Nine weeks on from that 18-13 defeat to a Warrington side we all knew full well would bottle it against Wigan in the big one the wait for that title now feels interminable. So to numb the pain of it just that little bit before Wigan come to town for the first match of our 2019 campaign on January 31 let’s look back on our last success and in particular, one glorious moment from it.
In 2014 Nathan Brown was entering his second and what would turn out to be his final season as Head Coach at Saints. His first had been a difficult one, Saints finishing fifth in the table before crashing out in the second round of what was then a gruelling four-week playoff series by just a single point to Leeds Rhinos. If that system seemed taxing, the powers that be compounded the problems by expanding the number of playoff teams to eight for 2014 and declaring that the highest ranked winner from the first week of the playoffs would then be able to select its semi-final opponent after a week off. ‘Club Cal’l they called it, which evoked memories of premium rate phone-lines specifically set up to rip off football fans desperate for news about their team in the days before the internet. So even the name wasn’t new. They called it innovative. On a scale of one to ten it was batshit crazy.
To boost his squad Brown had brought in scrum-half Luke Walsh from Penrith Panthers. The same club provided Mose Masoe, a giant of a prop-forward with equally mountainous hair. Mose became a cult hero with some fans on the basis that he wasn’t frightened of Micky McIlorum, but his all-around contribution was questionable. There were times when he would have five minute stints in which he would not carry the ball once, almost as if he had been thrown in there to intimidate but not actually be used, the nuclear deterrent of rugby league. More promising was Kyle Amor, brought in on a four-year deal from Wakefield Trinity Wildcats after starting out at Leeds Rhinos. Matty Dawson was a three-quarter who had worked with Brown before at Huddersfield Giants while Richard Beaumont represented something of a gamble from Hull KR. The then 26-year-old prop had played for Rovers in Super League in 2011 but ended up on loan to Gateshead in 2013 from where he joined Saints. He never made a first team appearance for the Red Vee.
Six players left Saints ahead of the 2014 season, with once-prolific if accident prone three-quarter Francis Meli joining Salford along with prop/second row Tony Puletua, while locally-produced halfback Lee Gaskell found his way to Bradford. Josh Perry, who had joined Saints with a big reputation as a one-time State Of Origin and Australian Test forward, retired after a string of injuries limited him to 44 underwhelming appearances in three seasons. Youngsters Dom Speakman and Nathan Ashe also headed for the exit before the opening game of the 2014 campaign at Warrington on February 13.
Walsh starred in that game, and it looked at last as though Saints had found a half who could adequately fill the boots of the great Sean Long. Walsh conducted the orchestra beautifully, scoring himself and kicking seven goals from seven attempts. Amor got a try on his Saints Super League debut and there were others for Adam Swift, Anthony Laffranchi, Tommy Makinson and James Roby. Warrington could only reply with a brace from Joel Monaghan as Saints ran out 38-8 winners at the Halliwell Jones Stadium. They had laid down a marker.
Their good form continued as they won their first eight league games and knocked Huddersfield out of the Challenge Cup at the John Smith’s Stadium thanks to a Walsh drop-goal. Defeat was only tasted on Good Friday when a Sam Tomkins-led Wigan came to Langtree Park and left with a 33-14 triumph. It was the first of three defeats in a row as the ship began to list a little. The third loss in that run saw them ousted from the Challenge Cup by Leeds Rhinos, going down 32-12 at Headingley. Brown was having trouble finding a suitable halfback partner for Walsh, pressing Jon Wilkin into action there having lost Gary Wheeler through injury. He’d also tried Paul Wellens who at 34 had been removed from his fullback position by Jonny Lomax. When Lomax wasn’t available Lance Hohaia took the berth, while the New Zealand World Cup-winner had also been among those who Brown had tried to pair up with Walsh in the halves.
