On the face of it you might think there isn’t too much to say about this one. It was a fairly drab affair with defences on top, lit up only by Regan Grace’s first half try which provided the only points. Yet there was an awful lot going on around the fixture. It’s probably possible to fill two or three columns with all the things on the periphery of Saints’ 24th win from 27 Super League outings in 2019.
Before a ball was kicked there was a story or two developing. Saints Chairman Eamonn McManus - a man physically incapable of refraining from flapping his gums about every perceived injustice heaped upon his Saintly club - chose to express his opinion on the officiating at last weekend’s Challenge Cup Final in his programme notes. He’s fully justified in feeling aggrieved at Robert Hicks’ decision not to refer Morgan Knowles’ grounding to the video referee in the early minutes of the defeat to Warrington at Wembley. It was a mistake on which pretty much everyone who was involved in or saw the game agrees. What he is not entitled to do is openly and so publicly question the integrity of Hicks.
In referring to Twitter as an ‘open sewer’ McManus had already cranked up the irony meter given the club’s almost constant use of said social media brick bat launcher. To then suggest that Hicks should not have refereed the final was beyond the pale. The reasoning was that Hicks had met with a Warrington fan recently after the fan had sent a death threat to Hicks via the very same open sewer. At the time the move was applauded. A lot of fans could benefit from such a sharp reminder that officials are human beings too and that there is no place for that kind of threatening behaviour not just in rugby league but in society.
McManus never said a word about it at the time, so to complain now looks like sour grapes. If his aim is to get fans of other clubs to dislike us, to develop a siege mentality of the kind that has served Wigan very well over the years then he’s well on his way. But I don’t think he’s that clever. I think he’s trying to show that he is one of us, a die-hard Saints fan still feeling the pain of the Wembley loss as much as any ticket-buying supporter. The problem is that he’s not just a fan. Every word he utters or publishes about rugby league is seen as a representation of the club and its views. But he does not speak for me on this. I am quite prepared to accept that Hicks made an honest mistake at Wembley and that there is absolutely no reason to question his integrity or make anything of the Warrington death threat link. These are the dark muttering of misinformed, one-eyed fans. McManus has to rise above it for the sake of his own reputation and that of the club and its fans.
The next item on the agenda is Justin Holbrook’s team selection. Most observers at Wembley reckoned that far too many of our star turns went into the game without enough rugby in the build-up. Lachlan Coote was particularly awful at Wembley while it is unlikely that any of James Roby, Alex Walmsley or Morgan Knowles will be ordering a copy of the DVD. Having that experience I had hoped that Holbrook would be done resting players and tinkering with the line-up as we enter the final few weeks before the playoffs but again we saw key players miss out.
We know that Coote had a head injury so we must accept that, but what of the others? Dominique Peyroux’s ‘slight niggle’ was enough to see him left out while there was no place either for Kevin Naiqama or Theo Fages. The latter’s omission is not such a big deal since the difference between he and Danny Richardson in the scrum half role is positively molecular, but I can’t explain or support the decision to leave the Fijian out for Matty Costello. Young Costello fared well, even making the WA12 Rugby League Show Man Of The Match shortlist, but if we are going to build our form back up to where it was a month ago or so in time for the knockout games Naiqama is one of those who has to play.
Peyroux’s place in the starting 13 went to Jack Ashworth, another surprising decision given that Zeb Taia’s recent absence from the side was covered by slotting Knowles or Joseph Paulo into the second row and using Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook at loose forward. Perhaps the absence of Matty Lees following bowel surgery convinced Holbrook that he needed McCarthy-Scarsbrook as an out-and-out prop, but he is no more that than I am an out-and-out pig farmer. All of the bad habits returned to his game against the Tigers while if anyone can explain to me the precise point of importing Paulo from the NRL I’d be intrigued to find out. To be fair to Paulo he was one of only three Saints who did not miss a tackle, the others being wingers Grace and Tommy Makinson, but his contribution to the attack is very limited. For his part Ashworth followed his colleagues by putting a solid shift in defensively with 31 tackles but his 24 metres on three carries tells its own story. A lack of go-forward plagued Saints as they missed the energy and power of Naiqama and Peyroux and Richardson was out-kicked all night by the Tigers’ Jake Trueman, Jamie Ellis and Paul McShane. Protecting players from injury if there is a significant risk is prudent but Holbrook is struggling to find the right balance to keep the team functioning, particularly in attack where we have now scored only eight points in 160 minutes of action. The players will get a week off in week 1 of the playoffs because of their League Leaders Shield success, so is there really any need to be damaging cohesion by leaving players out now?
Given the furore about Hicks’ mistake last week it is surprising that there isn’t a similar outcry about James Child’s decision to disallow Jonny Lomax’s late try which could have given the score line a bit more of a sheen. Actually, it isn’t. Emotions aren’t running anywhere near as high and we won the game anyway, so absolutely nobody has called for Child or the video referee to explain why the score was chalked off. Luke Thompson was adjudged to have obstructed the defence as a dummy runner but he appeared to run straight through the line and not hold any defenders up unfairly. It was arguably as much of a mistake to disallow it as it was Knowles’ at Wembley but one we seem happy to accept. It was the kind of call which is all too common in TV games but which you never see in games without a video referee. That imbalance in the game must be addressed way, way before we start questioning the honesty of individuals.
To the real positives now and though Saints are not anywhere near their best as an attacking force you can have nothing but the greatest admiration for their defensive work. Taking into account where they were emotionally after last weekend the desire to defend their line was nothing short of phenomenal. They managed to miss a whopping 51 tackles, 10 of which were the work of the defensively fraught Richardson, but though they bent they did not break. It takes a special effort to hold a Super League side to a big duck egg on the scoreboard, particularly one like Castleford who have a reputation for free flowing, attacking rugby. To do it a week after a painful loss in a Cup Final in a game in which you have nothing to gain is inspiring. If Saints can defend like this every week they will almost certainly add the Super League Grand Final trophy to their League Leaders Shield.
There was a different, infinitely improved feel about the League Leaders Shield presentation which followed the game compared to last year’s equivalent. On that occasion the players trudged around the field looking underwhelmed and slightly embarrassed by their achievements. This year there was a much greater sense that it was ok to enjoy it and that in fact we and the sport itself have a duty to give the achievement greater respect. Saints have won 50 of 57 regular season games in the last two seasons under the soon-to-be departed Holbrook. They are without question the bench mark for others in Super League whether they win the Grand Final or not. Only the slaves to Sky TV would question Saints’ superiority even if they fail to win at Old Trafford. In those circumstances the disappointment will be shattering enough to force our dominance to the backs of our minds, to make us feel like failures. But that would be a cunning disguise. The world of rugby league will not accept Saints as a champion side unless they win at Old Trafford, but they will remain the best of 2019 whatever happens now.
Saints v Castleford Tigers - Preview
Time to get up off the floor, put the sulky face away and get behind Saints as they host Castleford Tigers on Friday night (August 30, kick-off 7.45).
Look, I know it’s too soon. You’re still smarting from the shattering loss at Wembley at the weekend. You’re still blaming the ref, wondering about the team selection and you haven’t even fully snapped out of the ludicrous mindset that Justin Holbrook and this team aren’t any good. But it’s just bloody well tough. There’s a game going on and if you are the die-hard you purport to be all over various social media outrage generators then you will have the wherewithal to focus not only on the visit of Daryl Powell’s side but also on winning the one big prize that remains.
On the subject of prizes, there is one scheduled to be handed out at this game as Saints pick up the League Leaders Shield. It seems like several years ago that Saints beat Wakefield and then saw Warrington go down in that nasty encounter in Perpignan 24 hours later to seal the deal. Holbrook’s side are 16 points clear at the top of Super League and, despite the trauma of Wembley, go into the playoff series as most people’s favourites to win the Grand Final. The pressure to do so is arguably ramped up even further by another defeat in a big knockout game, but those of you sitting around moping and banging on about how it is not worth winning now have some serious head wobbling to do. The Grand Final wouldn’t be my choice of ending to a season, not my way of crowning a champion team, but it is what it is and so we have to win it if we are to underline our status as the best team in Super League. And we are still that. One bad performance against a well-drilled Warrington side executing a conservative game-plan to perfection does not change that irrespective of what utter drivel is spewed out of the mouth of Josh Charnley through a megaphone on an open top bus. We must quieten the detractors and you don't do that by curling up and dying.
Thankfully Holbrook has pledged to go with strong sides between now and the Old Trafford showpiece. He clearly wants to rebuild the momentum we had before the cup final defeat. We need to do that to make a statement to others that we are still there. Our defeat at Wembley will have heartened not only Warrington but others such as Wigan, Hull FC and maybe even Salford, Catalans and Castleford all of whom retain an interest in the race for the top five. In an attempt to reassert our authority Holbrook has selected the strongest possible 19-man squad for this one, with only Lachlan Coote and Dominique Peyroux unavailable from the party which travelled to the capital.
Coote’s performance at the national stadium was the one subjected to the most scrutiny. He had not played for six weeks and it showed. He lacked his usual zip, made uncharacteristic handling errors and even fluffed a conversion from virtually in front of the posts. His bad day was compounded by a head injury he suffered which is keeping him out of this one. Peyroux has caught James Roby’s disease – the minor niggle – and will also miss out. Matty Lees is unlikely to play again this season after the full horrific details of his injury were revealed this week. The prop missed out on a cup final place after having to undergo bowel surgery and spending the best part of a week in hospital. It’s a sad end to what has been a very positive season overall for Lees. Best wishes to him for a speedy recovery and hopes are high that he will return even stronger for the start of 2020.
Everyone else is back on deck, with Jack Welsby drafted in to replace Coote and Matty Costello taking Peyroux’s place in the 19. Welsby may slot back into the fullback role or else Holbrook could move Jonny Lomax back there and offer an opportunity to Danny Richardson. Reading from the Big Book Of Over Simplified Solutions In Rugby League scores of fans suggested that Richardson would have made all the difference at Wembley because he would not have missed the conversion that Coote somehow managed to botch. Of course we all know what my aunty would be if she had male genitalia, and in any case the halfback role is far more complicated than potting over a goal or two. If there is a reason for Richardson to get a shot it is the unconvincing nature of Theo Fages’ display against Warrington and the failure of he and Jonny Lomax to really inspire as a pair when the heat was turned up both metaphorically and literally in London. Fages was defensively his usual busy self but he seems to lack that real burst of pace and guile that can open up a defence and turn a game. Richardson perhaps has a bit more of that about him, but he is to tackling what Steve Dale is to football club ownership. Choosing between the two is quite often a simple of question of which attribute do you value the most in a halfback, craft and cockiness or the ability to stop rampaging forwards dead in their tracks. Both Richardson and Fages would play in a scenario where Lomax moves to fullback, but Welsby has a compelling case given the need for fresh enthusiasm and the quality of his own displays before being left out of the Wembley party.
The front row is weakened without Lees but Roby, Alex Walmsley and Luke Thompson remain the most formidable starting trio anywhere. Backing them up are the interminably contracted Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, side-stepping LFC enthusiast Kyle Amor and Jack Ashworth. The latter needs to have more of an impact when he gets an opportunity. He was fairly anonymous in the cup final and we can ill afford that from one of our prop options given the absence of Lees. Peyroux’s second row berth may be taken by either Morgan Knowles or Joseph Paulo although McCarthy-Scarsbrook can operate there in an emergency. And I mean emergency. There would need to be a screeching fire alarm, police sirens and a fully operational hose on the go before I would turn to him in that position but he’s there if he’s needed. My preference would be for James Bentley to be given another run out. It was a surprise and a slight disappointment to see the former Bradford Bull not make the cup final squad but he is someone who can still have a very significant impact between now and when the last gong is handed out in Manchester in October. There appear to be very few reasons why he should not sneak in now ahead of McCarthy-Scarsbrook or Paulo. However, Bentley may also be needed for a spell at hooker as Aaron Smith serves the second of a two-match ban for dangerous contact in the win at Leeds on August 16.
If this game feels a bit ‘meh’ for Saints fans trying to get over a crushing disappointment then it is one fraught with tension for Castleford Tigers fans. They simply have to have it. Daryl Powell’s men are running out of games, with just three left between now and the end of the regular season to haul themselves one place higher than their current sixth position and so make the playoffs. Defeat would see them fall potentially four points behind both Wigan and Hull FC and maybe even leave them two points adrift of Salford as the race hots up. Catalans Dragons cannot be discounted either at this stage, so Powell will know that his side needs to scrap for every point it can get between now and Round 29.
With that in mind he will be happy about the return of prop forward Liam Watts to the fold. The former Hull FC man is one of the few around the league who can mix it with the likes of Walmsley and Thompson and is going to be vital to the Tigers' hopes of getting anything from this one. He comes back in to the 19-man squad alongside Calum Turner in the only two changes to the squad which won 24-0 at lowly Huddersfield last time out. Cory Aston and London-bound Touyo Egodo are the men to make way.
Several of this squad were involved when Castleford ‘did a Saints’ and ran over everything before them in 2017. Before losing the one that mattered the most, of course. The likes of Mike McMeeken, Paul McShane, Nathan Massey, Grant Millington, Adam Milner, Greg Minikin and Jesse Sene-Lefao all have that type of experience. What the team has lacked all season is the guidance given to them by Luke Gale who has missed the entire campaign through injury. In his stead Peter Mata’utia, Aston and Jake Trueman have been an erratic presence in the creativity department while fullback Jordan Rankin has also shone at times without ever threatening to be Zak Hardaker. For which he and everyone else should probably be thankful.
Jamie Ellis and Oliver Holmes recently returned to fitness and will add their considerable quality and experience to the effort. It has been an unconvincing season so far for Castleford but the time for talking is done. They need to show right now that they have what it takes to contend for a place at Old Trafford. No more excuses, possibly no second chances depending on other results. A bruised and battered Saints - emotionally drained into the bargain - should be facing a desperate outfit on Friday night and will need all of their quality and resilience to come through.
This is the third meeting of the season between the two teams thanks to the inglorious concept that is Magic Weekend. Saints beat Castleford 36-16 at Anfield in late May after cruising to a 42-12 success at the Jungle at the end of March. It is always difficult to tell what kind of a performance you are going to get from a team immediately after a cup final whether they have won it or not. For that reason and because of Castleford’s greater mathematical need doubts persist about whether Saints will get back into the winners enclosure this weekend. Yet I started by telling everyone to stop moping around and get a little bit of positivity back in your lives so I am going to take my own advice and tip Saints to get home by 18.
Squads;
St Helens;
1. Jonny Lomax, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Kevin Naiqama, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Regan Grace, 6. Theo Fages, 7. Danny Richardson, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. James Roby, 10. Luke Thompson, 11. Zeb Taia, 12. Joseph Paulo, 13. LMS, 15. Morgan Knowles, 16. Kyle Amor, 20. Jack Ashworth, 22. James Bentley, 24. Matty Costello, 29. Jack Welsby.
Castleford Tigers;
1. Peter Mata’utia 2. James Clare 3. Greg Minikin 6. Jake Trueman 8. Liam Watts 9. Paul McShane 10. Grant Millington 11. Oliver Holmes 12. Mike McMeeken 13. Adam Milner 14. Nathan Massey 15. Jesse Sene-Lefao 20. Jamie Ellis 23. Will Maher 27. Calum Turner 29. Jacques O’Neill 32. Jordan Rankin. 34. Daniel Smith 35. Cheyse Blair
Referee: James Child
Look, I know it’s too soon. You’re still smarting from the shattering loss at Wembley at the weekend. You’re still blaming the ref, wondering about the team selection and you haven’t even fully snapped out of the ludicrous mindset that Justin Holbrook and this team aren’t any good. But it’s just bloody well tough. There’s a game going on and if you are the die-hard you purport to be all over various social media outrage generators then you will have the wherewithal to focus not only on the visit of Daryl Powell’s side but also on winning the one big prize that remains.
