convinced they have got it right with Golden Point in particular, something which I will no doubt forget all about should Danny Richardson pop one over in the extra period of our first game at home to Wigan on January 31.
If you enjoy my rugby league ravings why not check out my thoughts on other sporting matters at www.stephenorford.blogspot.com
Yet the need to win in the professional era had stealthily brought about a change in approach. Teams were winning ugly, five-drives-and-a-kick-ing their way to the playoffs and Grand Final. Defensively cynicism had also crept in, with the ability to wrestle valued at least alongside if not above the ability to tackle. Now, with Super League having gained some direction with the appointment of Robert Elstone as CEO, it is setting about addressing some of these issues with the announcement of at least one rule change, with more set to be ratified by the clubs in due course.
Let’s be clear, we are talking about the way the game is played here, the aesthetic value of it to the viewer. There is nothing too much wrong with it from a competitive standpoint even if the 2018 regular season was largely dominated by Saints and the identity of the top four playoff teams was revealed weeks before the Super 8s met its end. Generally in recent years the salary cap has evened out the competition, even if it has done so by dragging down the standards of the top clubs rather than raising those of the bottom clubs. Now any game can be won by either team involved on any given day in Super League. The cream generally rises to the top come the business end of the season but largely results are unpredictable. An influx of some surprisingly high quality NRL talent looks set to make 2019 even more competitive with most clubs making significant recruitment moves. It’s how we arrive at that unpredictability, the journey from minute one to 80, that needs further examination.
So in their wisdom, to try to manufacture a little more excitement to proceedings the Super League’s first measure is to introduce Golden Point extra time for drawn games. From 2019 if the scores are level at the end of 80 minutes of any Super League regular season game there will be two five-minute periods of extra time played, with the first team to score any point be it a drop-goal, penalty goal or try declared the winner. If at the end of the two five-minute periods the scores are still level the game will be declared a draw and the teams will receive one point each.
It’s interesting that the decision to introduce Golden Point, which has been in use in the NRL since 2003, comes at a time when Super League has also decided to automatically relegate the team that finishes bottom of the table at the end of the season. It is possible that a club could be relegated having lost a vital point during the extra period. A point that they had worked hard for 80 minutes for and which previously would have been a fair reward for their efforts. It has been suggested that teams keep their point for drawn games and play for an extra one in the Golden Point period, but doesn’t that afford an opportunity to a team to win a game that over 80 minutes they haven’t justified with their performance? Why should that team get more time to find a winning play? Just as it might be unfair to take a point away from a team after 80 minutes, so it might be to allow extra time to secure a second. Only four games were drawn in all of Super League last season so admittedly the odds are long on Golden Point being required in a game and perhaps even longer on it influencing the relegation issue or even a playoff issue should that extra point see a side jump from say sixth to fifth, but it is fair to run that risk?
If the risk seems unfair the rules around Golden Point within the context of a single game also seem a bit squiffy. As things stand and unless Super League make a subsequent announcement to suggest otherwise, the team receiving the ball from the extra-time kick-off must have a significant advantage. They only need to gain around 50 metres from their set of six to get close enough to have a shot at the drop-goal and should they make it there will be no opportunity for the other team to respond. The NFL amended their system in 2012 so that both teams have at least one possession in the extra period unless one side or the other scores a touchdown. If we must go down the Golden Point route then this seems a fairer approach. If a team is good enough to receive the opening kick-off and go all the way down the field for a try in their first set then maybe you say well done and accept the result. Maybe. But if all they have done is plod their way downfield for a drop-goal it doesn’t convince you that they have proved themselves superior on the day.
Does Golden Point add to the spectacle in any case? Currently the system is only in place in the UK for knockout games in either the Super League playoffs, Grand Final or the Challenge Cup. That is logistically sensible because replays are impossible given the already packed schedule and the issues around player welfare. And in that scenario it does add excitement as fans destroy their fingernails and use up every ounce of good will from whatever God they worship to try to will their team through to the next stage of a competition. But I’d argue that it adds nothing to the aesthetic beauty of the game. Fully aware that the easiest way to register the winning point is a drop-goal, teams spend all of extra-time methodically trundling their way down the field to set up the position for the one-pointer. And that after in all likelihood spending the final 10 minutes of normal time in a similar mode as they attempt to break the tie that has them heading to extra time in the first place. The game becomes a risk-free drop-goal contest with little or no room for any expansive rugby. Largely, it becomes rugby union.