Wins against the league’s whipping boys London and Bradford followed the Leeds defeat but there was other setback on May 18 when Saints travelled to Manchester’s Etihad Stadium for the Magic Weekend clash with Warrington. They were handed a 41-24 defeat by Tony Smith’s side. Monaghan scored twice more while Rhys Evans added a brace of his own to add to efforts from Ryan Atkins, Chris Hill, Gene Ormsby and Matty Russell. Dawson, Hohaia, Jordan Turner and Alex Walmsley crossed for Saints while Walsh kicked four goals. Yet by now Saints early season form had turned decidedly flakey. They were thrashed 42-0 by Catalans Dragons in Perpignan on June 14 and walloped 40-10 by Hull KR at KC Lightstream just three weeks later. A gentle run against Bradford, London and Widnes kept Brown’s side in the running for the League Leaders Shield and it was Castleford Tigers, rather than the traditional powerhouses of Wigan or Leeds who seemed to be offering the greatest challenge. However, that Widnes win came at a cost and would complicate Brown’s problems at halfback even further. Walsh suffered an horrific double ankle break which would keep him out of action until the following April. In fact he was never quite the player who had impressed so much in the early part of his first season at Saints. He always seemed reluctant to take on the line after the injury and though he stuck around until the end of the 2016 season he was moved on to Catalans Dragons before retiring a month before his 31st birthday. He had made only 32 appearances in two seasons for the Dragons.
Despite losing three of their last five regular season games against Hull FC, Warrington (again) and Huddersfield who gained revenge for that cup defeat by winning the league encounter by exactly the same score (17-16) the Walsh-less Saints limped over the line to collect the League Leaders Shield as Castleford failed to beat Catalans in their final game. The top four had been a close run affair to the extent that that loss meant that Castleford, the last team to be ruled out of the race for the Shield would end up finishing fourth and provide Saints first opponents in the playoff series.
Come play-off time Daryl Powell’s side were burned out. They were hammered 41-0 at Langtree Park. Saints scored seven unanswered tries with Roby grabbing a couple and Amor, Makinson, Masoe Swift and Turner also crossing. In Walsh’s absence Mark Percival had become the first choice goal-kicker and landed six shots as Saints ran out 41-0 winners. Castleford were a coming force but this was not quite their time.
Saints moved on to face the Dragons in the semi-final. The Dragons had scraped into the playoffs in seventh place having won 14 and lost 12 of their 27 regular season games with one draw. That a team with that kind of record found themselves in a semi-final shone a light on the folly of the system but they had beaten both Leeds and Huddersfield in the finals series to earn themselves a crack at the League Leaders. They held their own in the first half, trailing only 12-6 at the break but Saints ran out 30-12 winners despite the fact that their injury problems now meant that they were using former Wests and Wigan utility forward Mark Flanagan as a scrum-half. It would never work at Old Trafford, where defending champions Wigan sought a third title in four years.
Saints stuttering second half of 2014 had almost let Wigan in to steal the League Leaders Shield from their grasp. Shock defeats to Bradford and Widnes in the last month of the regular season kiboshed those ambitions for Shaun Wane’s men but they were coming into the Old Trafford Grand Final on the back of four consecutive wins. Leeds and Warrington had been their last two regular season victims as they fell just a point short of Saints at the top of the table, while a 57-4 shellacking of Huddersfield in the first play-off round was followed by a thrilling 16-12 semi-final win over Warrington at the DW Stadium. With Walsh, Wilkin, Lomax and of course Wheeler all injured a Wigan side containing Josh Charnley, Anthony Gelling, Joe Burgess, Blake Green, Matty Smith and Sean O’Loughlin were heavily fancied. Even if they did have to carry Eddie Pettybourne.
It took just two minutes for the bookmakers to start frantically adjusting the odds on the destination of the Super League trophy. As Wigan launched an early attack on the Saints line Green sent a crossfield bomb arching towards Tommy Makinson. The winger flapped at the ball and Wigan regained possession. It was still the last tackle and things became a little frantic, with Wigan looking to keep the ball alive. Behind the play Ben Flower and Hohaia clashed. Soon, all the players on both side were coming together in a bout of push and shove. Hohaia lay prostrate on the ground as the Saints physios attempted to tend to him. Watching from inside the ground but at the other end of the stadium I hadn’t seen what had transpired between Flower and Hohaia. The presence of big screen replays at rugby league is something I never tire of criticising, but it certainly added to the experience in this one. Along with the tens of thousands of other fans on both sides I watched open mouthed as the evidence showed not only that Flower had landed a knockout blow on Hohaia, but that he had then crouched down over his stricken victim and planted another hammer blow into his face. Hohaia was already unconscious. It was the most sickening thing I have seen on a sports field and led to red card and a six-month hiatus from the game for the Welsh forward. It should have been longer. He should never have played again. Six months sounds like a lot but this was the last game of the season and there would be nothing for another three or four months. In reality Flower missed 10 games, the most preposterous non-punishment since Harold Schumacher in ’82.