On the subject of prizes, there is one scheduled to be handed out at this game as Saints pick up the League Leaders Shield. It seems like several years ago that Saints beat Wakefield and then saw Warrington go down in that nasty encounter in Perpignan 24 hours later to seal the deal. Holbrook’s side are 16 points clear at the top of Super League and, despite the trauma of Wembley, go into the playoff series as most people’s favourites to win the Grand Final. The pressure to do so is arguably ramped up even further by another defeat in a big knockout game, but those of you sitting around moping and banging on about how it is not worth winning now have some serious head wobbling to do. The Grand Final wouldn’t be my choice of ending to a season, not my way of crowning a champion team, but it is what it is and so we have to win it if we are to underline our status as the best team in Super League. And we are still that. One bad performance against a well-drilled Warrington side executing a conservative game-plan to perfection does not change that irrespective of what utter drivel is spewed out of the mouth of Josh Charnley through a megaphone on an open top bus. We must quieten the detractors and you don't do that by curling up and dying.
Thankfully Holbrook has pledged to go with strong sides between now and the Old Trafford showpiece. He clearly wants to rebuild the momentum we had before the cup final defeat. We need to do that to make a statement to others that we are still there. Our defeat at Wembley will have heartened not only Warrington but others such as Wigan, Hull FC and maybe even Salford, Catalans and Castleford all of whom retain an interest in the race for the top five. In an attempt to reassert our authority Holbrook has selected the strongest possible 19-man squad for this one, with only Lachlan Coote and Dominique Peyroux unavailable from the party which travelled to the capital.
Coote’s performance at the national stadium was the one subjected to the most scrutiny. He had not played for six weeks and it showed. He lacked his usual zip, made uncharacteristic handling errors and even fluffed a conversion from virtually in front of the posts. His bad day was compounded by a head injury he suffered which is keeping him out of this one. Peyroux has caught James Roby’s disease – the minor niggle – and will also miss out. Matty Lees is unlikely to play again this season after the full horrific details of his injury were revealed this week. The prop missed out on a cup final place after having to undergo bowel surgery and spending the best part of a week in hospital. It’s a sad end to what has been a very positive season overall for Lees. Best wishes to him for a speedy recovery and hopes are high that he will return even stronger for the start of 2020.
Everyone else is back on deck, with Jack Welsby drafted in to replace Coote and Matty Costello taking Peyroux’s place in the 19. Welsby may slot back into the fullback role or else Holbrook could move Jonny Lomax back there and offer an opportunity to Danny Richardson. Reading from the Big Book Of Over Simplified Solutions In Rugby League scores of fans suggested that Richardson would have made all the difference at Wembley because he would not have missed the conversion that Coote somehow managed to botch. Of course we all know what my aunty would be if she had male genitalia, and in any case the halfback role is far more complicated than potting over a goal or two. If there is a reason for Richardson to get a shot it is the unconvincing nature of Theo Fages’ display against Warrington and the failure of he and Jonny Lomax to really inspire as a pair when the heat was turned up both metaphorically and literally in London. Fages was defensively his usual busy self but he seems to lack that real burst of pace and guile that can open up a defence and turn a game. Richardson perhaps has a bit more of that about him, but he is to tackling what Steve Dale is to football club ownership. Choosing between the two is quite often a simple of question of which attribute do you value the most in a halfback, craft and cockiness or the ability to stop rampaging forwards dead in their tracks. Both Richardson and Fages would play in a scenario where Lomax moves to fullback, but Welsby has a compelling case given the need for fresh enthusiasm and the quality of his own displays before being left out of the Wembley party.
The front row is weakened without Lees but Roby, Alex Walmsley and Luke Thompson remain the most formidable starting trio anywhere. Backing them up are the interminably contracted Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, side-stepping LFC enthusiast Kyle Amor and Jack Ashworth. The latter needs to have more of an impact when he gets an opportunity. He was fairly anonymous in the cup final and we can ill afford that from one of our prop options given the absence of Lees. Peyroux’s second row berth may be taken by either Morgan Knowles or Joseph Paulo although McCarthy-Scarsbrook can operate there in an emergency. And I mean emergency. There would need to be a screeching fire alarm, police sirens and a fully operational hose on the go before I would turn to him in that position but he’s there if he’s needed. My preference would be for James Bentley to be given another run out. It was a surprise and a slight disappointment to see the former Bradford Bull not make the cup final squad but he is someone who can still have a very significant impact between now and when the last gong is handed out in Manchester in October. There appear to be very few reasons why he should not sneak in now ahead of McCarthy-Scarsbrook or Paulo. However, Bentley may also be needed for a spell at hooker as Aaron Smith serves the second of a two-match ban for dangerous contact in the win at Leeds on August 16.
If this game feels a bit ‘meh’ for Saints fans trying to get over a crushing disappointment then it is one fraught with tension for Castleford Tigers fans. They simply have to have it. Daryl Powell’s men are running out of games, with just three left between now and the end of the regular season to haul themselves one place higher than their current sixth position and so make the playoffs. Defeat would see them fall potentially four points behind both Wigan and Hull FC and maybe even leave them two points adrift of Salford as the race hots up. Catalans Dragons cannot be discounted either at this stage, so Powell will know that his side needs to scrap for every point it can get between now and Round 29.
With that in mind he will be happy about the return of prop forward Liam Watts to the fold. The former Hull FC man is one of the few around the league who can mix it with the likes of Walmsley and Thompson and is going to be vital to the Tigers' hopes of getting anything from this one. He comes back in to the 19-man squad alongside Calum Turner in the only two changes to the squad which won 24-0 at lowly Huddersfield last time out. Cory Aston and London-bound Touyo Egodo are the men to make way.
Several of this squad were involved when Castleford ‘did a Saints’ and ran over everything before them in 2017. Before losing the one that mattered the most, of course. The likes of Mike McMeeken, Paul McShane, Nathan Massey, Grant Millington, Adam Milner, Greg Minikin and Jesse Sene-Lefao all have that type of experience. What the team has lacked all season is the guidance given to them by Luke Gale who has missed the entire campaign through injury. In his stead Peter Mata’utia, Aston and Jake Trueman have been an erratic presence in the creativity department while fullback Jordan Rankin has also shone at times without ever threatening to be Zak Hardaker. For which he and everyone else should probably be thankful.
Jamie Ellis and Oliver Holmes recently returned to fitness and will add their considerable quality and experience to the effort. It has been an unconvincing season so far for Castleford but the time for talking is done. They need to show right now that they have what it takes to contend for a place at Old Trafford. No more excuses, possibly no second chances depending on other results. A bruised and battered Saints - emotionally drained into the bargain - should be facing a desperate outfit on Friday night and will need all of their quality and resilience to come through.
This is the third meeting of the season between the two teams thanks to the inglorious concept that is Magic Weekend. Saints beat Castleford 36-16 at Anfield in late May after cruising to a 42-12 success at the Jungle at the end of March. It is always difficult to tell what kind of a performance you are going to get from a team immediately after a cup final whether they have won it or not. For that reason and because of Castleford’s greater mathematical need doubts persist about whether Saints will get back into the winners enclosure this weekend. Yet I started by telling everyone to stop moping around and get a little bit of positivity back in your lives so I am going to take my own advice and tip Saints to get home by 18.
Squads;
St Helens;
1. Jonny Lomax, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Kevin Naiqama, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Regan Grace, 6. Theo Fages, 7. Danny Richardson, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. James Roby, 10. Luke Thompson, 11. Zeb Taia, 12. Joseph Paulo, 13. LMS, 15. Morgan Knowles, 16. Kyle Amor, 20. Jack Ashworth, 22. James Bentley, 24. Matty Costello, 29. Jack Welsby.
Castleford Tigers;
1. Peter Mata’utia 2. James Clare 3. Greg Minikin 6. Jake Trueman 8. Liam Watts 9. Paul McShane 10. Grant Millington 11. Oliver Holmes 12. Mike McMeeken 13. Adam Milner 14. Nathan Massey 15. Jesse Sene-Lefao 20. Jamie Ellis 23. Will Maher 27. Calum Turner 29. Jacques O’Neill 32. Jordan Rankin. 34. Daniel Smith 35. Cheyse Blair
Referee: James Child
Wembley 2019 - The Post Mortem
We’re not going down the usual route this week. There is far too much to discuss, far too many points to make and axes to grind to narrow this down to just five main talking points. To be honest the whole thing is too important, provokes too much emotion. It doesn’t really lend itself to a clinical breakdown involving decisions about what to include and what to leave out. It’s all important if we are to gain any understanding of what went so spectacularly wrong for Saints in their 18-4 loss to Warrington at Wembley.
Where do you start? Ordinarily you start at the beginning but in truth Saints opened the game pretty well. They looked dangerous with the ball especially through Tommy Makinson, Kevin Naiqama and Alex Walmsley. Meanwhile Wire’s simple but highly effective gameplan seemed obvious from the outset. Control the ball, cut out handling errors and defend with everything you have. They executed that plan beautifully, especially when you consider the limitations placed on their attacking options in the absence of halfback Blake Austin. Ben Currie was nominally the stand off for Steve Price’s side but it was Jack Hughes and Stefan Ratchford who most often found themselves responsible for creativity. They were clinical rather than spectacular which in the event turned out to be more than enough.
Much has been made of referee Robert Hicks’ decision not to consult video referee Ben Thaler after Morgan Knowles appeared to touch down inside the first three minutes. Television replays showed that Knowles had reached the ball before it went over the dead ball line. The only doubt was whether the Welsh international had grounded the ball cleanly. The modern standard seems to be that if a ball is already on the ground then the merest of touches with the fingers, hand, arm or torso is enough to constitute a grounding. Witness Regan Grace’s effort last week at Leeds when he brushed the ball with the end of his fingertips and was awarded the try on review. Knowles’ grounding looked an awful lot more convincing than that example so the decision by Hicks not to even refer it is something of a head-scratcher. There’s a still photo doing the rounds which purports to show Knowles grounding the ball. I’m not really buying that. You can’t prove downward pressure with a still photo. Nevertheless it had to be worth a look on the video.
Had Hicks sent it up as no try Thaler may have ruled that there was not enough evidence to overturn that call but there seems no way that Hicks could have been certain of what happened with the one look he got in real time. I’m no fan of video replay systems in sport but if you have the technology there you have to use it. Otherwise really what is the point? There will be those who point out that we often cry out for referees to back their own judgement rather than constantly review everything. It’s fair to say that some referees’ penchant for a square in the air can be nauseating and lengthens the game too much. Yet in a game of this magnitude, when one of only two recognised ‘major’ prizes in the domestic game is on the line you just can’t leave it to chance. Hicks had to have had doubts.
Hicks admitted to his doubts about a Mark Percival try on the half hour. The ball had come free from the grasp of Zeb Taia close to the line, with the England centre pouncing as the ball rolled into the in-goal. Ben Murdoch-Masila appeared to have a hand in dislodging the ball from Taia’s possession but Thaler ruled that Taia never had control of it and therefore could not have had it stolen. Both the Knowles and the Percival no try calls came with the score line still at 0-0. If those two calls had gone the other way Saints could have been 12 points to the good. It would have been difficult to see Warrington’s conservative gameplan coming off if they had been chasing the game from early on.
But they were not and from then on Saints seemed to struggle to come terms with that fact. The errors started to creep into their game. Soon after Percival’s no try Warrington were in front through Joe Philbin. Saints failed to deal with a kick, Regan Grace touching the ball to gift Wire a new set from which Philbin crashed through some uncharacteristically sluggish goal-line defence to score. Similar frailties were on show when Murdoch-Masila went over for the Wolves’ second try before half-time. Lachlan Coote butchered a high bomb close to the Saints line to set up the position but it was perhaps Percival’s decision to shoot out of the line, over-reading the play which allowed the former Salford man to crash over. Before the Coote drop Saints had gifted possession to Warrington with a fairly mindless forward pass from Taia to Percival. Mistake leading to mistake leading to mistake. A pattern was emerging.
Though you wouldn’t say Saints spurned chance after chance - they didn’t play well enough to create that many - there were still moments that they could have made more of. The usually assured and composed Jonny Lomax chose badly late in the first half. A gap had opened up. The type that we normally see Lomax cruise through. Yet on this occasion Lomax - who has been head and shoulders the best player in Super League this year irrespective of what the Steve Prescott Man Of Steel panel dream up each week - chose to pass to Naiqama who was immediately enveloped. Later, Fages broke from deep inside his own half but failed to find Coote on his inside. You couldn’t help but feel that his decision making process was hindered by his surprise at having made it through Warrington’s mostly water tight defensive line.
Fages was at it again early in the second half, aimlessly skying one towards the Warrington line rather than find Naiqama in space outside him. The Fijian tried hard and looked menacing at times but he was a victim of the poor decision making of those who normally serve him so well. Perhaps Fages was mindful of being caught in possession on the last. Saints suffered that fate on a number of occasions as their usual composure deserted them.
Saints were not the only ones on the end of a debatable video refereeing call. Just a couple of minutes into the second half Tom Lineham thought he had pushed Wire into a 16-0 lead when he squirmed over from dummy half. Yet replays showed that he had made slight contact with Bryson Goodwin as the latter played the ball. Perhaps there was no obvious advantage gained but the contact does constitute an obstruction as explained by Thaler in his decision making. Without a video referee present it’s probably a try but attempt to square Hicks’ decision to review that with his decision not to review the Knowles effort and you will soon develop a headache.
Coote had one of his worst games in a Saints shirt. He lacked his usual sharpness in attack and a couple of basic handling errors were compounded when he managed to fail to convert Fages’ try on 56 minutes which had seemed to give Saints a lifeline. When that sailed wide from almost bang in front it was a chilling moment in which I think most of us of a Saints persuasion realised this would not be our day.
More errors followed with Makinson, Coote and Fages all guilty. The Frenchman’s botched attempt to scoop up a Daryl Clark grubber set up the position from which the Warrington hooker snuffed out any remaining hope we had. He scooted over from dummy half with Patton’s conversion completing the scoring. I take slight issue with Holbrook’s assessment that Saints’ errors occurred because they were chasing the game. Yes it’s difficult to play in searing heat when your opponent has a 12-point jump on you but some of Saints’ handling errors were fairly basic and under very little physical pressure. They were the result of a failure to apply fundamental skills that they have been practising all of their lives and which they have done so clinically for the most part of 2019. The question is why?
One theory is that the problem is mental. The hypothesis goes that Saints are wonderful in the regular grind of the regular season where losses don’t even bruise you let alone kill you, but not so good when the stakes are raised. Some point the finger at Holbrook for that and while Saturday’s loss was his fourth in knockout rugby league in his two years at the club the problem appears to pre-date him. This was Saints’ 17th loss in their last 23 semi-finals or finals. Other clubs fans delight in labelling us as bottlers, totally oblivious to the fact that we have been by far the best team in the competition over the last two years. Yet perhaps we deserve that tag. I think the idea of settling a league campaign on one 80-minute game in October is beyond absurd but we’ve normalised it so we’re stuck with it. Everyone knows the rules before we start so whether we agree with it or not our superiority cannot be validated until we win one of these big finals. We have to stop bottling it.
While mentality might be one explanation for the wider malaise in knockout rugby there are factors which might be specific to this particular defeat. All of Coote, Walmsley, Roby and Knowles had been injured in the weeks leading up to Wembley and so had no match practise coming in. You can’t force injured players to play, nor should you try, but it might have been prudent if planning to throw them in at Wembley to send them for a run out in the games against Warrington and Leeds in the last fortnight in particular. Let them prove their fitness and if they couldn’t do so then what are they doing on the field in a Challenge Cup Final? My guess is that at least some of these players could have played in the those league games but that Holbrook has become so paranoid about burning his players out after last year’s experience that he has now tilted too far the other way. It is alright protecting players. Holbrook would have been widely castigated if one of those four had played in the week or two before Wembley and suffered a recurrence of their injury. Yet it is equal folly to expect your fullback, prop, hooker and loose forward - basically the spine of your team - to be at their best under such pressure with virtually no recent rugby behind them. This is why we have a squad. While Matty Lees and Aaron Smith were ruled out through injury and suspension respectively players of the quality of James Bentley and Danny Richardson still missed out. This squad goes deep enough to cope if the first choice guys aren’t quite right. Holbrook will no doubt tell us that all were fit to play and of course all would have been desperate to get on that field. Their desire is one of the qualities that has made them successful. But in the final analysis it is Holbrook’s job to recognise which players are ready and which are not. On the face of it he got it wrong.