Another issue for many fans will be the length of time added to the game. Kick-offs for televised matches were brought forward 15 minutes for 2018 because of complaints from fans and media that they were finishing too late. I’ve always felt this a lame excuse for excluding rugby league from newspapers given that football matches played at similar times always seem to find their way into every printed edition. In these times of electronic communication it should not be a stretch to be able to include a report on a rugby league game that finishes after 10pm. But to add more time to the game with a period of extra-time only gives the media another reason to ignore the game and justify it to themselves. The reasons why our game cannot afford that need no explanation. As for fans, I recall getting home after midnight from Huddersfield for a non-televised game on a Friday night last season. Add in countless video replays and the extra time reserved for a few more adverts for televised games and it is easy to see how an extra 10 minutes of drop-goal attempts could add to the frustration of fans who more and more now complain that the game is dragged out too much. Especially if they have an invariably closed M62 to negotiate on a Thursday or Friday night once the game is finally done and dusted.
I’ve heard it said that we shouldn’t concern ourselves with the relatively piffling matter of Golden Point, and that the game has bigger issues that it needs to deal with. I wouldn’t disagree that the game has bigger problems, but if we take the view that we shouldn't debate the smaller ones until we have solved the bigger ones then we shouldn’t debate anything including Brexit, gun crime and climate change because let’s face it we are all going to die anyway. It’s a nihilistic, nonsense argument the logical conclusion of which is anarchy and chaos. Clown shoes to be worn by every goalkicker? Why not, there’s bigger issues. One player to be given a golden shirt and be awarded 20 points for every try he scores? Sure, there’s bigger issues. It’s far-fetched but if you give Super League’s rule makers an inch they might take the proverbial mile.
To redress the balance some of the proposed but strangely as yet unannounced changes that Super League plans to make are more agreeable. A reduction in interchanges from 10 to eight is controversial for those who worry about player welfare, but there is every reason to believe that if players have to play longer minutes the game should open up as bodies tire earlier. Two fewer changes may also make coaches think about them a little more than they do now. Substitutions have become fairly formulaic with fewer coaches showing an ability to make a tactical change to really influence a game in recent times. Who knows, we may see more coaches employ Justin Holbrook’s favoured approach of naming a back on the bench rather than the bog-standard four forwards that have been the norm since Bull Mania. Interestingly, Holbrook abandoned that approach in key games against Wigan and Warrington at the back end of last season and it arguably proved costly.
Other measures are aimed at speeding the game up but seem entirely at odds with the introduction of Golden Point. It is proposed that a ‘shot clock’ is introduced at scrums and drop-outs to limit the amount of time spent with the ball dead and so reduce time-wasting. Scrums have increasingly become an opportunity for a breather and a chat about the weather, while almost every single drop-out seems to cause at least one player from the defending team to develop an injury requiring urgent attention. I’m less sold on the idea of allowing 100 seconds for conversions, partly because I think we are all still a bit confused about what this means. Are we talking about the game clock or real time? Currently kickers are allowed 60 seconds to take their kick before the game clock is stopped. If we allow 100 are we not losing 40 seconds of ball-in-play time per kick? With an average of around eight attempts per game could we about to see another five minutes of that ball-in-play time disappear? If so how does that enhance the product?
It is encouraging to see Super League taking some action. It shows at least that they are starting to think about the on-field product and to shake off the complacency that had undoubtedly set in about the game’s appeal. I’m just not convinced they have got it right with Golden Point in particular, something which I will no doubt forget all about should Danny Richardson pop one over in the extra period of our first game at home to Wigan on January 31.
If you enjoy my rugby league ravings why not check out my thoughts on other sporting matters at www.stephenorford.blogspot.com
Golden Tries - Ade Gardner v Brisbane Broncos 2007
The news was announced this week that Ade Gardner will be leaving Saints to join Warrington as Head Of Performance. His move to Cheshire ends a 16-year association with Saints as both a player and a member of the coaching staff. To mark the occasion, That Saints Blog You Quite Like looks back on what is arguably Ade's finest hour in a Saints shirt, the two tries he scored in Saints 2007 World Club Challenge victory over Brisbane Broncos.