If the fans, who are hardly the best of friends anyway, were not up for it at the beginning the Flower/Hohaia incident lit the torch. The atmosphere was raucous, bordering on sinister the rest of the way. We felt a real injustice at the way we had lost one of the few players we still had who could play in the halves while they revelled in their shithousery. Even for Wigan the Flower crime was outrageous. Yet the Wigan fans surrounding my place in the stands had the temerity to cast Flower as the victim of the injustice. Hohaia had struck first, they protested, as if that warranted the reaction from Flower.
Our anger simmered when Wigan took the lead through Burgess. The ball was shifted to the left wing by Smith via Green before Burgess squeezed in at the left hand corner. There were only seconds to go to half-time and although Smith’s conversion failed it meant that the Warriors would go to the break with a 6-2 lead. Yet just 13 minutes into the second half Saints were back in it. Roby moved into his familiar dummy half position with Saints close to the line before feeding Sia Soliola who crashed through the defenders to score Saints first try of the night. Soliola was playing his last game for Saints after a five-year spell. He would be joining Canberra Raiders in the NRL for 2015 and beyond and had possibly handed Saints the ideal leaving gift.
Three minutes later, with Saints now leading 8-6 following Soliola’s score, Makinson made the first of two hugely telling contributions to proceedings. Liam Farrell made a powerful break on the left hand channel and was suddenly faced with only Makinson to beat. However, the man recently named 2018 Golden Boot winner, filling in at full-back after Wellens had switched to the halves to replace Hohaia, got his angles spot on before executing the perfect cover tackle on the England second rower. Even at that point, playing against 12-men and just ahead on the scoreboard, it felt like a defining moment in this Grand Final. Yet Makinson wasn’t finished with defining moments of this Grand Final.
Less than 12 minutes remained when Saints worked the ball to the right wing on the last tackle. The ball found Wellens who by now was popping up everywhere. In this instance he was out on the right edge. Not that his positioning at that moment caused him to forget any of his halfback skills. Wellens had burst into the Saints team as an 18-year-old halfback back in 1998 and showed that he had lost none of that game intelligence with a towering kick back across to the centre of the field but close to the Wigan line. Makinson soared above the Wigan defence, timing his leap to absolute perfection before clutching the ball out of the air and plonking it down over the line in one glorious, Wigan-repelling movement. The try sparked wild celebrations, including from certain members of the broadcasting crew who failed miserably to hide their allegiances. Percival’s conversion sewed up the win. There were only eight points between the sides but in a game this tight, and with one man less on the field, Wigan never really looked likely to get the two scores they needed in the time that remained. Smith had missed a relatively simple penalty shot earlier on which, had he landed it, might just have been the spur his side needed to push for another score to tie the game, but with a two-score deficit there was no way back. Saints were champions for the first time in eight years, almost wiping away the pain of five consecutive Grand Final defeats during that spell. Wellens fell to his knees in a mixture of joy, relief and fatigue. It would be his last title with Saints as he retired in 2015.
The hope is that it won’t be Makinson’s last with Saints. His performances with England in the Test series with New Zealand have not only earned him the Golden Boot but also alerted several NRL clubs to his presence. It is widely thought that he might fancy a crack at the Australian competition once his Saints contract runs out. If he does, we will be losing one of the finest wingers in the world, a man who crossed for 29 tries in that last title season of 2014. But we’ll always have the memory of his flight above the Wigan defence and the spectacular touchdown that followed.