So the focus now is on what remains of Holbrook’s tenure at the club. Three regular season games remain and then we need just one win from a possible two playoff games to reach Old Trafford. My view is that we need to go full tilt from here on in. Build up that habit of winning again. Make a statement with our form and put doubt back into the minds of rival clubs who will now accuse us of being a bit of a myth at worst and very beatable at best. No resting players who could otherwise play before wheeling them out for the sudden death games and expecting them to turn it on like a tap. We are the best side in this competition regardless of what the kooky league structure and playoff system tells everyone. So let’s sulk for a day or two and then get up off the floor and show everyone exactly why we are a cut above.
Where do you start? Ordinarily you start at the beginning but in truth Saints opened the game pretty well. They looked dangerous with the ball especially through Tommy Makinson, Kevin Naiqama and Alex Walmsley. Meanwhile Wire’s simple but highly effective gameplan seemed obvious from the outset. Control the ball, cut out handling errors and defend with everything you have. They executed that plan beautifully, especially when you consider the limitations placed on their attacking options in the absence of halfback Blake Austin. Ben Currie was nominally the stand off for Steve Price’s side but it was Jack Hughes and Stefan Ratchford who most often found themselves responsible for creativity. They were clinical rather than spectacular which in the event turned out to be more than enough.
Much has been made of referee Robert Hicks’ decision not to consult video referee Ben Thaler after Morgan Knowles appeared to touch down inside the first three minutes. Television replays showed that Knowles had reached the ball before it went over the dead ball line. The only doubt was whether the Welsh international had grounded the ball cleanly. The modern standard seems to be that if a ball is already on the ground then the merest of touches with the fingers, hand, arm or torso is enough to constitute a grounding. Witness Regan Grace’s effort last week at Leeds when he brushed the ball with the end of his fingertips and was awarded the try on review. Knowles’ grounding looked an awful lot more convincing than that example so the decision by Hicks not to even refer it is something of a head-scratcher. There’s a still photo doing the rounds which purports to show Knowles grounding the ball. I’m not really buying that. You can’t prove downward pressure with a still photo. Nevertheless it had to be worth a look on the video.
Had Hicks sent it up as no try Thaler may have ruled that there was not enough evidence to overturn that call but there seems no way that Hicks could have been certain of what happened with the one look he got in real time. I’m no fan of video replay systems in sport but if you have the technology there you have to use it. Otherwise really what is the point? There will be those who point out that we often cry out for referees to back their own judgement rather than constantly review everything. It’s fair to say that some referees’ penchant for a square in the air can be nauseating and lengthens the game too much. Yet in a game of this magnitude, when one of only two recognised ‘major’ prizes in the domestic game is on the line you just can’t leave it to chance. Hicks had to have had doubts.
Hicks admitted to his doubts about a Mark Percival try on the half hour. The ball had come free from the grasp of Zeb Taia close to the line, with the England centre pouncing as the ball rolled into the in-goal. Ben Murdoch-Masila appeared to have a hand in dislodging the ball from Taia’s possession but Thaler ruled that Taia never had control of it and therefore could not have had it stolen. Both the Knowles and the Percival no try calls came with the score line still at 0-0. If those two calls had gone the other way Saints could have been 12 points to the good. It would have been difficult to see Warrington’s conservative gameplan coming off if they had been chasing the game from early on.
But they were not and from then on Saints seemed to struggle to come terms with that fact. The errors started to creep into their game. Soon after Percival’s no try Warrington were in front through Joe Philbin. Saints failed to deal with a kick, Regan Grace touching the ball to gift Wire a new set from which Philbin crashed through some uncharacteristically sluggish goal-line defence to score. Similar frailties were on show when Murdoch-Masila went over for the Wolves’ second try before half-time. Lachlan Coote butchered a high bomb close to the Saints line to set up the position but it was perhaps Percival’s decision to shoot out of the line, over-reading the play which allowed the former Salford man to crash over. Before the Coote drop Saints had gifted possession to Warrington with a fairly mindless forward pass from Taia to Percival. Mistake leading to mistake leading to mistake. A pattern was emerging.
Though you wouldn’t say Saints spurned chance after chance - they didn’t play well enough to create that many - there were still moments that they could have made more of. The usually assured and composed Jonny Lomax chose badly late in the first half. A gap had opened up. The type that we normally see Lomax cruise through. Yet on this occasion Lomax - who has been head and shoulders the best player in Super League this year irrespective of what the Steve Prescott Man Of Steel panel dream up each week - chose to pass to Naiqama who was immediately enveloped. Later, Fages broke from deep inside his own half but failed to find Coote on his inside. You couldn’t help but feel that his decision making process was hindered by his surprise at having made it through Warrington’s mostly water tight defensive line.
Fages was at it again early in the second half, aimlessly skying one towards the Warrington line rather than find Naiqama in space outside him. The Fijian tried hard and looked menacing at times but he was a victim of the poor decision making of those who normally serve him so well. Perhaps Fages was mindful of being caught in possession on the last. Saints suffered that fate on a number of occasions as their usual composure deserted them.
Saints were not the only ones on the end of a debatable video refereeing call. Just a couple of minutes into the second half Tom Lineham thought he had pushed Wire into a 16-0 lead when he squirmed over from dummy half. Yet replays showed that he had made slight contact with Bryson Goodwin as the latter played the ball. Perhaps there was no obvious advantage gained but the contact does constitute an obstruction as explained by Thaler in his decision making. Without a video referee present it’s probably a try but attempt to square Hicks’ decision to review that with his decision not to review the Knowles effort and you will soon develop a headache.
Coote had one of his worst games in a Saints shirt. He lacked his usual sharpness in attack and a couple of basic handling errors were compounded when he managed to fail to convert Fages’ try on 56 minutes which had seemed to give Saints a lifeline. When that sailed wide from almost bang in front it was a chilling moment in which I think most of us of a Saints persuasion realised this would not be our day.
More errors followed with Makinson, Coote and Fages all guilty. The Frenchman’s botched attempt to scoop up a Daryl Clark grubber set up the position from which the Warrington hooker snuffed out any remaining hope we had. He scooted over from dummy half with Patton’s conversion completing the scoring. I take slight issue with Holbrook’s assessment that Saints’ errors occurred because they were chasing the game. Yes it’s difficult to play in searing heat when your opponent has a 12-point jump on you but some of Saints’ handling errors were fairly basic and under very little physical pressure. They were the result of a failure to apply fundamental skills that they have been practising all of their lives and which they have done so clinically for the most part of 2019. The question is why?
One theory is that the problem is mental. The hypothesis goes that Saints are wonderful in the regular grind of the regular season where losses don’t even bruise you let alone kill you, but not so good when the stakes are raised. Some point the finger at Holbrook for that and while Saturday’s loss was his fourth in knockout rugby league in his two years at the club the problem appears to pre-date him. This was Saints’ 17th loss in their last 23 semi-finals or finals. Other clubs fans delight in labelling us as bottlers, totally oblivious to the fact that we have been by far the best team in the competition over the last two years. Yet perhaps we deserve that tag. I think the idea of settling a league campaign on one 80-minute game in October is beyond absurd but we’ve normalised it so we’re stuck with it. Everyone knows the rules before we start so whether we agree with it or not our superiority cannot be validated until we win one of these big finals. We have to stop bottling it.
While mentality might be one explanation for the wider malaise in knockout rugby there are factors which might be specific to this particular defeat. All of Coote, Walmsley, Roby and Knowles had been injured in the weeks leading up to Wembley and so had no match practise coming in. You can’t force injured players to play, nor should you try, but it might have been prudent if planning to throw them in at Wembley to send them for a run out in the games against Warrington and Leeds in the last fortnight in particular. Let them prove their fitness and if they couldn’t do so then what are they doing on the field in a Challenge Cup Final? My guess is that at least some of these players could have played in the those league games but that Holbrook has become so paranoid about burning his players out after last year’s experience that he has now tilted too far the other way. It is alright protecting players. Holbrook would have been widely castigated if one of those four had played in the week or two before Wembley and suffered a recurrence of their injury. Yet it is equal folly to expect your fullback, prop, hooker and loose forward - basically the spine of your team - to be at their best under such pressure with virtually no recent rugby behind them. This is why we have a squad. While Matty Lees and Aaron Smith were ruled out through injury and suspension respectively players of the quality of James Bentley and Danny Richardson still missed out. This squad goes deep enough to cope if the first choice guys aren’t quite right. Holbrook will no doubt tell us that all were fit to play and of course all would have been desperate to get on that field. Their desire is one of the qualities that has made them successful. But in the final analysis it is Holbrook’s job to recognise which players are ready and which are not. On the face of it he got it wrong.
So the focus now is on what remains of Holbrook’s tenure at the club. Three regular season games remain and then we need just one win from a possible two playoff games to reach Old Trafford. My view is that we need to go full tilt from here on in. Build up that habit of winning again. Make a statement with our form and put doubt back into the minds of rival clubs who will now accuse us of being a bit of a myth at worst and very beatable at best. No resting players who could otherwise play before wheeling them out for the sudden death games and expecting them to turn it on like a tap. We are the best side in this competition regardless of what the kooky league structure and playoff system tells everyone. So let’s sulk for a day or two and then get up off the floor and show everyone exactly why we are a cut above.
Challenge Cup Final Preview - St Helens v Warrington Wolves
Are you nervous? A bit jittery? Not even a little bit? Me neither. Glory probably awaits as Saints get set to take on Warrington in the Coral Challenge Cup Final at Wembley on Saturday (August 24, kick-off 3.00pm).
It’s been a long wait. Perhaps so long that chickens should remain well and truly unaccounted for as we go into our first Wembley final for 11 years. The last time Saints went to Wembley Britain was weeks away from a financial crisis and subsequent recession, Rihanna topped the charts with something called Disturbia, Usain Bolt ran the 100metres sprint in an eye-popping 9.58 seconds at the Olympic Games in Beijing and Portsmouth were the holders of the FA Cup. They were strange times indeed. Saints’ cup win that year was among the more predictable events, it being the third year in succession that Daniel Anderson’s side had brought home the most famous piece of bacon in rugby league.
Despite numerous attempts to club it to death the old classic competition still survives and retains much of its gravitas. No amount of Grand Finals or Magic Weekends can take away the value of winning the Challenge Cup. It may be a little easier to win these days with top eight Super League sides only needing three wins to reach Wembley, but should your team be the lucky ones holding the trophy aloft around 4.45 on Saturday afternoon nobody will remember that. You’re not likely to remember your own address and you’ll end up being bundled out of a taxi in Soho. But you will remember winning the final. The Challenge Cup transcends the sport in a way that the Grand Final cannot hope to and doesn’t appear to even be trying to. Free-to-air TV coverage helps in that regard even if Robbie Paul is a great big heap of cringe.
As in Super League the clubs involved have each named a 19-man squad 48 hours before kick-off. As in Super League there is little to stop the coaches disregarding their own selections come game day but we’ll do our best to analyse the likely line-ups. Saints coach Justin Holbrook will lead his side at Wembley for the first and last time having already agreed to join Gold Coast Titans in 2020, and his preparations were hit by the disappointing news this week that both Matty Lees and Aaron Smith will miss out. Lees picked up an abdominal injury in last week’s win over Leeds Rhinos which threatens the rest of his season, while Smith starts a two-game ban for dangerous contact with Rhinos fullback Jack Walker early in the second half at Headingley. It’s a cruel blow for the pair who have been major contributors to Saints’ stroll to a second straight League Leaders Shield title.
Lees’ absence all but guarantees bench spots for Kyle Amor, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Jack Ashworth behind the starting prop duo of Alex Walmsley and Luke Thompson. Smith has been sharing hooking duties with James Bentley in recent weeks but with James Roby expected to start as well as a likely return to action for Morgan Knowles it seems that Bentley’s best hope of involvement is the final spot on that bench. Joseph Paulo is fit again after a hamstring problem and will also challenge for interchange duties.
Lachlan Coote has not played since the July 12 win over Wigan but is set to feature. That means no place for the unfortunate Jack Welsby who has been superb in the fullback role in the absence of the Australian. Like Lees and Smith Welsby has youth on his side. His disappointment should be tempered with the knowledge that at the current rate of progress his time is almost certainly coming. Ahead of Coote Tommy Makinson, Kevin Naiqama, Mark Percival and Regan Grace make up a three-quarter line full to the brim with Lance Todd Trophy contenders.
One member of the 19 likely to be disappointed when the team is named is Danny Richardson. He did himself no harm when given opportunities in relief of the rested Theo Fages and Jonny Lomax in the last few weeks but it was telling that Fages went straight back into the team at Leeds. Lomax’s place is non-negotiable by now. He has poured scorn on those who said his injuries would stifle his potential or that he couldn’t play in the halves. Converted by Holbrook from fullback to stand off when Ben Barba arrived Lomax has since gone on to become the best player in Super League in 2019. If Lomax plays well Warrington’s already limited chances get skinnier still.
All of which just leaves the back row, where Zeb Taia and Dominique Peyroux are the immovable objects. Should the need arise McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Knowles, Bentley and Ashworth can all be moved around the pack to cover any gaps that might appear.
The main topic of conversation for Warrington is whether their talismanic half Blake Austin will play. He has not featured since turning his ankle in Perpignan three weeks ago and has not been included in coach Steve Price’s 19-man selection. This is not cause enough to write off his chances of playing given what we know about Price’s squad-selection shenanigans of recent times but either way it feels somewhat academic. If Saints hit form then this woefully out-of-form Warrington mob worrying about facing them without Austin is like Hugh Laurie worrying about going over the top without his big stick in the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.
Better news for Warrington is that Josh Charley should feature. The former Wigan man is one of the best finishers in the game. Tom Lineham, scourge of Saints in the Super League semi-final last year, is free from suspension to take his place on the opposite wing which could be bad news for Jake Mamo. The former Huddersfield Giant has been given a run on the wing in Charnley’s absence through injury but is unlikely to shift either Charnley or Lineham nor move back to his old fullback role with Stef Ratchford now fit again. In the centres Bryson Goodwin is a major threat but Toby King probably less so.
We’re going to assume Austin will play alongside Dec Patton in the halves. Matty Smith has been filling in after joining on loan from Catalans Dragons but is not an option having signed after the Challenge Cup eligibility deadline. Kevin Brown must be somewhere near fitness, but not near enough to a first team return since he has been sent out on loan to Leigh.
The front row is the one area where Wire can boast similar strength to Saints. Props Chris Hill and Mike Cooper have been England internationals while hooker Daryl Clark is strong, indefatigable and extremely quick. Physically he has the edge on Roby at this stage of the latter’s career but whether Clark can match the Saints man for big-game know-how is questionable.
In the back row Jack Hughes has recovered from one of the most gruesome injuries in rugby league this or any other year, a ruptured testicle sustained in that ugly spat with the Dragons in the south of France. He should partner Ben Currie, a man whose most prominent Wembley memory is still that of being tackled agonisingly short of the line in Wire’s 2016 loss to Hull FC. Currie has done superbly well to recover from two nasty knee injuries since, but it is probably fair to say that the jury is out on whether he has rediscovered the form of old.
Bennie Westwood will be aiming to Mark his retirement season with a cup winners medal to add to those won in 2009, 2010 and 2012. He’ll compete for a bench spot with short-term wrecking ball and long-term turnstile Ben Murdoch-Masila, shoulder-charging’s Sitaleki Akauola and Matt Davis, a man whose rugby league development began in the unlikely surroundings of union hotbed Leicester. Jason Clark and Harvey Lovett complete the party.