On February 8 2007 a Saints side which had won everything bar the varsity boat race in 2006, even carrying off the Team Of The Year award at the notoriously anti-league BBC’s Sports Review Of The Year, lost 14-6 at home to Harlequins. They followed that by visiting Wakefield 10 days later and contriving to lose 29-22. As they trudged off the Belle Vue turf they did not look like a side five days away from being crowned world champions for a second time.
Current England coach and media schmoozer Wayne Bennett brought his Brisbane Broncos side to Bolton to face Saints in the World Club Challenge on February 23. They had earned the right by beating Melbourne Storm 15-8 in the 2006 NRL Grand Final. Their team featured Australian Test superstars Darren Lockyer, Petero Civoniceva and Sam Thaiday. Brad Thorn was a dual code, dual nationality test player, Australian when he played rugby league and a New Zealander when he played rugby union. Shane Webcke had retired after the victory over Melbourne but in Dane Carlaw they had a replacement who had played six times for Australia. There was quality right through this Broncos side. There was also Steve Michaels, latterly of Hull FC but at that time a fresh-faced 20-year-old who had not featured in the NRL Grand Final win a few months previously.
So losing to two sides who would finish eighth and ninth in Super League by the end of the year was not the ideal preparation for facing the best side in the NRL. Yet Saints had previous where Brisbane were concerned. Six years earlier, Ian Millward’s side found themselves two scores down at the same venue, Bolton’s Reebok Stadium as it was known then, before a combination of a snow-storm and a quite possessed David Fairleigh helped haul Saints back into the game to cap a 20-18 victory with drop-goals from Paul Sculthorpe and Sean Long. Fairleigh was not in the Saints side of 2007, but they did have Jason Cayless and a 21-year-old James Graham among their pack options. And crucially they still had both Sculthorpe and Long, the latter by now skippering the side.
Had this been your average league game you might describe Ade Gardner’s performance as mixed. Yet this was no ordinary game and so it is Gardner’s last, game-winning contribution for which his night is remembered. Gardner scored 167 tries in 281 appearances for Saints between 2002-2014 but none were as vital as this late effort which sealed the world crown. It was his second try of the match, having earlier taken Matt Gidley’s pass and stepped inside Darius Boyd to get Saints on the board. Yet his night had started terribly as he flapped at Lockyer’s early searching bomb. Making Nathan Graham look like Steve Hampson, Gardner spilled the ball as it dropped from the Lancashire sky and allowed Corey Parker to touch down for the opening score of the game.
Despite Gardner’s first try the visitors still had the edge, leading 8-6 thanks to a Parker penalty. In the second half they built on that and on Gardner’s insecurities, Lockyer going full Bobbie Goulding as he launched another towering kick towards the right hand side of Saints defence. Again Gardner hesitated, allowing Boyd to nip in and gather the ball and ground it for the Broncos second try of the night. It gave them a 12-6 half-time lead. And didn’t Bennett look smug about it? Every close up of the legendary schemer’s face betrayed the thoughts of a man fit to burst with pleasure at the thought of boring everyone to death on his way to what he must have felt would be another landmark victory.
The Grind was becoming The Thing in rugby league. It arguably still is, certainly for Bennett who continues to five-drives-and-a-kick his way to success. Plus the odd nilling in a World Cup final. Yet Bennet was about to be hoist with his own petard. Whatever a petard is. The Broncos were not the only side to have mastered a more conservative, risk-averse style of play. Saints under Daniel Anderson were so much better than anyone else in Super League (whatever their appalling Grand Final results against Leeds Rhinos suggest) that their style of play is often overlooked. With a young James Roby only good enough to be an understudy to a head-banded and still strikingly brilliant Keiron Cunningham at hooker, Saints had a twin threat from dummy half unlike any other seen before perhaps anywhere in the rugby league world. The pair of them scooted their way through sleeping marker defenders with ridiculous ease at times. It was hugely enjoyable in as far as it invariably helped Saints marmalise the opposition, but it had less of an aesthetic pleasure than the approach adopted by Millward’s Wide-To-West-ing mavericks of the early 2000s.
