5 Talking Points From Saints 50 Catalans Dragons 14

Saints Show Squad Depth

We were expecting changes for this one. Mark Percival, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Luke Thompson were already ruled out with injuries while Morgan Knowles had picked up a one-match ban for a challenge on Albert Kelly in the Easter Monday drubbing of Hull FC. When Justin Holbrook named his 19-man squad for the visit of Catalans Dragons the names of James Roby and Tommy Makinson were also missing. There was no mention of any of the ‘slight niggles’ that have plagued Roby since we ran out of steam at the end of the 2018 campaign, so the assumption was that the England hooker was merely being rested for the battles ahead. Makinson had left the field early in the Hull game with back spasms and his exclusion was no real surprise either.

All of that was just about manageable, but when the match day 17 was announced on Sunday there were one or two other nasty surprises awaiting the Saints fans. Neither Lachlan Coote nor Jonny Lomax would be on deck for the visit of Steve McNamara’s side. Both had been nigh on unplayable in the 62-16 peppering of the black and whites. Add those in to the lack of a first choice winger, centre, stand-off, prop, hooker and loose forward and you are down to what Harry Redknapp used to refer to as ‘the bare bones’ before he went out and signed four Lithuanian left-backs on deadline day. The only good news was that Theo Fages returned from the hip injury which had kept him out of the last clash with the Dragons as well as the meetings with Warrington, Wigan and Hull FC.

For Saints to rack up 50 points in the face of this kind of adversity is nothing short of miraculous. Jack Welsby played as if he has played 100 games at fullback in relief of Coote, while Adam Swift has come into the side and scored four tries in two games on the right wing. Matty Costello stepped into Percival’s shoes and grabbed a hat-trick, while stand-in hooker Aaron Smith also crossed for a try as he walked away with sponsors man of the match honours. Matty Lees is a little more experienced now but he continued his development with another start in place of Thompson. A game which had threatened to be a real test of a decimated Saints squad turned out to be a stroll in the sunshine.

Burying The Bogey

Aside from the somewhat scratch side that Holbrook was able to field this week another reason to be wary was Saints’ recent record against the French side. The Dragons are still the only side to beat Saints in 2019 following their 18-10 win in Perpignan three weeks ago. And who can forget the Challenge Cup semi-final of last year when Catalans blew Saints away in the first half to lead by a chilling, Wembley-1989-evoking 27-0 at the break before completing a 35-16 victory? There is something about the Dragons that hasn’t agreed with Saints in recent times.

There wasn’t much of that in evidence yesterday. After going behind early to a Brayden Williame try Saints dominated proceedings. It really was, to wipe myself down with the towel of cliché, champagne stuff at times. Saints scored nine tries, many of which were the product of flowing passing moves and bewildering breaks and offloads. Swift’s twists and turns down the right touchline before setting up Dominique Peyroux for his try was quite the sight to behold.

The Dragons can be dismal travellers and they showed it again here. They lacked the stomach for it when it got difficult and the end result was that a Saints side featuring eight academy graduates (five more were among the list of absentees) cut through them time and time again. It was embarrassing for Catalans and leaves you scratching your head as to how this rag-tag mob ever caused Saints a problem in the last 12 months. It’s always difficult backing up over Easter and so perhaps the fact that Saints had so many fresh faces in the side was a help to them rather than a hindrance. As well as the starters already mentioned Joe Batchelor, Kyle Amor, James Bentley and Jack Ashworth made up the bench. None of those have featured all that heavily this season so far, with Amor in particular having one of his best games to the tune of 131 metres on 16 carries in a cracking little cameo.

Zeb, Zeb, Zeb…..

All Hail Zeb Taia. What a marvellous and under-appreciated player this guy is. Often accused of being lazy because of his languid style and, admittedly, perhaps because of his less than endearing habit of losing concentration when handling the softest lollipop passes imaginable, Taia doesn’t get 5% of the credit he deserves. Even his errors are endearing to me. What could be more Saintsy than a wide-running forward who creates tries, scores tries, and occasionally drops balls that a five-year-old would expect to pouch? We have built our identity on these sorts of players, certainly during my time growing up watching men like George Mann, Derek McVey, Sonny Nickle and Vila Mata’utia.

Taia’s stat-line in this one is nothing short of incredible. He had two assists, one try, 144 metres, 27 tackles, no misses, nine tackle busts, 3 clean breaks and 4 offloads. So roughly the same stats as Morgan Knowles and Joseph Paulo have managed between them during this whole season. Costello’s hat-trick was basically gift-wrapped by Taia. The former Dragon is a proper player and we should star to appreciate him a little bit more. Taia turns 35 at the end of this season so we may not have him around for much longer. That’s ok with the likes of Bentley and Batchelor coming through behind him but my head is still spinning from the social media discussion last week which centred around whether or not we should bring back Joe Greenwood from Wigan. Apparently poor old Joe, who would be unhappy if he fell into a barrel of tits, is unhappy at Wigan. To be fair who wouldn’t be unhappy at bloody Wigan? They’re a shit show. But if you ask me Saints did very well out of the Greenwood/Taia deal.