A month or two ago this would have been a much more difficult game to call. Warrington have spent most of the season as Saints’ closest challengers in Super League. Yet over the last month their only win has been the semi-final success over Hull FC at Bolton that brought them to Wembley. They are staggering towards the playoffs, hanging on grimly to second place after losing 20-6 to Wigan last time out. The one factor that makes this tricky is that it is a cup final. Funny things happen. Think of Sheffield Eagles in 1998 (which we all should try in darker moments. It has often cheered me up). Final or not there is always scope for a shock in knockout rugby as Saints discovered when they were flayed by Catalans in the last four last year. Wire were still fancied to beat the French side in the final despite their semi-final heroics but it was Steve McNamara smiling at the end. The cup can be a bit of a leveller.
So maybe you are right to be a little bit nervous. A bit jittery. A little caution might be wise. But all things being equal Saints should get home by around three scores. After double disappointment in 2018 there are many who believe that Holbrook’s Saints legacy depends on it.
Squads;
St Helens;
Jonny Lomax, Tommy Makinson, Kevin Naiqama, Mark Percival, Regan Grace, Theo Fages, Danny Richardson, Alex Walmsley, James Roby, LukevThompson, Zeb Taia, Joseph Paulo, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Morgan Knowles, Kyle Amor, Dominique Peyroux, Jack Ashworth, James Bentley, Lachlan Coote
Warrington Wolves;
Sitaleki Akauola, Josh Charley, Daryl Clark, Jason Clark, Mike Cooper, Ben Currie, Matt Davis, Bryson Goodwin, Chris Hill, Jack Hughes, Toby King, Tom Lineham, Harvey Livett, Jake Mamo, Ben Murdoch-Masila, Declan Patton, Joe Philbin, Stefan Ratchford, Ben Westwood
Referee: Robert Hicks
It’s been a long wait. Perhaps so long that chickens should remain well and truly unaccounted for as we go into our first Wembley final for 11 years. The last time Saints went to Wembley Britain was weeks away from a financial crisis and subsequent recession, Rihanna topped the charts with something called Disturbia, Usain Bolt ran the 100metres sprint in an eye-popping 9.58 seconds at the Olympic Games in Beijing and Portsmouth were the holders of the FA Cup. They were strange times indeed. Saints’ cup win that year was among the more predictable events, it being the third year in succession that Daniel Anderson’s side had brought home the most famous piece of bacon in rugby league.
Despite numerous attempts to club it to death the old classic competition still survives and retains much of its gravitas. No amount of Grand Finals or Magic Weekends can take away the value of winning the Challenge Cup. It may be a little easier to win these days with top eight Super League sides only needing three wins to reach Wembley, but should your team be the lucky ones holding the trophy aloft around 4.45 on Saturday afternoon nobody will remember that. You’re not likely to remember your own address and you’ll end up being bundled out of a taxi in Soho. But you will remember winning the final. The Challenge Cup transcends the sport in a way that the Grand Final cannot hope to and doesn’t appear to even be trying to. Free-to-air TV coverage helps in that regard even if Robbie Paul is a great big heap of cringe.
As in Super League the clubs involved have each named a 19-man squad 48 hours before kick-off. As in Super League there is little to stop the coaches disregarding their own selections come game day but we’ll do our best to analyse the likely line-ups. Saints coach Justin Holbrook will lead his side at Wembley for the first and last time having already agreed to join Gold Coast Titans in 2020, and his preparations were hit by the disappointing news this week that both Matty Lees and Aaron Smith will miss out. Lees picked up an abdominal injury in last week’s win over Leeds Rhinos which threatens the rest of his season, while Smith starts a two-game ban for dangerous contact with Rhinos fullback Jack Walker early in the second half at Headingley. It’s a cruel blow for the pair who have been major contributors to Saints’ stroll to a second straight League Leaders Shield title.
Lees’ absence all but guarantees bench spots for Kyle Amor, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Jack Ashworth behind the starting prop duo of Alex Walmsley and Luke Thompson. Smith has been sharing hooking duties with James Bentley in recent weeks but with James Roby expected to start as well as a likely return to action for Morgan Knowles it seems that Bentley’s best hope of involvement is the final spot on that bench. Joseph Paulo is fit again after a hamstring problem and will also challenge for interchange duties.
Lachlan Coote has not played since the July 12 win over Wigan but is set to feature. That means no place for the unfortunate Jack Welsby who has been superb in the fullback role in the absence of the Australian. Like Lees and Smith Welsby has youth on his side. His disappointment should be tempered with the knowledge that at the current rate of progress his time is almost certainly coming. Ahead of Coote Tommy Makinson, Kevin Naiqama, Mark Percival and Regan Grace make up a three-quarter line full to the brim with Lance Todd Trophy contenders.
One member of the 19 likely to be disappointed when the team is named is Danny Richardson. He did himself no harm when given opportunities in relief of the rested Theo Fages and Jonny Lomax in the last few weeks but it was telling that Fages went straight back into the team at Leeds. Lomax’s place is non-negotiable by now. He has poured scorn on those who said his injuries would stifle his potential or that he couldn’t play in the halves. Converted by Holbrook from fullback to stand off when Ben Barba arrived Lomax has since gone on to become the best player in Super League in 2019. If Lomax plays well Warrington’s already limited chances get skinnier still.
All of which just leaves the back row, where Zeb Taia and Dominique Peyroux are the immovable objects. Should the need arise McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Knowles, Bentley and Ashworth can all be moved around the pack to cover any gaps that might appear.
The main topic of conversation for Warrington is whether their talismanic half Blake Austin will play. He has not featured since turning his ankle in Perpignan three weeks ago and has not been included in coach Steve Price’s 19-man selection. This is not cause enough to write off his chances of playing given what we know about Price’s squad-selection shenanigans of recent times but either way it feels somewhat academic. If Saints hit form then this woefully out-of-form Warrington mob worrying about facing them without Austin is like Hugh Laurie worrying about going over the top without his big stick in the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.
Better news for Warrington is that Josh Charley should feature. The former Wigan man is one of the best finishers in the game. Tom Lineham, scourge of Saints in the Super League semi-final last year, is free from suspension to take his place on the opposite wing which could be bad news for Jake Mamo. The former Huddersfield Giant has been given a run on the wing in Charnley’s absence through injury but is unlikely to shift either Charnley or Lineham nor move back to his old fullback role with Stef Ratchford now fit again. In the centres Bryson Goodwin is a major threat but Toby King probably less so.
We’re going to assume Austin will play alongside Dec Patton in the halves. Matty Smith has been filling in after joining on loan from Catalans Dragons but is not an option having signed after the Challenge Cup eligibility deadline. Kevin Brown must be somewhere near fitness, but not near enough to a first team return since he has been sent out on loan to Leigh.
The front row is the one area where Wire can boast similar strength to Saints. Props Chris Hill and Mike Cooper have been England internationals while hooker Daryl Clark is strong, indefatigable and extremely quick. Physically he has the edge on Roby at this stage of the latter’s career but whether Clark can match the Saints man for big-game know-how is questionable.
In the back row Jack Hughes has recovered from one of the most gruesome injuries in rugby league this or any other year, a ruptured testicle sustained in that ugly spat with the Dragons in the south of France. He should partner Ben Currie, a man whose most prominent Wembley memory is still that of being tackled agonisingly short of the line in Wire’s 2016 loss to Hull FC. Currie has done superbly well to recover from two nasty knee injuries since, but it is probably fair to say that the jury is out on whether he has rediscovered the form of old.
Bennie Westwood will be aiming to Mark his retirement season with a cup winners medal to add to those won in 2009, 2010 and 2012. He’ll compete for a bench spot with short-term wrecking ball and long-term turnstile Ben Murdoch-Masila, shoulder-charging’s Sitaleki Akauola and Matt Davis, a man whose rugby league development began in the unlikely surroundings of union hotbed Leicester. Jason Clark and Harvey Lovett complete the party.
A month or two ago this would have been a much more difficult game to call. Warrington have spent most of the season as Saints’ closest challengers in Super League. Yet over the last month their only win has been the semi-final success over Hull FC at Bolton that brought them to Wembley. They are staggering towards the playoffs, hanging on grimly to second place after losing 20-6 to Wigan last time out. The one factor that makes this tricky is that it is a cup final. Funny things happen. Think of Sheffield Eagles in 1998 (which we all should try in darker moments. It has often cheered me up). Final or not there is always scope for a shock in knockout rugby as Saints discovered when they were flayed by Catalans in the last four last year. Wire were still fancied to beat the French side in the final despite their semi-final heroics but it was Steve McNamara smiling at the end. The cup can be a bit of a leveller.
So maybe you are right to be a little bit nervous. A bit jittery. A little caution might be wise. But all things being equal Saints should get home by around three scores. After double disappointment in 2018 there are many who believe that Holbrook’s Saints legacy depends on it.
Squads;
St Helens;
Jonny Lomax, Tommy Makinson, Kevin Naiqama, Mark Percival, Regan Grace, Theo Fages, Danny Richardson, Alex Walmsley, James Roby, LukevThompson, Zeb Taia, Joseph Paulo, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Morgan Knowles, Kyle Amor, Dominique Peyroux, Jack Ashworth, James Bentley, Lachlan Coote
Warrington Wolves;
Sitaleki Akauola, Josh Charley, Daryl Clark, Jason Clark, Mike Cooper, Ben Currie, Matt Davis, Bryson Goodwin, Chris Hill, Jack Hughes, Toby King, Tom Lineham, Harvey Livett, Jake Mamo, Ben Murdoch-Masila, Declan Patton, Joe Philbin, Stefan Ratchford, Ben Westwood
Referee: Robert Hicks
5 Talking Points From Leeds Rhinos 20 Saints 36
That Guard Of Honour
As Disgruntled Of Wigan never tires of telling us Saints are not yet champions of 2019. Our dominance of this year’s regular season will be nothing more than a stick with which to beat us if we fail to win at Old Trafford in the Grand Final. Saints are 16 points clear after this win, on course to top the table by a record margin. Yet if you did a quick survey of even our own fans most of them would not consider this in itself a success. Everything hangs on whether we win the games that bring the trophies.
Strange then that Leeds Rhinos chose to mark Saints’ hitherto played-down success by offering a guard of honour. Of sorts. My recollection of a traditional guard of honour is that the players involved form two lines opposite each other and then applaud as the honoured guests run onto the field in the gap between the two lines. Leeds had a different take on it, simply forming one line from where they clapped Saints on to the pitch.
It was a nice thought and went down well with Saints fans who believe that the achievement of winning the League Leaders Shield ought to be given a bit more kudos. It absolutely should, of course. The subdued, almost embarrassed celebrations when Saints were awarded the Shield last year were a depressing reminder of how rugby league has been reduced to a few important games at the end of the season. Consistency is shrugged at, even by fans of those who achieve it. The Grand Final is King as we found out last year and Castleford the year before that.
The powers within the game have to come up with some way of giving the Shield winners the recognition they deserve. It is not the responsibility of rival clubs to make us feel as if our achievement really matters. Can you imagine a scenario in which Wigan are coming to town having won the Shield with games to spare and seeing your Saints line up to applaud them on to the field? I don’t know about you but I would probably be hospitalised once I’d been spotted frothing at the mouth.
There is a school of thought that Leeds are using the experience for their own ends. Their players will not want to play the role of deferential onlookers the next time the Shield is handed out. It is thought that Sir Alex Ferguson had his Manchester United players form guards of honour whenever they relinquished the title to an Arsenal or a Chelsea. It was probably a powerful motivational tool for the following season. The key difference of course is that those teams applauded on to the field by Manchester United’s players were champions. There were no arguments. No one-off, knockout games at neutral venues to negotiate. In our game, where so much depends on winning on the right date at the right stadium, it all just feels ever so slightly inappropriate.
Injury Worries Persist
Saints went into this one without five of what most would consider their starting 13. James Roby, Lachlan Coote and Alex Walmsley have all been out injured recently and were not named in Justin Holbrook’s 19-man squad a couple of days before the game. Nor was Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook. When game day arrived the names of Tommy Makinson and Morgan Knowles were also absent from the team sheet. Matty Costello filled in on the wing while James Bentley continued his progress as a Super League player with a switch to loose forward.
Until now we have felt comfortable that Holbrook is just employing a cautious selection policy ahead of next week’s Challenge Cup Final meeting with Warrington at Wembley. There’s no point risking a player who isn’t 100% fit and so it has felt right to give one or two a rest. Yet there is a fine line between protecting players for Wembley and pitching them into a final with a lack of match sharpness, even if Holbrook has publicly stated that all of his injured stars should be fit for the big day. Knowles hasn’t played since the defeat at London on July 21. He spoke confidently at a club forum on Tuesday (August 13) about featuring at Headingley after a rib problem. The fact that he did not play surely creates a nagging doubt about his fitness.
Similarly Coote hasn’t featured since the July 12 win over Wigan. There may be a psychological edge to naming the Scotland international at Wembley even if there is a cloud over his fitness. How many times down the years have we seen patched up Wigan players turn out at Wembley and affect the opposition just by reputation? Coote has been sensational in his first season with Saints and could have a big enough name to spook the opposition irrespective of his fitness. As could Roby and Walmsley. Warrington will no doubt try something similar with Blake Austin who has not played since turning an ankle in Perpignan on August 3.
The question is whether recalling so many players who have had so little rugby over the last few weeks is the right way to go. If they’re not fully fit the team cannot carry them all. We have several able deputies we could call on if the risks outweigh the benefits of selecting the tried and tested. Jack Welsby flapped at one or two high balls early in this one but has been excellent in recent weeks and grew into this game as it wore on. We should have no real concerns over him. Roby’s role has been adequately filled by the Smith-Bentley duo while both Joseph Paulo and McCarthy-Scarsbrook have the experience to plug the gap left by Knowles should he be unavailable. Individually and on their own merits it is easy to see any of these playing a part in a winning effort at Wembley. What is less clear is how strong the team will be if all of them are pressed into duty against what remains a strong-looking Wolves side despite their poor form of late. Holbrook will probably need at least a couple of his injured stars to give him 80 minutes and he faces a difficult task this week in working out how many of them should get the nod.
Wembley Could Suit Naiqama
The form of Kevin Naiqama could be extremely timely. Without his regular right edge partner in Makinson the Fiji captain took matters into his own hands. He produced a man of the match effort, crossing for a hat-trick of tries and running for 102 metres on 12 carries at almost nine metres per carry. He busted out of nine tackles and his attacking involvement was a key to this win because it meant that Leeds’ runaway train Konrad Hurrell had to expend some of his relatively meagre energy resources in defence. The former Gold Coast man was not nearly as effective with ball in hand in the second half against Naiqama as he had been in the first.
Naiqama doesn’t always get the plaudits you’d expect. He was a much trumpeted signing from the NRL’s Wests Tigers. An outside back from a league in which centres and wingers often set the teams apart from those in Super League. Yet his performances have often been overshadowed in his first year at Saints not only by Makinson but also by Mark Percival and Regan Grace on the other flank. Quietly, Naiqama has registered 17 tries in Super League this term. That’s the same number as Grace and only two less than Makinson. The Saints winger is one of only four men who have crossed the whitewash more often than Naiqama this season in the whole of Super League.
Avoiding cliches about the wide open spaces of Wembley there probably is something about the dimensions of the national stadium which allows pacy wide players to thrive. In my mind’s eye I can see Mark Elia tearing down the field in the 1987 Final defeat to Halifax, Martin Offiah’s melodramatic disbelief at having scored the greatest of all Wembley tries in 1995, and Jonathan Davies’ memorable scoot past Brett Mullins for Great Britain a year earlier. Speed kills and it would surprise nobody if the Fijian writes himself into Saints folklore with a couple of scorching efforts under the arch.