Yet few of a red vee persuasion cared this night as Cunningham engineered the try that got Saints back into the game. Close to the line Cunningham chose not to scoot this time, but instead found Sculthorpe with a pass timed just well enough to get him on the outside of his defender and exploit the merest of gaps in the Broncos defensive line. Sculthorpe’s effort brought Saints back level at 12-12, but another Parker penalty put the Australian side back in front at 14-12. And so to the hoisting of Bennett on that petard.
Willie Talau had gained ground down the Saints left flank but been hauled down just inside the Broncos 20-metre line. Francis Meli stepped in at dummy half. Who knows what Cunningham or Roby were doing. Perhaps Keiron was adjusting that headband. In their stead, Meli flipped the ball out to the waiting Long who took a couple of steps before sending what used to be known as an up and under sailing above Boyd on the left side of the Brisbane defence. Which was also an area of the field patrolled by Gardner. Having the run on the waiting Boyd, Gardner surged forward and leapt like Michael Jordan on a trampoline, taking the ball and grounding it in one glorious movement. Boyd and Brent Tate were left floundering on the floor as memories of Gardner’s earlier fallibility under the high ball were erased. The Grind had born fruit, the cross-field kicks which had been such a weapon for the Broncos during the game had also brought about their undoing.
It was arguably the high point of a season which ended with the first of what would turn out to be five successive Grand Final defeats. Despite winning the League Leaders Shield with 19 wins from their 27 league games Saints were thrashed 33-6 by the Rhinos in the pouring rain in October. Tony Smith’s side scored five tries to just the one Roby reply for Saints. And all that just two weeks after Saints had edged a tense Qualifying semi-final between the two 10-8 at Knowsley Road. Anderson’s side just couldn’t do it in Grand Finals. It was a trend which continued through the shorter coaching tenures of both Mick Potter and Royce Simmonds but thankfully brought to a shuddering halt by Nathan Brown’s class of 2014.
Despite their Grand Final woes nothing could detract from the fact that the 2007 Saints side were World Champions. Defeat to the Rhinos meant that Saints would not get to defend that crown and their only appearance since is a fairly humiliating 39-0 hammering by South Sydney Rabbitohs at Langtree Park in 2015. But the 2007 Saints, grind or no grind, where as good as anything on the rugby league planet at that time.
Except maybe Harlequins and Wakefield.
On February 8 2007 a Saints side which had won everything bar the varsity boat race in 2006, even carrying off the Team Of The Year award at the notoriously anti-league BBC’s Sports Review Of The Year, lost 14-6 at home to Harlequins. They followed that by visiting Wakefield 10 days later and contriving to lose 29-22. As they trudged off the Belle Vue turf they did not look like a side five days away from being crowned world champions for a second time.
Current England coach and media schmoozer Wayne Bennett brought his Brisbane Broncos side to Bolton to face Saints in the World Club Challenge on February 23. They had earned the right by beating Melbourne Storm 15-8 in the 2006 NRL Grand Final. Their team featured Australian Test superstars Darren Lockyer, Petero Civoniceva and Sam Thaiday. Brad Thorn was a dual code, dual nationality test player, Australian when he played rugby league and a New Zealander when he played rugby union. Shane Webcke had retired after the victory over Melbourne but in Dane Carlaw they had a replacement who had played six times for Australia. There was quality right through this Broncos side. There was also Steve Michaels, latterly of Hull FC but at that time a fresh-faced 20-year-old who had not featured in the NRL Grand Final win a few months previously.
So losing to two sides who would finish eighth and ninth in Super League by the end of the year was not the ideal preparation for facing the best side in the NRL. Yet Saints had previous where Brisbane were concerned. Six years earlier, Ian Millward’s side found themselves two scores down at the same venue, Bolton’s Reebok Stadium as it was known then, before a combination of a snow-storm and a quite possessed David Fairleigh helped haul Saints back into the game to cap a 20-18 victory with drop-goals from Paul Sculthorpe and Sean Long. Fairleigh was not in the Saints side of 2007, but they did have Jason Cayless and a 21-year-old James Graham among their pack options. And crucially they still had both Sculthorpe and Long, the latter by now skippering the side.
