5 Talking Points From Saints 36 Leeds Rhinos 10

The Sign Of A Champion Side

Despite a comfortable enough 36-10 win over Leeds Rhinos the general consensus was that Saints had under-performed. Following an early blitz when Saints went 12-0 up inside four minutes through tries from Kevin Naiqama and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook there were long periods of scrappiness from Justin Holbrook’s side. The Rhinos never really looked like winning but nor did Saints build on the promise of that early salvo. It took two more tries in a three-minute spell at the end by James Bentley and McCarthy-Scarsbrook to put a little gloss on what was a fairly ugly win at times.

Saints came up with 20 errors on the night with Alex Walmsley and Aaron Smith the main culprits with three each. Leeds added 16 of their own making for a bitty, stop-start affair. That was probably more to the liking of Richard Agar’s men who coming in had been expected to struggle given the way their season has gone so far. They have won just 6 of their 18 league encounters in 2019 and find themselves in a real battle to avoid relegation. To that end they may take a lot of positives from the way they managed to frustrate the league leaders for large parts of the game.

For Saints there shouldn’t be too much concern. They registered their second consecutive win since going down to London on June 9 and did so despite the continuation of Holbrook’s rotation policy which saw both Morgan Knowles and Joseph Paulo given the week off. With James Roby injured and Mark Percival and Zeb Taia both meeting with varying degrees of physical misfortune it was clearly not Saints at full tilt. But if you can win this comfortably when you are not playing particularly well it has to give you confidence. Is this a sign of a champion team?

Did Holbrook Get The Selection Right?

We seem to be asking this question more and more every week as the coach presses on with his bid to manage the workload of his players. Most of Saints’ top-line players have found themselves left out of the reckoning at some stage this season. That’s quite a significant departure from last season when Holbrook went with his strongest team week after week after week until it finally ran out of batteries and fell in a heap. By September Saints were so bad that Tom Lineham was jogging through them with impunity.

It is important to learn from that and Holbrook’s team selections over the last month or so indicate that he has. I would just slightly question the wisdom of resting both Knowles and Paulo in the same week. These are the only specialist loose forwards in the squad who offer anything like that balance of work-rate and creativity that you’d want from your 13. McCarthy-Scarsbrook stepped in admirably but when he plays there he does so as an auxiliary prop forward. He doesn’t have the handling skills or the game sense for the role and in any case he was forced to fill in at the second row position when Taia left the scene. With Roby out it might just have been prudent to include one of Knowles or Paulo just to give the attack that little bit of poise and composure that seemed to be lacking at times.

In Praise Of LMS

On the subject of big Louie it is time to give him some of what the annoying ‘yoof’ might refer to as ‘props’. Regular readers will know that if I had any say in the matter the London-born forward would have begun plying his trade elsewhere some years ago. Yet he was probably the star turn for Saints in this one.

Only Smith came up with more than McCarthy-Scarsbrook’s 33 tackles. He missed only three and although four Saints forwards made more ground than the former Broncos man a return of 80 metres from 11 carries is more than decent for a player playing half the game at loose forward and the other half in the second row. He also threw in three offloads, making only one error. Yet it was the two tries he scored, first taking Lachlan Coote’s pass to go over untouched and add to Naiqama’s early score and then crashing through four would-be tacklers to seal the win which his legions of fans will be most happy with. No doubt we could have done without the Michael McIntyre tribute act in celebration of his second but nobody can accuse enthusiasm’s McCarthy-Scarsbrook of failing to enjoy his work.

LMS is not likely to be a starter when everyone is fit but he will certainly play a key role in Saints’ bid to reach both Wembley and Old Trafford.

Taia Injury A Major Blow

Men like McCarthy-Scarsbrook may need to play an even more pivotal role over the coming weeks following the injury to Taia. The former Catalans Dragons man hit the deck like a female Cameroon footballer after a heavy second half challenge. At first glance it looked like Taia may have just taken one in the face from one of Leeds’ band of gnarled and frustrated head-hunting forwards but when he was led from the field in obvious pain by the medical staff, holding his arm perfectly still as he walked, it seemed evident that something more was amiss.

As it turned out Taia had dislocated his shoulder and faces an anxious wait before scans later this week will determine the extent of the damage. The obvious, whacking great Dumbo in the room is the prospect of a serious lay-off forcing Taia to miss the anticipated trip to Wembley. Saints aren’t there yet, still needing to beat Halifax to get to a first Challenge Cup final in 11 years, but it would be a brave punter who bets against them overcoming the Championship side in Bolton in July 27.

Taia’s absence Wembley would not only be a crushing blow for him but also a pretty savage smack on the head for the team. He has been outstanding this season, earning a new one-year deal at the club when many thought he would be moved on. Even in this game which ended early for him he racked up 120 metres on nine carries and effected 18 tackles. His partnership on that left edge of Saints attack with Mark Percival and Regan Grace will be out of commission for a while with Percival also leaving this one early with a tight hamstring. Saints should have the squad to cope for now but you fancy we’d rather face the knockout games at the end of the year with Taia than without him.

Plane Arrogance Or Good Marketing?

The next assignment facing the Taia-less, tireless Saints is a trip to Warrington on Friday night (June 28). It is first versus second and could go a long way to helping Saints wrap up a second consecutive League Leaders Shield. We had a loud reminder that this challenge was on the horizon as some wayward wolf saw fit to fly a plane over the stadium sporting a banner which read ‘The Wolves Are Waiting’ throughout the first 20 minutes of this one.

The first point to make is that it greatly reduced my enjoyment of that opening period of the game. I had come to watch a rugby league match not to see a display from the red fucking arrows. The low drone of the aeroplane was quite nauseating.

Other than that I don’t take too much offence to it. Some fans have complained that it is arrogant and that a reminder of it should be all Holbrook needs to help motivate his players next week. But when you’re six points adrift and preparing for what will be your last chance to stay in the race for top spot I’m not sure you have too much to be arrogant about. Others say it is just good marketing and have applauded Warrington for a number of similar publicity stunts before big games this term. I can see that argument but I would ask Warrington exactly who they think they are marketing the game to? Saints fans in the ground for the Leeds game already know about the Wire game as you would expect do most fans watching on Sky Sports.

Perhaps they might have considered taking a flight path somewhere over Warrington town centre.