Taia Could Also Be Key
Sky Sports’ commentary credited Zeb Taia with two tries at the end of the game. Yet since then common sense has prevailed and Grace has taken the credit for the first of those. The Welshman got the merest of fingertips to the ball as it bobbled around the in-goal area before it was more comprehensively grounded by Taia. It’s a bad rule, but in the modern game even the most feather-light touch on a ball on the ground is considered to be downward pressure and sufficient for the try to be given. It could not have been awarded to Taia once Grace had got a touch to it. Either he grounded it in the dubious manner which satisfies modern officials or he knocked it on. He certainly did not miss it completely which is the only way that Taia could have been given the credit for it.
Yet it didn’t take long for the Cook Islander to get his name added to the list of try-scorers. Within a minute he was taking Grace’s pass and stretching out to score. It was just reward for a performance which saw him rack up 118 metres on 16 carries while making 28 tackles. Only Matty Lees, Smith and Bentley managed more defensive contributions for Saints. It was an especially important effort given the absence of Walmsley and Roby and a slightly stunted display by Luke Thompson. Beyond those three Taia and Dominique Peyroux are Saints’ real gun forwards, the pack men most capable of making the metres and breaks that will allow the speedier men to influence the game.
Taia is not only a player of great talent and experience in his own right, he also makes others around him that little bit better. Saints’ left edge of Taia, Grace and Percival is a fearsome one that is probably unmatched anywhere else in Super League. Taia was another one in attendance at the midweek forum and he spoke with great enthusiasm about the prospect of playing at Wembley now that he has recovered from the shoulder injury he suffered last time Saints met Leeds. It’s been a long time coming but Taia finally has a chance to win the silverware that he no doubt joined Saints for two years ago. Expect him to have a big game.
So What’s Your Team?
Indulge me while I finish this week’s column by playing a little Rugby Manager. It’s time to take a closer look at who might be in the Saints 17 when they line-up in the capital for their biggest game since the 2014 Grand Final. We are going to assume that Holbrook is not selling us a dummy and that everyone is fit. You can pick this apart later;
Fullback - Lachlan Coote
Right Wing - Tommy Makinson
Right Centre - Kevin Naiqama
Left Centre - Mark Percival
Left Wing - Regan Grace
Stand Off - Jonny Lomax
Scrum Half - Theo Fages
Prop - Alex Walmsley
Hooker - James Roby
Prop - Luke Thompson
Second Row - Zeb Taia
Second Row - Dominique Peyroux
Loose Forward - Morgan Knowles
Interchange - James Bentley
Interchange - Matty Lees
Interchange - Kyle Amor
Interchange - Joseph Paulo
Much of that side picks itself if everyone is 100% fit. And I must keep stressing that word ‘If’. There are many variables as we have seem. In addition there are a few areas, particularly the bench spots, which present Holbrook with some tricky decisions. The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that Danny Richardson, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Aaron Smith, Jack Ashworth and Jack Welsby all miss out in my line-up. There is a case for including any or all of these and, remembering that this is my team based on what I would choose and not on what I think Holbrook will choose, McCarthy-Scarsbrook is a virtual certainty for the bench.
Of the others perhaps Richardson presses the strongest claim and will be the most aggrieved at missing out given what he has already achieved in his career. My feeling, and I suspect Holbrook’s too, is that the pairing of Fages and Lomax is our most trustworthy for this big occasion. There is an argument for including Richardson for his goal-kicking especially if Coote either can’t play or can’t handle the kicking duties. But Percival is another good option in that role and I’m loathe to select a player solely on the basis of goal-kicking. It’s not rugby union.
Roby’s inclusion means I only have room for one of Smith or Bentley on the bench and the latter’s versatility and recent encouraging performances get him my vote. Recent form also puts Amor in ahead of Ashworth for me. The Cumbrian has his second consecutive 100-metre+ game against Leeds and deserves his shot. Ashworth’s time will come. Finally, Paulo is in provided he can shake off a hamstring injury because he offers more versatility and fewer brain farts than McCarthy-Scarsbrook. In reality the former Bronco will play possibly at the expense of Amor.
As Disgruntled Of Wigan never tires of telling us Saints are not yet champions of 2019. Our dominance of this year’s regular season will be nothing more than a stick with which to beat us if we fail to win at Old Trafford in the Grand Final. Saints are 16 points clear after this win, on course to top the table by a record margin. Yet if you did a quick survey of even our own fans most of them would not consider this in itself a success. Everything hangs on whether we win the games that bring the trophies.
Strange then that Leeds Rhinos chose to mark Saints’ hitherto played-down success by offering a guard of honour. Of sorts. My recollection of a traditional guard of honour is that the players involved form two lines opposite each other and then applaud as the honoured guests run onto the field in the gap between the two lines. Leeds had a different take on it, simply forming one line from where they clapped Saints on to the pitch.
It was a nice thought and went down well with Saints fans who believe that the achievement of winning the League Leaders Shield ought to be given a bit more kudos. It absolutely should, of course. The subdued, almost embarrassed celebrations when Saints were awarded the Shield last year were a depressing reminder of how rugby league has been reduced to a few important games at the end of the season. Consistency is shrugged at, even by fans of those who achieve it. The Grand Final is King as we found out last year and Castleford the year before that.
The powers within the game have to come up with some way of giving the Shield winners the recognition they deserve. It is not the responsibility of rival clubs to make us feel as if our achievement really matters. Can you imagine a scenario in which Wigan are coming to town having won the Shield with games to spare and seeing your Saints line up to applaud them on to the field? I don’t know about you but I would probably be hospitalised once I’d been spotted frothing at the mouth.
There is a school of thought that Leeds are using the experience for their own ends. Their players will not want to play the role of deferential onlookers the next time the Shield is handed out. It is thought that Sir Alex Ferguson had his Manchester United players form guards of honour whenever they relinquished the title to an Arsenal or a Chelsea. It was probably a powerful motivational tool for the following season. The key difference of course is that those teams applauded on to the field by Manchester United’s players were champions. There were no arguments. No one-off, knockout games at neutral venues to negotiate. In our game, where so much depends on winning on the right date at the right stadium, it all just feels ever so slightly inappropriate.
Injury Worries Persist
Saints went into this one without five of what most would consider their starting 13. James Roby, Lachlan Coote and Alex Walmsley have all been out injured recently and were not named in Justin Holbrook’s 19-man squad a couple of days before the game. Nor was Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook. When game day arrived the names of Tommy Makinson and Morgan Knowles were also absent from the team sheet. Matty Costello filled in on the wing while James Bentley continued his progress as a Super League player with a switch to loose forward.
Until now we have felt comfortable that Holbrook is just employing a cautious selection policy ahead of next week’s Challenge Cup Final meeting with Warrington at Wembley. There’s no point risking a player who isn’t 100% fit and so it has felt right to give one or two a rest. Yet there is a fine line between protecting players for Wembley and pitching them into a final with a lack of match sharpness, even if Holbrook has publicly stated that all of his injured stars should be fit for the big day. Knowles hasn’t played since the defeat at London on July 21. He spoke confidently at a club forum on Tuesday (August 13) about featuring at Headingley after a rib problem. The fact that he did not play surely creates a nagging doubt about his fitness.
Similarly Coote hasn’t featured since the July 12 win over Wigan. There may be a psychological edge to naming the Scotland international at Wembley even if there is a cloud over his fitness. How many times down the years have we seen patched up Wigan players turn out at Wembley and affect the opposition just by reputation? Coote has been sensational in his first season with Saints and could have a big enough name to spook the opposition irrespective of his fitness. As could Roby and Walmsley. Warrington will no doubt try something similar with Blake Austin who has not played since turning an ankle in Perpignan on August 3.
The question is whether recalling so many players who have had so little rugby over the last few weeks is the right way to go. If they’re not fully fit the team cannot carry them all. We have several able deputies we could call on if the risks outweigh the benefits of selecting the tried and tested. Jack Welsby flapped at one or two high balls early in this one but has been excellent in recent weeks and grew into this game as it wore on. We should have no real concerns over him. Roby’s role has been adequately filled by the Smith-Bentley duo while both Joseph Paulo and McCarthy-Scarsbrook have the experience to plug the gap left by Knowles should he be unavailable. Individually and on their own merits it is easy to see any of these playing a part in a winning effort at Wembley. What is less clear is how strong the team will be if all of them are pressed into duty against what remains a strong-looking Wolves side despite their poor form of late. Holbrook will probably need at least a couple of his injured stars to give him 80 minutes and he faces a difficult task this week in working out how many of them should get the nod.
Wembley Could Suit Naiqama
The form of Kevin Naiqama could be extremely timely. Without his regular right edge partner in Makinson the Fiji captain took matters into his own hands. He produced a man of the match effort, crossing for a hat-trick of tries and running for 102 metres on 12 carries at almost nine metres per carry. He busted out of nine tackles and his attacking involvement was a key to this win because it meant that Leeds’ runaway train Konrad Hurrell had to expend some of his relatively meagre energy resources in defence. The former Gold Coast man was not nearly as effective with ball in hand in the second half against Naiqama as he had been in the first.
Naiqama doesn’t always get the plaudits you’d expect. He was a much trumpeted signing from the NRL’s Wests Tigers. An outside back from a league in which centres and wingers often set the teams apart from those in Super League. Yet his performances have often been overshadowed in his first year at Saints not only by Makinson but also by Mark Percival and Regan Grace on the other flank. Quietly, Naiqama has registered 17 tries in Super League this term. That’s the same number as Grace and only two less than Makinson. The Saints winger is one of only four men who have crossed the whitewash more often than Naiqama this season in the whole of Super League.
Avoiding cliches about the wide open spaces of Wembley there probably is something about the dimensions of the national stadium which allows pacy wide players to thrive. In my mind’s eye I can see Mark Elia tearing down the field in the 1987 Final defeat to Halifax, Martin Offiah’s melodramatic disbelief at having scored the greatest of all Wembley tries in 1995, and Jonathan Davies’ memorable scoot past Brett Mullins for Great Britain a year earlier. Speed kills and it would surprise nobody if the Fijian writes himself into Saints folklore with a couple of scorching efforts under the arch.
Taia Could Also Be Key
Sky Sports’ commentary credited Zeb Taia with two tries at the end of the game. Yet since then common sense has prevailed and Grace has taken the credit for the first of those. The Welshman got the merest of fingertips to the ball as it bobbled around the in-goal area before it was more comprehensively grounded by Taia. It’s a bad rule, but in the modern game even the most feather-light touch on a ball on the ground is considered to be downward pressure and sufficient for the try to be given. It could not have been awarded to Taia once Grace had got a touch to it. Either he grounded it in the dubious manner which satisfies modern officials or he knocked it on. He certainly did not miss it completely which is the only way that Taia could have been given the credit for it.
Yet it didn’t take long for the Cook Islander to get his name added to the list of try-scorers. Within a minute he was taking Grace’s pass and stretching out to score. It was just reward for a performance which saw him rack up 118 metres on 16 carries while making 28 tackles. Only Matty Lees, Smith and Bentley managed more defensive contributions for Saints. It was an especially important effort given the absence of Walmsley and Roby and a slightly stunted display by Luke Thompson. Beyond those three Taia and Dominique Peyroux are Saints’ real gun forwards, the pack men most capable of making the metres and breaks that will allow the speedier men to influence the game.
Taia is not only a player of great talent and experience in his own right, he also makes others around him that little bit better. Saints’ left edge of Taia, Grace and Percival is a fearsome one that is probably unmatched anywhere else in Super League. Taia was another one in attendance at the midweek forum and he spoke with great enthusiasm about the prospect of playing at Wembley now that he has recovered from the shoulder injury he suffered last time Saints met Leeds. It’s been a long time coming but Taia finally has a chance to win the silverware that he no doubt joined Saints for two years ago. Expect him to have a big game.
So What’s Your Team?
Indulge me while I finish this week’s column by playing a little Rugby Manager. It’s time to take a closer look at who might be in the Saints 17 when they line-up in the capital for their biggest game since the 2014 Grand Final. We are going to assume that Holbrook is not selling us a dummy and that everyone is fit. You can pick this apart later;
Fullback - Lachlan Coote
Right Wing - Tommy Makinson
Right Centre - Kevin Naiqama
Left Centre - Mark Percival
Left Wing - Regan Grace
Stand Off - Jonny Lomax
Scrum Half - Theo Fages
Prop - Alex Walmsley
Hooker - James Roby
Prop - Luke Thompson
Second Row - Zeb Taia
Second Row - Dominique Peyroux
Loose Forward - Morgan Knowles
Interchange - James Bentley
Interchange - Matty Lees
Interchange - Kyle Amor
Interchange - Joseph Paulo
Much of that side picks itself if everyone is 100% fit. And I must keep stressing that word ‘If’. There are many variables as we have seem. In addition there are a few areas, particularly the bench spots, which present Holbrook with some tricky decisions. The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that Danny Richardson, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Aaron Smith, Jack Ashworth and Jack Welsby all miss out in my line-up. There is a case for including any or all of these and, remembering that this is my team based on what I would choose and not on what I think Holbrook will choose, McCarthy-Scarsbrook is a virtual certainty for the bench.
Of the others perhaps Richardson presses the strongest claim and will be the most aggrieved at missing out given what he has already achieved in his career. My feeling, and I suspect Holbrook’s too, is that the pairing of Fages and Lomax is our most trustworthy for this big occasion. There is an argument for including Richardson for his goal-kicking especially if Coote either can’t play or can’t handle the kicking duties. But Percival is another good option in that role and I’m loathe to select a player solely on the basis of goal-kicking. It’s not rugby union.
Roby’s inclusion means I only have room for one of Smith or Bentley on the bench and the latter’s versatility and recent encouraging performances get him my vote. Recent form also puts Amor in ahead of Ashworth for me. The Cumbrian has his second consecutive 100-metre+ game against Leeds and deserves his shot. Ashworth’s time will come. Finally, Paulo is in provided he can shake off a hamstring injury because he offers more versatility and fewer brain farts than McCarthy-Scarsbrook. In reality the former Bronco will play possibly at the expense of Amor.
Leeds Rhinos v Saints - Preview
Before they can think about Wembley Saints have the mild irritant of a visit to Leeds Rhinos to negotiate on Thursday night (August 15, kick-off 7.45pm).
If you want a metaphor for this game then it’s probably a stag do. Something which convention and tradition dictates you have to endure, the main aim being to get through to the main event without in this case the rugby league equivalent of being left tied naked to a tree in the Forest Of Dean. Saints don’t need the points having wrapped up the League Leaders Shield almost two weeks ago. Meanwhile Leeds’ own need is reduced by their recent upturn in form which has seen them blast both Huddersfield Giants and Catalans Dragons off the park in their last two outings. They no longer look like a side contemplating relegation to the Championship. A win here will all but guarantee their presence in Super League in 2020.
Team selection has been a topic of much-debate among the Saints faithful since it has become apparent that Warrington were no longer interested in offering a genuine challenge for the league leadership. How do you strike that balance between protecting players for Wembley and the playoff games ahead and making sure that they remain sharp enough to perform at their best when called upon? It has been a tricky conundrum for coach Justin Holbrook and he has once again made a couple of changes to his squad to add to the injury problems which already existed in the camp.
First the positive news. Morgan Knowles could return to action after missing the last three with a rib injury. His potential comeback is timely given the fact that Joseph Paulo limped out of last week’s win over the plane-fancying Wolves with a hamstring problem. What is more surprising is that another of Knowles’ deputies Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook is not included in the 19-man party for this one. Now I would love to tell you that this is because Holbrook has seen the light over the former London Bronco, finally realising that without a salary cap in place McCarthy-Scarsbrook would be no nearer to a Saints shirt than I am to becoming Chancellor Of The Exchequer. Yet the unavoidable truth is somewhat different. The likelihood is that McCarthy-Scarsbrook is just enjoying a rest. He is one of the few players who regularly features in the match day 17 who has not yet been stood down by Holbrook without being injured. The jig is up for me and my fellow LMS nay-sayers. McCarthy-Scarsbrook is an absolute shoe-in for the squad on cup final day.