Had this been your average league game you might describe Ade Gardner’s performance as mixed. Yet this was no ordinary game and so it is Gardner’s last, game-winning contribution for which his night is remembered. Gardner scored 167 tries in 281 appearances for Saints between 2002-2014 but none were as vital as this late effort which sealed the world crown. It was his second try of the match, having earlier taken Matt Gidley’s pass and stepped inside Darius Boyd to get Saints on the board. Yet his night had started terribly as he flapped at Lockyer’s early searching bomb. Making Nathan Graham look like Steve Hampson, Gardner spilled the ball as it dropped from the Lancashire sky and allowed Corey Parker to touch down for the opening score of the game.
Despite Gardner’s first try the visitors still had the edge, leading 8-6 thanks to a Parker penalty. In the second half they built on that and on Gardner’s insecurities, Lockyer going full Bobbie Goulding as he launched another towering kick towards the right hand side of Saints defence. Again Gardner hesitated, allowing Boyd to nip in and gather the ball and ground it for the Broncos second try of the night. It gave them a 12-6 half-time lead. And didn’t Bennett look smug about it? Every close up of the legendary schemer’s face betrayed the thoughts of a man fit to burst with pleasure at the thought of boring everyone to death on his way to what he must have felt would be another landmark victory.
The Grind was becoming The Thing in rugby league. It arguably still is, certainly for Bennett who continues to five-drives-and-a-kick his way to success. Plus the odd nilling in a World Cup final. Yet Bennet was about to be hoist with his own petard. Whatever a petard is. The Broncos were not the only side to have mastered a more conservative, risk-averse style of play. Saints under Daniel Anderson were so much better than anyone else in Super League (whatever their appalling Grand Final results against Leeds Rhinos suggest) that their style of play is often overlooked. With a young James Roby only good enough to be an understudy to a head-banded and still strikingly brilliant Keiron Cunningham at hooker, Saints had a twin threat from dummy half unlike any other seen before perhaps anywhere in the rugby league world. The pair of them scooted their way through sleeping marker defenders with ridiculous ease at times. It was hugely enjoyable in as far as it invariably helped Saints marmalise the opposition, but it had less of an aesthetic pleasure than the approach adopted by Millward’s Wide-To-West-ing mavericks of the early 2000s.
Yet few of a red vee persuasion cared this night as Cunningham engineered the try that got Saints back into the game. Close to the line Cunningham chose not to scoot this time, but instead found Sculthorpe with a pass timed just well enough to get him on the outside of his defender and exploit the merest of gaps in the Broncos defensive line. Sculthorpe’s effort brought Saints back level at 12-12, but another Parker penalty put the Australian side back in front at 14-12. And so to the hoisting of Bennett on that petard.
Willie Talau had gained ground down the Saints left flank but been hauled down just inside the Broncos 20-metre line. Francis Meli stepped in at dummy half. Who knows what Cunningham or Roby were doing. Perhaps Keiron was adjusting that headband. In their stead, Meli flipped the ball out to the waiting Long who took a couple of steps before sending what used to be known as an up and under sailing above Boyd on the left side of the Brisbane defence. Which was also an area of the field patrolled by Gardner. Having the run on the waiting Boyd, Gardner surged forward and leapt like Michael Jordan on a trampoline, taking the ball and grounding it in one glorious movement. Boyd and Brent Tate were left floundering on the floor as memories of Gardner’s earlier fallibility under the high ball were erased. The Grind had born fruit, the cross-field kicks which had been such a weapon for the Broncos during the game had also brought about their undoing.
It was arguably the high point of a season which ended with the first of what would turn out to be five successive Grand Final defeats. Despite winning the League Leaders Shield with 19 wins from their 27 league games Saints were thrashed 33-6 by the Rhinos in the pouring rain in October. Tony Smith’s side scored five tries to just the one Roby reply for Saints. And all that just two weeks after Saints had edged a tense Qualifying semi-final between the two 10-8 at Knowsley Road. Anderson’s side just couldn’t do it in Grand Finals. It was a trend which continued through the shorter coaching tenures of both Mick Potter and Royce Simmonds but thankfully brought to a shuddering halt by Nathan Brown’s class of 2014.
Despite their Grand Final woes nothing could detract from the fact that the 2007 Saints side were World Champions. Defeat to the Rhinos meant that Saints would not get to defend that crown and their only appearance since is a fairly humiliating 39-0 hammering by South Sydney Rabbitohs at Langtree Park in 2015. But the 2007 Saints, grind or no grind, where as good as anything on the rugby league planet at that time.
Except maybe Harlequins and Wakefield.
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