There will be those who say that this performance is not typical of Taia and that it might have been a one-off. It’s probably fair to say that he won’t score a try, make two assists, three clean breaks and four offloads in every game but that isn’t to say that he doesn’t normally contribute. Perhaps he too read the social media guff about Greenwood last week and felt motivated to remind the Saints fans why he ended up here in the first place. The man is out and out quality, still one of the better second row forwards in the league and massively out-performing Sulky Joe.

Sundays – Yes Or No?

The more perceptive among you will have noticed that this week’s game took place on a Sunday. With all teams in action on Easter Monday there were no Thursday or Friday night games taking place this week, so Saints took the opportunity to try out another Sunday afternoon fixture. Happily the weather co-operated with sunshine throughout even if I did see a brass monkey looking for a welder on the North Stand platform. Over 11,000 were on hand to witness Saints’ destruction of the Dragons so could this become a more regular thing?

Well, that 11,000 figure is always going to be the subject of some debate. I spent a long and laborious evening yesterday ‘debating’ on Twitter with pro-expansionists about the validity of Toronto’s claims to have attracted over 9,000 for their first home game of the season against Swinton. Quite why they are playing their first home game at the end of April is something that would require its own blog, but regardless the figure is undeniably impressive. The problem is that there have been accusations that some fans might not have paid exactly face value for their tickets, which as a long-term strategy is up there with offering a referendum on the EU and then working out how you are going to implement it three years later.

Saints would not have been expecting hordes of French fans to make the journey over to support the Dragons. And why would they? Conventional wisdom now is that the game does not need away fans. It needs teams in exotic cities that nobody can afford to travel to. Away support. Pah, tish and pish to it. So anyway to combat the obvious shortfall in numbers expected from France Saints implemented a scheme aimed at getting community club members in to see their local professional outfit. Tickets were sold at £10 for adults and £5 for children through the local amateur clubs. Half of that money went back into those community clubs, which helps the game throughout not just the town but the whole country. This resulted in a crowd that was something in the region of 2,000 higher than what might otherwise be expected for a Dragons game. Congratulations to everyone involved, so long as they remember that this is no more a long term strategy for Saints than it is for Toronto or anyone else.

Where Is Luke Douglas?

With so many players missing you might have thought that Luke Douglas would be in the reckoning for at least a place on the bench this week. He missed the 19-man list named by Holbrook before the game but we have seen before how that can sometimes not be worth the i-phone it is mashed out on. Many a That Saints Blog You Quite Like preview has been ruined by the smart-arsed-ness of the wild beast that is the Super League coach.

Yet even when Holbrook made further changes to what we expected would be his plans for the Dragons game there was no sign of the former Gold Coast Titan. Douglas was sent on loan to Leigh Centurions at the start of the season. An initial month-long loan deal seemed to make some sense at the time. He was down the pecking order with Walmsley and Thompson the two best front rowers anywhere in Chrissendon, Ashworth and Lees performing admirably in behind those two and even Amor remembering how to punch a hole in the proverbial paper bag without first falling into it. And if that wasn’t enough we had King Louie, his own unique brand of enthusiasm just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting rival crowd. Only two of those six missed the Catalans game as it turned out but when Douglas sees that Holbrook would rather go with two second rowers on the bench (Batchelor and Bentley) ahead of him he must come to the conclusion that his time as a Saint is all but up. He has made no secret of the fact that he intends to head back home to Australia at the end of this season but if he has played his last game for the club then why wait? Other clubs are releasing players now to allow them to make moves for the future. Are we not just wasting time in keeping up the pretence that the Scottish international has a chance of playing for Saints again that is larger than say…..the chances of me riding the winner in next year’s Grand National? That’s not going to happen and not only because I’m five foot nothing with all the balance of a Daily Mail argument on immigration. I also happen to be ideologically opposed to the fucking Grand National. You'll find I'm ideologically opposed to most things.

Anyway, I digress. I just can’t imagine a scenario where Douglas comes back into the reckoning, and that feeling has only been strengthened by the fantastic performances of all our pack players in this one. There have been calls on social media for Danny Richardson to be ‘sent back to Leigh’, although they will have been quietened by the halfback’s excellent performance here, but nobody has ever questioned what Luke Douglas is doing knocking around St Helens. Maybe we are keeping him as a sweetener to Leigh who would not be able to borrow him on dual registration where we to release him. I just hope that isn’t a decision that costs us when it comes to our recruitment for next year as other try to steal a march on us.