Elsewhere Lachlan Coote remains out of action so Jack Welsby may get the chance to build on his impressive displays of late at fullback. If he does he will sit behind a three-quarter line of Tommy Makinson, Kevin Naiqama, Mark Percival and Regan Grace. Percival missed the win over Warrington - managing to do so without anybody at Sky TV noticing - but looks set for a return here. Theo Fages was another who did not feature against the Wolves but is included. He may battle with Danny Richardson for the halfback slot alongside Jonny Lomax, or else both may play with Lomax shifted to fullback at the expense of Welsby. There are those who would advocate that arrangement for the simple reason that this side needs a goal-kicker, and that means Richardson has to be accommodated somewhere as long as Coote is unavailable.
Alex Walmsley remains out with an eye injury which all of St.Helens will be hoping is just a precautionary measure ahead of Wembley. In the meantime it means another likely start for Matty Lees alongside Luke Thompson at prop forward. James Roby has not been brought back into the fold this week - again all available digits are crossed that this is a protective measure on the part of Holbrook - so look for Aaron Smith and James Bentley to once again perform the number nine duties by committee. They managed this to great effect against Steve Price's side last week to the extent that, if the worst happens and Roby is ruled out of the cup final, we should not worry about either of this pair filling the void.
One area where Saints seem stable and where there has been a good deal less tinkering going on is in the second row where Zeb Taia and Dominique Peyroux continue to rule the roost. Joe Batchelor has been included in the 19 this week and could feature for the first time since that controversial and unspeakable defeat at London in July but his cup final aspirations are tempered somewhat by the suspicion that the Sainted Louie is merely being wrapped in cotton wool for next week.
And so to Leeds who under Richard Agar are starting to resemble…..well…….Leeds. Those victories over the Giants and Dragons were achieved in some style and they have allowed the Rhinos to open up a four-point gap between themselves and the bottom-placed London Broncos as the games run out and posteriors begin to make funny squeaking noises. Agar is without Tom Briscoe who was helped off during the win over Huddersfield, while Brad Singleton is suspended having been dismissed in the win over Catalans last time out. Briscoe could be replaced by his brother Luke, while Nathaniel Peteru, James Donaldson, Ava Seumanufagai and Adam Cuthbertson are among the options at Agar’s disposal to cover the whole in the middle left by Singleton.
Stevie Ward is included too. If the game is notable for nothing else it may well be remembered as one of the rare occasions that the talented forward made of balsa wood actually stepped on to a rugby league field. Trent Merrin will lead the Rhinos and he, along veteran spoiler Brett Ferres, are likely to get more minutes in the back row than Ward. Brad Dwyer has a surname to endear him to Saints fans but a tendency to shred any lazy defenders at marker which will not. When he isn’t at you then former Huddersfield and Hull KR veteran Shaun Lunt might well be.
In the backs Jack Walker’s reputation at fullback grows with each passing week, while Konrad Hurrell has been terrorising defences on one leg if you believe some of the comments coming out of the Leeds club over the last fortnight. He will certainly give Makinson and Naiqama all they can handle if the mood takes him, at least until his rather questionable stamina levels reduce him to being asked by a passing steward whether or not he has bought a ticket to be inside Headingley. On the other flank Briscoe will be helped out by the raw talent that is Harry Newman and/or the not inconsiderable presence that is the recently acquired goal-kicking bruiser Rhyse Martin.
Robert Lui and Richie Myler are improving as a halfback pair since the former’s arrival in a deal that saw the much-maligned Tui Lolohea head for Salford, while Ash Handley is in rich try-scoring form. Saints fans need no reminder of his propensity to plonk the ball down over the whitewash against any opponent brazen enough to turn up wearing a red vee. Liam Sutcliffe and Cameron Smith complete Agar’s 19-man selection.
Loop fixtures are so marvellous that this will be the third occasion on which the Saints and Rhinos have met this season. This is tedious overkill, especially if like me you cannot approach a game against the Headingley side without thinking of the countless Grand Final defeats we suffered at their hands during what some misguided souls refer to as ‘the noughties’. They are a blue and amber nightmare to the Saints fan of a certain age and the fact that they are improving faster than Lance Armstrong after a blood transfusion is of no comfort whatsoever. On the flip side of that they have not beaten Saints in either of the two previous meetings this season, going down 27-22 at St Helens in late February despite taking a 22-10 lead into half-time, and 36-10 when they returned to Merseyside in June.
To return to the strangled stag do analogy the main thing is to keep our main players, the men who will be the key to lifting the Challenge Cup next week, away from that imagined tree in the Forest Of Dean minus their attire. We just have to get through this unscathed. The business of winning and losing is almost secondary. That said, the make-up of Saints’ squad is strong enough to suggest that they can go to Wembley on the back of what would be a 23rd victory in 26 regular season league matches. Saints by 18.
Squads;
Leeds Rhinos;
1. Jack Walker, 4. Knonrad Hurrell, 5. Ash Handley, 7. Richie Myler, 8. Adam Cuthbertson, 11. Trent Merrin, 13. Stevie Ward, 14. Brad Dwyer, 15. Liam Sutcliffe, 16. Brett Ferres, 18. Nathaniel Peteru, 22. Cameron Smith, 24. Luke Briscoe, 25. James Donaldson, 29. Harry Newman, 38. Ava Seumanufagai, 39. Shaun Lunt, 40. Robert Lui, 41. Rhyse Martin.
St Helens;
1. Jonny Lomax, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Kevin Naiqama, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Regan Grace, 6. Theo Fages, 7. Danny Richardson, 10. Luke Thompson, 11. Zeb Taia, 15. Morgan Knowles, 16. Kyle Amor, 17. Dom Peyroux, 19. Matty Lees, 20. Jack Ashworth, 21. Aaron Smith, 22. James Bentley, 24. Matty Costello, 25. Joe Batchelor, 29. Jack Welsby.
If you want a metaphor for this game then it’s probably a stag do. Something which convention and tradition dictates you have to endure, the main aim being to get through to the main event without in this case the rugby league equivalent of being left tied naked to a tree in the Forest Of Dean. Saints don’t need the points having wrapped up the League Leaders Shield almost two weeks ago. Meanwhile Leeds’ own need is reduced by their recent upturn in form which has seen them blast both Huddersfield Giants and Catalans Dragons off the park in their last two outings. They no longer look like a side contemplating relegation to the Championship. A win here will all but guarantee their presence in Super League in 2020.
Team selection has been a topic of much-debate among the Saints faithful since it has become apparent that Warrington were no longer interested in offering a genuine challenge for the league leadership. How do you strike that balance between protecting players for Wembley and the playoff games ahead and making sure that they remain sharp enough to perform at their best when called upon? It has been a tricky conundrum for coach Justin Holbrook and he has once again made a couple of changes to his squad to add to the injury problems which already existed in the camp.
First the positive news. Morgan Knowles could return to action after missing the last three with a rib injury. His potential comeback is timely given the fact that Joseph Paulo limped out of last week’s win over the plane-fancying Wolves with a hamstring problem. What is more surprising is that another of Knowles’ deputies Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook is not included in the 19-man party for this one. Now I would love to tell you that this is because Holbrook has seen the light over the former London Bronco, finally realising that without a salary cap in place McCarthy-Scarsbrook would be no nearer to a Saints shirt than I am to becoming Chancellor Of The Exchequer. Yet the unavoidable truth is somewhat different. The likelihood is that McCarthy-Scarsbrook is just enjoying a rest. He is one of the few players who regularly features in the match day 17 who has not yet been stood down by Holbrook without being injured. The jig is up for me and my fellow LMS nay-sayers. McCarthy-Scarsbrook is an absolute shoe-in for the squad on cup final day.
Elsewhere Lachlan Coote remains out of action so Jack Welsby may get the chance to build on his impressive displays of late at fullback. If he does he will sit behind a three-quarter line of Tommy Makinson, Kevin Naiqama, Mark Percival and Regan Grace. Percival missed the win over Warrington - managing to do so without anybody at Sky TV noticing - but looks set for a return here. Theo Fages was another who did not feature against the Wolves but is included. He may battle with Danny Richardson for the halfback slot alongside Jonny Lomax, or else both may play with Lomax shifted to fullback at the expense of Welsby. There are those who would advocate that arrangement for the simple reason that this side needs a goal-kicker, and that means Richardson has to be accommodated somewhere as long as Coote is unavailable.
Alex Walmsley remains out with an eye injury which all of St.Helens will be hoping is just a precautionary measure ahead of Wembley. In the meantime it means another likely start for Matty Lees alongside Luke Thompson at prop forward. James Roby has not been brought back into the fold this week - again all available digits are crossed that this is a protective measure on the part of Holbrook - so look for Aaron Smith and James Bentley to once again perform the number nine duties by committee. They managed this to great effect against Steve Price's side last week to the extent that, if the worst happens and Roby is ruled out of the cup final, we should not worry about either of this pair filling the void.
One area where Saints seem stable and where there has been a good deal less tinkering going on is in the second row where Zeb Taia and Dominique Peyroux continue to rule the roost. Joe Batchelor has been included in the 19 this week and could feature for the first time since that controversial and unspeakable defeat at London in July but his cup final aspirations are tempered somewhat by the suspicion that the Sainted Louie is merely being wrapped in cotton wool for next week.
And so to Leeds who under Richard Agar are starting to resemble…..well…….Leeds. Those victories over the Giants and Dragons were achieved in some style and they have allowed the Rhinos to open up a four-point gap between themselves and the bottom-placed London Broncos as the games run out and posteriors begin to make funny squeaking noises. Agar is without Tom Briscoe who was helped off during the win over Huddersfield, while Brad Singleton is suspended having been dismissed in the win over Catalans last time out. Briscoe could be replaced by his brother Luke, while Nathaniel Peteru, James Donaldson, Ava Seumanufagai and Adam Cuthbertson are among the options at Agar’s disposal to cover the whole in the middle left by Singleton.
Stevie Ward is included too. If the game is notable for nothing else it may well be remembered as one of the rare occasions that the talented forward made of balsa wood actually stepped on to a rugby league field. Trent Merrin will lead the Rhinos and he, along veteran spoiler Brett Ferres, are likely to get more minutes in the back row than Ward. Brad Dwyer has a surname to endear him to Saints fans but a tendency to shred any lazy defenders at marker which will not. When he isn’t at you then former Huddersfield and Hull KR veteran Shaun Lunt might well be.
In the backs Jack Walker’s reputation at fullback grows with each passing week, while Konrad Hurrell has been terrorising defences on one leg if you believe some of the comments coming out of the Leeds club over the last fortnight. He will certainly give Makinson and Naiqama all they can handle if the mood takes him, at least until his rather questionable stamina levels reduce him to being asked by a passing steward whether or not he has bought a ticket to be inside Headingley. On the other flank Briscoe will be helped out by the raw talent that is Harry Newman and/or the not inconsiderable presence that is the recently acquired goal-kicking bruiser Rhyse Martin.
Robert Lui and Richie Myler are improving as a halfback pair since the former’s arrival in a deal that saw the much-maligned Tui Lolohea head for Salford, while Ash Handley is in rich try-scoring form. Saints fans need no reminder of his propensity to plonk the ball down over the whitewash against any opponent brazen enough to turn up wearing a red vee. Liam Sutcliffe and Cameron Smith complete Agar’s 19-man selection.
Loop fixtures are so marvellous that this will be the third occasion on which the Saints and Rhinos have met this season. This is tedious overkill, especially if like me you cannot approach a game against the Headingley side without thinking of the countless Grand Final defeats we suffered at their hands during what some misguided souls refer to as ‘the noughties’. They are a blue and amber nightmare to the Saints fan of a certain age and the fact that they are improving faster than Lance Armstrong after a blood transfusion is of no comfort whatsoever. On the flip side of that they have not beaten Saints in either of the two previous meetings this season, going down 27-22 at St Helens in late February despite taking a 22-10 lead into half-time, and 36-10 when they returned to Merseyside in June.
To return to the strangled stag do analogy the main thing is to keep our main players, the men who will be the key to lifting the Challenge Cup next week, away from that imagined tree in the Forest Of Dean minus their attire. We just have to get through this unscathed. The business of winning and losing is almost secondary. That said, the make-up of Saints’ squad is strong enough to suggest that they can go to Wembley on the back of what would be a 23rd victory in 26 regular season league matches. Saints by 18.
Squads;
Leeds Rhinos;
1. Jack Walker, 4. Knonrad Hurrell, 5. Ash Handley, 7. Richie Myler, 8. Adam Cuthbertson, 11. Trent Merrin, 13. Stevie Ward, 14. Brad Dwyer, 15. Liam Sutcliffe, 16. Brett Ferres, 18. Nathaniel Peteru, 22. Cameron Smith, 24. Luke Briscoe, 25. James Donaldson, 29. Harry Newman, 38. Ava Seumanufagai, 39. Shaun Lunt, 40. Robert Lui, 41. Rhyse Martin.
St Helens;
1. Jonny Lomax, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Kevin Naiqama, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Regan Grace, 6. Theo Fages, 7. Danny Richardson, 10. Luke Thompson, 11. Zeb Taia, 15. Morgan Knowles, 16. Kyle Amor, 17. Dom Peyroux, 19. Matty Lees, 20. Jack Ashworth, 21. Aaron Smith, 22. James Bentley, 24. Matty Costello, 25. Joe Batchelor, 29. Jack Welsby.
5 Talking Points From Warrington Wolves 12 Saints 30
A Phoney War
If you could stand to listen to more than a minute of the commentary on Saints’ 30-12 win over Warrington on Thursday night you would have got the impression that the result was merely a question of available personnel. The narrative was very much one of plucky, injury-ravaged Warrington having to duke it out against the league-leading, all-conquering Saints. Won’t somebody think of the Wolves? Those poor, poor Wolves....
The reality of course is that both sides were depleted. While Daryl Clark, Mike Cooper, Blake Austin, Tom Lineham, Josh Charnley and Declan Patton were among those not featuring for Steve Price’s side it should be remembered that Justin Holbrook was without several of his stars too. Would plucky, injury-ravaged Warrington have rather faced a Saints side featuring Lachlan Coote, Mark Percival, Theo Fages, Alex Walmsley, James Roby and Morgan Knowles? No doubt both Price and Holbrook rested players who could have played had there been more riding on the result. Warrington’s loss in Perpignan last week wrapped the League Leaders Shield up in a large, colourful bow for Saints. For Wire, a top three finish will bring with it the prized second opportunity in the play-offs but even in defeat here that is still in their own hands. Maybe, just maybe, the focus of both sides is on a certain meeting in the capital.
There was nothing wrong with the commitment of either side on the night. Those who were selected for duty turned up and gave everything for their side. But in reality this was a phoney war, a walk-through ahead of the big one under the arch on August 24. The idea that Price’s side have scored some sort of psychological blow by managing to stay reasonably competitive with Saints over the 80 minutes is plainly absurd.
Welsby Would Not Let Us Down At Wembley
In his post-match interview Holbrook seemed fairly confident that Coote will be available for the Challenge Cup Final. The Scotland international has missed the last four since playing in the win over Wigan on July 12, but will slot right back into his familiar fullback role if and when he is fit. Coote has been magnificent this season. He could be leading the way in the Steve Prescott Man Of Steel race if the new voting system did not punish players from teams with an array of top performers by spreading the points out thinly among them. Coote has single-handedly banished the painful memories of the denouement of the Ben Barba Experience as Saints have arguably become even stronger in 2019 than they were a year ago.
Yet if for some reason Coote were to miss out at Wembley we need not fret about how to fill the void. Jack Welsby has only played eight times for Saints but is looking more and more assured every time he pulls on the red vee. He is just 18 years old, but he fulfils his duties as the last line of defence in a manner which belies that lack of experience and maturity. Crucially, he has been able to execute the devastating set-plays which often go through Coote near to the opponents’ line. Welsby produced two sublime assists in last week’s win over Wakefield and was at it again here in what for me was a man of the match display. He had the last pass to create tries for Kevin Naiqama, Matty Costello and Tommy Makinson. Defensively he wasn’t overworked in terms of tackles - not surprising playing behind this Saints defensive line – but when the line was broken he stood firm at vital times. Ben Murdoch-Masila had one rampaging burst down the right hand channel during the second half and as one or two other Saints flapped and grabbed desperately at the former Salford man it was Welsby who stopped him in his tracks and held him up until the help arrived. The score-line might suggest that it was not a match-winning incident but had Warrington scored at that point they may have had some belief that they could fight their way back into the game. As it was they were snuffed out by Saints brilliant young star.
In all probability Welsby will miss out at Wembley but he has shown already in his brief Saints career that his time looks set to arrive sooner rather than later.
Smith And Bentley Fill The Void
One of those thought not worthy of risk in this one was Roby. Any time the Saints skipper has had anything resembling a knock he has been rested by Holbrook this year. This seems like prudent management of a player entering his 34th year, 15 or so of which have been spent terrorising Super League defences. Holbrook recognises that we need Roby for the very biggest games. It hasn’t quite reached Sean O’Loughlin proportions just yet but there is no doubt we are starting to see a lot less of the great man than was once the case.
Which you would think would be a problem. Following on from Roby and before him Keiron Cunningham it is the stuff of pure fantasy to believe that we could be blessed with yet another number nine of that quality. They don’t grow on a tree in Sherdley Park. Yet just as we look in safe hands whenever Coote is unavailable so we are finding ways to fill the void left by Roby’s increasing absences. Aaron Smith and James Bentley appear to be doing the hooking role by committee, and both were outstanding in this win. True, they did not have to contend with Warrington’s own world class hooker in Clark, but their work rate, endeavour, confidence and no lack of skill shone through brightly.
Bentley was monstrous in defence, coming up with 38 tackles while Smith wasn’t far behind him with 32 of his own. Both are quick distributors from dummy half while Smith also managed to scoot out from that position on three occasions, keeping the defence honest while averaging just under 9 metres per carry. Neither made a handling error all night, and it is this reliability that could be huge for Saints in the final throes of this campaign. Like Welsby, one or both of these two are in danger of missing out at Wembley. Saints have a squad that is so strong that if everyone is fit there would be no stamping of feet, whaling or gnashing of teeth from most fans if the names of Smith and Bentley were not in the 17 on cup final day. It would be taken for what it is, a demonstration of the depth at Holbrook's disposal. But they too have time on their side and on this evidence can look forward to long and successful careers in the red vee.
Amor’s Party Piece
As the competition for places in that Wembley 17 gets ever hotter, Kyle Amor was another one not so much stating his case but standing up and shouting it very loudly in the manner of a preacher on a Las Vegas street corner. The former Wakefield man has been in and out of the side under Holbrook’s stewardship. That's largely because Luke Thompson has emerged as one of the world’s premier front rowers alongside the already formidable Alex Walmsley. With the latter absent here it offered Amor another chance to show what he can do and although much maligned by many it seems that the interestingly barneted Cumbrian still has something to offer.
Amor ran for 125 metres on 13 carries in this one, an average of almost 10 metres per carry. Yet it was his searing break and assist for Joseph Paulo’s try which was the crowning glory of his performance. Picking the ball up around half-way Amor crashed through the hapless effort of a bewildered Luis Johnson before surging into the Wire backfield like a recently escaped Rhino at Whipsnade. He then had the presence of mind to find the supporting Paulo on his inside who went over untouched to help put Saints firmly in command of the match. The pair celebrated wildly, and amid the commotion Paulo managed to damage a hamstring and played no further part in the game. Yet it was a glimpse of what both can do and along with another trademark Tommy Makinson flying finish it was without doubt the most spectacular, Saintsy moment of what was on the whole a professional performance not exactly littered with standout moments.
Amor also came up with a creditable 18 tackles on defence but the one black mark against him was his ball control. He managed three handling errors including one absolute pearler for the ages when he suddenly mistook himself for a halfback and dropped the ball cold while preparing to spin a long ball out wide to one of the side’s many speed merchants. More conservatism will be the philosophy when the games get bigger but at a time when Amor has been written off as a little powder-puff and ineffectual by many it was heartening to see him turn on the style.
Second Is The New Mid Table
Warrington’s loss puts them a whopping 14 points behind Saints now with just four games to play until the end of the regular season. As an advocate of first-past-the-post I nevertheless find myself seeing the positives for the competition in having a playoff system and Grand Final to determine the champions. Without them all interest in the top end of the league would be done and dusted. Saints and many others before them have shown over the weekly rounds that they are far and away the best side in the league, but at least this system keeps the interest alive for a sport that unfortunately needs all the attention it can get.
The question is has the mediocrity gone too far with this structure? That 14-point gap between Saints and Warrington is exactly the same gap as that between the second-placed Wolves and the bottom club London Broncos. So Saints are as far ahead of Warrington as Warrington are ahead of London Broncos. Or if you want to put a positive spin on it, the league is so tight that bottom-placed London are as close to the runners-up spot as the runners-up are to the leaders. It strikes me as a sad indictment of the strength of the league but it depends very much on your perspective. What is not in dispute is that the main reason for it is consistency, or lack thereof. While the playoffs and Grand Final create excitement and opportunity they have also created an environment in which most clubs gave up on chasing down Saints months ago. A top three place, and with it a second chance in the playoffs, is the only priority left for the likes of Warrington, Hull FC, Wigan, Catalans Dragons and Castleford Tigers. For one or two of those clubs just scraping into the top five would be considered both a relief and a success.
All of which drives down standards and leaves us in a bit of limbo until the end of September. Apart from the Wembley date the games don’t matter too much for Saints, hence the willingness of Holbrook to rest many of his stars who might otherwise have played had the stakes been higher. Of course the flip side of that argument is that without the playoffs we would not even have that to look forward to. The season would be as good as over apart from the cup final. Like the equally manufactured top four scramble in Premier League football, the games involving the playoff-chasing clubs will be of interest between now and the end of the season. It is just that they are interesting for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps the teams currently jockeying for a position in behind Saints would have been motivated to find more consistency had the playoff safety net not been an option. We might even have had that rarest of beasts - a genuine title race run-in - to feast our eyes upon in late summer.
If you could stand to listen to more than a minute of the commentary on Saints’ 30-12 win over Warrington on Thursday night you would have got the impression that the result was merely a question of available personnel. The narrative was very much one of plucky, injury-ravaged Warrington having to duke it out against the league-leading, all-conquering Saints. Won’t somebody think of the Wolves? Those poor, poor Wolves....
The reality of course is that both sides were depleted. While Daryl Clark, Mike Cooper, Blake Austin, Tom Lineham, Josh Charnley and Declan Patton were among those not featuring for Steve Price’s side it should be remembered that Justin Holbrook was without several of his stars too. Would plucky, injury-ravaged Warrington have rather faced a Saints side featuring Lachlan Coote, Mark Percival, Theo Fages, Alex Walmsley, James Roby and Morgan Knowles? No doubt both Price and Holbrook rested players who could have played had there been more riding on the result. Warrington’s loss in Perpignan last week wrapped the League Leaders Shield up in a large, colourful bow for Saints. For Wire, a top three finish will bring with it the prized second opportunity in the play-offs but even in defeat here that is still in their own hands. Maybe, just maybe, the focus of both sides is on a certain meeting in the capital.
There was nothing wrong with the commitment of either side on the night. Those who were selected for duty turned up and gave everything for their side. But in reality this was a phoney war, a walk-through ahead of the big one under the arch on August 24. The idea that Price’s side have scored some sort of psychological blow by managing to stay reasonably competitive with Saints over the 80 minutes is plainly absurd.
Welsby Would Not Let Us Down At Wembley
In his post-match interview Holbrook seemed fairly confident that Coote will be available for the Challenge Cup Final. The Scotland international has missed the last four since playing in the win over Wigan on July 12, but will slot right back into his familiar fullback role if and when he is fit. Coote has been magnificent this season. He could be leading the way in the Steve Prescott Man Of Steel race if the new voting system did not punish players from teams with an array of top performers by spreading the points out thinly among them. Coote has single-handedly banished the painful memories of the denouement of the Ben Barba Experience as Saints have arguably become even stronger in 2019 than they were a year ago.
Yet if for some reason Coote were to miss out at Wembley we need not fret about how to fill the void. Jack Welsby has only played eight times for Saints but is looking more and more assured every time he pulls on the red vee. He is just 18 years old, but he fulfils his duties as the last line of defence in a manner which belies that lack of experience and maturity. Crucially, he has been able to execute the devastating set-plays which often go through Coote near to the opponents’ line. Welsby produced two sublime assists in last week’s win over Wakefield and was at it again here in what for me was a man of the match display. He had the last pass to create tries for Kevin Naiqama, Matty Costello and Tommy Makinson. Defensively he wasn’t overworked in terms of tackles - not surprising playing behind this Saints defensive line – but when the line was broken he stood firm at vital times. Ben Murdoch-Masila had one rampaging burst down the right hand channel during the second half and as one or two other Saints flapped and grabbed desperately at the former Salford man it was Welsby who stopped him in his tracks and held him up until the help arrived. The score-line might suggest that it was not a match-winning incident but had Warrington scored at that point they may have had some belief that they could fight their way back into the game. As it was they were snuffed out by Saints brilliant young star.
In all probability Welsby will miss out at Wembley but he has shown already in his brief Saints career that his time looks set to arrive sooner rather than later.
Smith And Bentley Fill The Void
One of those thought not worthy of risk in this one was Roby. Any time the Saints skipper has had anything resembling a knock he has been rested by Holbrook this year. This seems like prudent management of a player entering his 34th year, 15 or so of which have been spent terrorising Super League defences. Holbrook recognises that we need Roby for the very biggest games. It hasn’t quite reached Sean O’Loughlin proportions just yet but there is no doubt we are starting to see a lot less of the great man than was once the case.
Which you would think would be a problem. Following on from Roby and before him Keiron Cunningham it is the stuff of pure fantasy to believe that we could be blessed with yet another number nine of that quality. They don’t grow on a tree in Sherdley Park. Yet just as we look in safe hands whenever Coote is unavailable so we are finding ways to fill the void left by Roby’s increasing absences. Aaron Smith and James Bentley appear to be doing the hooking role by committee, and both were outstanding in this win. True, they did not have to contend with Warrington’s own world class hooker in Clark, but their work rate, endeavour, confidence and no lack of skill shone through brightly.
Bentley was monstrous in defence, coming up with 38 tackles while Smith wasn’t far behind him with 32 of his own. Both are quick distributors from dummy half while Smith also managed to scoot out from that position on three occasions, keeping the defence honest while averaging just under 9 metres per carry. Neither made a handling error all night, and it is this reliability that could be huge for Saints in the final throes of this campaign. Like Welsby, one or both of these two are in danger of missing out at Wembley. Saints have a squad that is so strong that if everyone is fit there would be no stamping of feet, whaling or gnashing of teeth from most fans if the names of Smith and Bentley were not in the 17 on cup final day. It would be taken for what it is, a demonstration of the depth at Holbrook's disposal. But they too have time on their side and on this evidence can look forward to long and successful careers in the red vee.
Amor’s Party Piece
As the competition for places in that Wembley 17 gets ever hotter, Kyle Amor was another one not so much stating his case but standing up and shouting it very loudly in the manner of a preacher on a Las Vegas street corner. The former Wakefield man has been in and out of the side under Holbrook’s stewardship. That's largely because Luke Thompson has emerged as one of the world’s premier front rowers alongside the already formidable Alex Walmsley. With the latter absent here it offered Amor another chance to show what he can do and although much maligned by many it seems that the interestingly barneted Cumbrian still has something to offer.
Amor ran for 125 metres on 13 carries in this one, an average of almost 10 metres per carry. Yet it was his searing break and assist for Joseph Paulo’s try which was the crowning glory of his performance. Picking the ball up around half-way Amor crashed through the hapless effort of a bewildered Luis Johnson before surging into the Wire backfield like a recently escaped Rhino at Whipsnade. He then had the presence of mind to find the supporting Paulo on his inside who went over untouched to help put Saints firmly in command of the match. The pair celebrated wildly, and amid the commotion Paulo managed to damage a hamstring and played no further part in the game. Yet it was a glimpse of what both can do and along with another trademark Tommy Makinson flying finish it was without doubt the most spectacular, Saintsy moment of what was on the whole a professional performance not exactly littered with standout moments.
Amor also came up with a creditable 18 tackles on defence but the one black mark against him was his ball control. He managed three handling errors including one absolute pearler for the ages when he suddenly mistook himself for a halfback and dropped the ball cold while preparing to spin a long ball out wide to one of the side’s many speed merchants. More conservatism will be the philosophy when the games get bigger but at a time when Amor has been written off as a little powder-puff and ineffectual by many it was heartening to see him turn on the style.
Second Is The New Mid Table
Warrington’s loss puts them a whopping 14 points behind Saints now with just four games to play until the end of the regular season. As an advocate of first-past-the-post I nevertheless find myself seeing the positives for the competition in having a playoff system and Grand Final to determine the champions. Without them all interest in the top end of the league would be done and dusted. Saints and many others before them have shown over the weekly rounds that they are far and away the best side in the league, but at least this system keeps the interest alive for a sport that unfortunately needs all the attention it can get.
The question is has the mediocrity gone too far with this structure? That 14-point gap between Saints and Warrington is exactly the same gap as that between the second-placed Wolves and the bottom club London Broncos. So Saints are as far ahead of Warrington as Warrington are ahead of London Broncos. Or if you want to put a positive spin on it, the league is so tight that bottom-placed London are as close to the runners-up spot as the runners-up are to the leaders. It strikes me as a sad indictment of the strength of the league but it depends very much on your perspective. What is not in dispute is that the main reason for it is consistency, or lack thereof. While the playoffs and Grand Final create excitement and opportunity they have also created an environment in which most clubs gave up on chasing down Saints months ago. A top three place, and with it a second chance in the playoffs, is the only priority left for the likes of Warrington, Hull FC, Wigan, Catalans Dragons and Castleford Tigers. For one or two of those clubs just scraping into the top five would be considered both a relief and a success.
All of which drives down standards and leaves us in a bit of limbo until the end of September. Apart from the Wembley date the games don’t matter too much for Saints, hence the willingness of Holbrook to rest many of his stars who might otherwise have played had the stakes been higher. Of course the flip side of that argument is that without the playoffs we would not even have that to look forward to. The season would be as good as over apart from the cup final. Like the equally manufactured top four scramble in Premier League football, the games involving the playoff-chasing clubs will be of interest between now and the end of the season. It is just that they are interesting for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps the teams currently jockeying for a position in behind Saints would have been motivated to find more consistency had the playoff safety net not been an option. We might even have had that rarest of beasts - a genuine title race run-in - to feast our eyes upon in late summer.
Warrington Wolves v Saints - Preview
Light your cigar, crack open a cold one from the fridge and sit off as Saints visit Warrington on Thursday night (August 8, kick-off 7.45pm).
The term ‘dead rubber’ could have been invented for this one. Saints have wrapped up the League Leaders Shield with fully five regular season games still to play. That’s because Warrington have imploded over the last month or so, and a look at their squad for this one suggests that they have decided that this isn’t a battle worth spilling any blood over with the Challenge Cup Final meeting between these two teams just two weeks away. In their desperate scramble to create a format that keeps interest alive the Super League great and good have instead created a laughable level of apathy. Both Warrington and Saints know that even if they don’t win another game in 2019 it won’t matter all that much provided they win either the Wembley showpiece or one playoff game and the Grand Final in October. Every minute does not matter. Not really.
Which is why it is slightly surprising that Saints coach Justin Holbrook has gone with about as much strength in his 19-man squad as possible. Lachlan Coote, Alex Walmsley and Morgan Knowles remain on the injured list and they are joined on the sidelines this week by a man plagued by that persistent menace, the slight niggle, in James Roby. However, the good news is that Jonny Lomax is back in the fold after missing last week’s 26-6 win over Wakefield Trinity while on paternity leave. He could slot back in as the last line of defence, while Regan Grace is also in contention again after he was absent last time out. He may replace Adam Swift in a three-quarter-line that also includes Kevin Naiqama and Mark Percival. With Lomax required at fullback Theo Fages and Danny Richardson should continue in the halves. Richardson was particularly impressive against Chris Chester’s side, scoring 14 points including a sensational individual try.
Luke Thompson leads the front row in the absence of both Walmsley and Roby, while Aaron Smith and James Bentley are the most likely options to deputise at hooker. Matty Lees should start again, with Zeb Taia and Dominique Peyroux continuing their second row partnership that has been devastating this year and which was reunited by Taia’s return from a shoulder injury last week. With Knowles still nursing a rib injury expect Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook or Joseph Paulo to start at loose forward with one or the other coming off the bench. That should leave two interchange spots available for Kyle Amor, Matty Costello, Jack Ashworth and Jack Welsby to fight over.
Warrington tickled the ribs of all Saints fans this week when they signed former Saint and one-time Wigan badge-necker Matty Smith as adesperate emergency replacement for the stricken Blake Austin. The former Canberra man went over on an ankle during his side’s tumultuous 30-10 defeat to Catalans Dragons last weekend and the suggestion is that his place in the side for Wembley is under some threat. Those of you old enough to remember Kris Radlinksi rising from the dead like Jesus Christ on EPO to star in Wigan’s 2002 Wembley win over Saints will no doubt be overcome with scepticism at the thought of Austin missing out. Yet with Kevin Brown having not played since the days of three-point tries and unlimited tackles and Declan Patton not named by coach Steve Price it looks fairly certain that Smith, who joined Wire yesterday from their weekend nemesis the Dragons, will slot in somewhere in the halves. At this stage Harvey Livett looks the likeliest candidate to join him, but don't forget this is the same Steve Price who recalled two players (including Livett) from a loan period at Hull KR just for shits and giggles recently. Don’t be surprised to see a few names from outside their declared squad list turning out come Thursday.
One of those will not be Jack Hughes, who suffered a horrific ruptured testicle in the battle of Perpignan, nor Tom Lineham who somehow was the only Warrington player to receive a suspension amid the mayhem. Luther Burrell, a recent and much trumpeted convert from rugby union, may get a start while the soon-to-be retired Bennie Westwood may be sent on one final demolition mission ahead of the rather more important clash between these two in a fortnight.
Stefan Ratchford was Radlinksi-like in coming back from a supposedly season-threatening injury to star in Warrington’s Challenge Cup semi-final win over Hull a couple of weeks ago and he may continue his reintegration into the side. Chris Hill, Bryson Goodwin, Ben Murdoch-Masila, Toby King and Ben Currie are the others who can reasonably call themselves a part of Warrington’s strongest 17 who are on duty for this one. But really, I can't emphasise enough that it is all guess work until someone tightens up the rules around pre-game squad selection and subsequent eligibility.
Warrington’s form has fallen further than Michael Jackson's popularity in recent weeks. They have not won in the league since beating London Broncos 36-6 on July 6, virtually handing the League Leaders Shield to Saints on the shiniest silver platter they could find. Losing is becoming a habit for them and if the make-up of the two sides on Thursday night resembles anything like the squad lists they have announced then don’t expect their bad run to end here. There is a good argument that they have bigger battles ahead but they are still taking something of a risk if they don't give this one their full attention. If they go in to their meeting with Wigan next week on the back of another defeat, their confidence dented even further, then their place in the top two or three of Super League starts to look a little shaky. Any finish outside the top three makes the road to Old Trafford that little bit trickier, and something to be avoided for Price’s side if it all possible.
Yet all available evidence is pointing towards another Saints win. Should that happen Warrington will be closer to the bottom of the table in terms of points earned than they will be to the top, which is embarrassing not only for them but for the whole of the competition. There’s a good reason why Wigan are fast becoming many people’s favourites to reach the Grand Final alongside Saints, and that is the sheer mediocrity of the competition they face.
Back to that cigar, then....
Squads;
Warrington Wolves;
Sitaleki Akauola, Luther Burrell, Ben Currie, Matt Davis, Riley Dean, Bryson Goodwin, Chris Hill, Luis Johnson, Toby King, Harvey Livett, Jake Mamo, Pat Moran, Ben Murdoch-Masila, Stefan Ratchford, Lama Tasi, Josh Thewlis, Danny Walker, Ben Westwood (+Matty Smith, probably)
St Helens;
1. Jonny Lomax, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Kevin Naiqama, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Regan Grace, 6. Theo Fages, 7. Danny Richardson, 10. Luke Thompson, 11. Zeb Taia, 12. Joseph Paulo, 13. Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, 16. Kyle Amor, 17. Dom Peyroux, 19. Matty Lees, 20. Jack Ashworth, 21. Aaron Smith, 22. James Bentley, 24. Matty Costello, 29. Jack Welsby.
Referee: Ben Thaler
The term ‘dead rubber’ could have been invented for this one. Saints have wrapped up the League Leaders Shield with fully five regular season games still to play. That’s because Warrington have imploded over the last month or so, and a look at their squad for this one suggests that they have decided that this isn’t a battle worth spilling any blood over with the Challenge Cup Final meeting between these two teams just two weeks away. In their desperate scramble to create a format that keeps interest alive the Super League great and good have instead created a laughable level of apathy. Both Warrington and Saints know that even if they don’t win another game in 2019 it won’t matter all that much provided they win either the Wembley showpiece or one playoff game and the Grand Final in October. Every minute does not matter. Not really.
Which is why it is slightly surprising that Saints coach Justin Holbrook has gone with about as much strength in his 19-man squad as possible. Lachlan Coote, Alex Walmsley and Morgan Knowles remain on the injured list and they are joined on the sidelines this week by a man plagued by that persistent menace, the slight niggle, in James Roby. However, the good news is that Jonny Lomax is back in the fold after missing last week’s 26-6 win over Wakefield Trinity while on paternity leave. He could slot back in as the last line of defence, while Regan Grace is also in contention again after he was absent last time out. He may replace Adam Swift in a three-quarter-line that also includes Kevin Naiqama and Mark Percival. With Lomax required at fullback Theo Fages and Danny Richardson should continue in the halves. Richardson was particularly impressive against Chris Chester’s side, scoring 14 points including a sensational individual try.
Luke Thompson leads the front row in the absence of both Walmsley and Roby, while Aaron Smith and James Bentley are the most likely options to deputise at hooker. Matty Lees should start again, with Zeb Taia and Dominique Peyroux continuing their second row partnership that has been devastating this year and which was reunited by Taia’s return from a shoulder injury last week. With Knowles still nursing a rib injury expect Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook or Joseph Paulo to start at loose forward with one or the other coming off the bench. That should leave two interchange spots available for Kyle Amor, Matty Costello, Jack Ashworth and Jack Welsby to fight over.
Warrington tickled the ribs of all Saints fans this week when they signed former Saint and one-time Wigan badge-necker Matty Smith as a
One of those will not be Jack Hughes, who suffered a horrific ruptured testicle in the battle of Perpignan, nor Tom Lineham who somehow was the only Warrington player to receive a suspension amid the mayhem. Luther Burrell, a recent and much trumpeted convert from rugby union, may get a start while the soon-to-be retired Bennie Westwood may be sent on one final demolition mission ahead of the rather more important clash between these two in a fortnight.
Stefan Ratchford was Radlinksi-like in coming back from a supposedly season-threatening injury to star in Warrington’s Challenge Cup semi-final win over Hull a couple of weeks ago and he may continue his reintegration into the side. Chris Hill, Bryson Goodwin, Ben Murdoch-Masila, Toby King and Ben Currie are the others who can reasonably call themselves a part of Warrington’s strongest 17 who are on duty for this one. But really, I can't emphasise enough that it is all guess work until someone tightens up the rules around pre-game squad selection and subsequent eligibility.
Warrington’s form has fallen further than Michael Jackson's popularity in recent weeks. They have not won in the league since beating London Broncos 36-6 on July 6, virtually handing the League Leaders Shield to Saints on the shiniest silver platter they could find. Losing is becoming a habit for them and if the make-up of the two sides on Thursday night resembles anything like the squad lists they have announced then don’t expect their bad run to end here. There is a good argument that they have bigger battles ahead but they are still taking something of a risk if they don't give this one their full attention. If they go in to their meeting with Wigan next week on the back of another defeat, their confidence dented even further, then their place in the top two or three of Super League starts to look a little shaky. Any finish outside the top three makes the road to Old Trafford that little bit trickier, and something to be avoided for Price’s side if it all possible.
Yet all available evidence is pointing towards another Saints win. Should that happen Warrington will be closer to the bottom of the table in terms of points earned than they will be to the top, which is embarrassing not only for them but for the whole of the competition. There’s a good reason why Wigan are fast becoming many people’s favourites to reach the Grand Final alongside Saints, and that is the sheer mediocrity of the competition they face.
Back to that cigar, then....
Squads;
Warrington Wolves;
Sitaleki Akauola, Luther Burrell, Ben Currie, Matt Davis, Riley Dean, Bryson Goodwin, Chris Hill, Luis Johnson, Toby King, Harvey Livett, Jake Mamo, Pat Moran, Ben Murdoch-Masila, Stefan Ratchford, Lama Tasi, Josh Thewlis, Danny Walker, Ben Westwood (+Matty Smith, probably)
St Helens;
1. Jonny Lomax, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Kevin Naiqama, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Regan Grace, 6. Theo Fages, 7. Danny Richardson, 10. Luke Thompson, 11. Zeb Taia, 12. Joseph Paulo, 13. Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, 16. Kyle Amor, 17. Dom Peyroux, 19. Matty Lees, 20. Jack Ashworth, 21. Aaron Smith, 22. James Bentley, 24. Matty Costello, 29. Jack Welsby.
Referee: Ben Thaler
Keith Mason Special
Keith Mason is different. The 37-year-old former Saints and Wales prop forward is one of the most relentlessly positive people I have ever met. As regular visitors to this page or listeners to the WA12 Rugby League Show will know that approach is not my default setting. My glass is not only half empty, it’s been gobbed in by the teenage glass collector. I cringe when people take their ‘inspiration’ from me - a person who just happens to use a wheelchair and have a fairly angry kidney condition - going to the shops on my own, drinking in a bar or putting my chair in my car. All the awestruck responses I get to these sort of mundane activities are laughable inspiration porn from a public whose understanding of disability is so off beam it is almost Piers Morgan.
If you asked those people they’d probably guess that Keith hasn’t faced the same level of adversity that they perceive I do. But it is in how far Keith has travelled that we can perhaps take inspiration. He has gone from struggling just to keep out of trouble as a youngster in Dewsbury Moor - to being told by one of the game’s biggest star names that he would not make it at the highest level of rugby league - to the NRL - to Saints and to a Challenge Cup winners’ medal in 2004. It’s been quite the journey and it is by no means at an end. Keith went on to appear in movies after meeting Mickey Rourke at a Challenge Cup Final and is now embarking on a new venture, launching what is thought to be the world’s first rugby league based comic ‘Rugby Blood’.
“There’s quite a lot of good players from Dewsbury Moor.” He begins.
“When I was about six years old my mum introduced me to rugby league. As soon as I picked a ball up it was just in me. Growing up on a council estate was tough. It was a tough start for me. I didn’t have any male mentors in my life. I didn’t really know my old man until I was about 15 or 16 years old. So I had a stint, as many young kids do that don’t have a father figure, where I got into a bit of trouble. I was a bit of a wild child.”
But in playing rugby league thanks to his persuasive mum Keith had an opportunity.
“Rugby League was always my way out.” He admits.
“I’d go over to the park, I’d score a couple of tries and then I’d end up getting in trouble with my mates. It took until I went to court and my mate who was with me got sent to prison. I got probation. I was very lucky. When I walked out of that courtroom I realised I had to change my life around. I’d seen what had happened to some of the older generation so from that day I just started training. I cut my mates off. They were getting into things I didn’t want to be getting into.”
That startling awakening meant that by the age of 16 Keith began to enjoy some success in his burgeoning rugby league career. He played for Dewsbury Moor alongside former Leeds, Bradford and Great Britain forward Matt Diskin. They won the under-16s national conference, pipping Leon Pryce’s Queensbury along the way.
“I then got picked for Yorkshire and we won a series against Lancashire. We had Leon Pryce and Danny Maguire and it was the first time Yorkshire had won the series in years. I then got picked for England schoolboys.”
Dedication was never a problem for Keith, even at that age. While many talented sportsmen find their development stalled by the multiple distractions that life throws at teenage boys, Keith remained focused and disciplined, in stark contrast to the self-confessed tearaway he had been before that court appearance;
“I used to even train on Christmas Day as a 15 or 16 year old.” He says;
“I just had this vision, this belief that I wanted to be a Super League player. After England schoolboys I went to Bradford for a trial. I remember Brian Noble was there. Everybody had been signed except me. Brian said ‘we’re not going to sign you, Keith, but we’ll pay for your bus fare.”
It was the first of a few setbacks that Keith would have to endure before finally making his Super League debut with Wakefield as a 17-year-old in 2000;
“I went to Castleford and played six or seven games there, but then they also decided they were not going to sign me. I then went on to Leeds Rhinos. Leeds had many star players who went on to win Grand Finals. Rob Burrow, Diskin, Maguire, Chev Walker. All of those players. I was 17. I played eight or nine games on trial until (then Leeds coach) Dean Bell took me aside one day after training and said ‘listen Keith, I don’t think you’ll ever play Super League.”
Receiving this verdict from one of the legends of the game was a potentially shattering blow. Yet Keith’s response was the same as it had ever been whenever he he had taken a knock to his confidence and ambition. Persistence;
“Many, many, many kids would have given up. But I knew what I had already overcome just to get this far. To this day that fire to prove Dean wrong has stayed with me. It took me about a week but I got a lot of positives and power out of that. I was thinking about giving up but someone asked me to give it one more shot because Wakefield wanted to sign me. So that’s what I did. I signed for Wakefield.”
Something tells me that if Keith had not been signed by Wakefield, then under the tutelage of John Harbin, he would have found the resolve to give it yet another last shot and would still be sitting here with a Challenge Cup winners medal, two other Challenge Cup final outings, 63 Saints appearances and two Welsh caps to his name. It’s impossible to imagine a scenario in which a young Keith gives up on his rugby league career and goes to work in an office or a factory. His will and his faith are unshakeable;
“Wakefield hadn’t won a game all year when I signed for them. After that we had a run of 11 games undefeated. I got the players’ player of the year award that year. So Dean Bell was wrong. I did play Super League about eight months after he said I wouldn’t. I then went on to play NRL. I was 19 years old. All of the drive and perseverance I have all comes from that, what I call my favourite failure when Dean Bell told me I wouldn’t play Super League.”
There are a dozen or so English players currently playing their trade in the NRL now, but when Keith made the move to Melbourne Storm in 2002 they were rare. Only Adrian Morley had cracked Australia having moved to Sydney Roosters from Leeds in 2001;
“We’d been to Australia with Wakefield and I was told there was interest from North Queensland Cowboys. There was a few of us in that team they were looking at. We also had Bennie Westwood, Gareth Ellis and Danny Brough as well as me. We had quite a good team. I was due to go back over there and that’s when I got the call about playing for Wales. I had to get a letter from (then RFL Director Of Rugby) Greg McCallum to say it wouldn’t affect my chances of playing for England before I would play.”
He played twice for Wales, where one of his international team-mates was Saints legend Kieron Cunningham.
“I had a poster of Kieron Cunningham on my wall when I was younger. Then I was in the dressing room with Wales and I remember we were beating England 26-10 at half-time. They had Paul Sculthorpe, Paul Wellens and Andy Farrell in their side. I could hear someone barfing up in the toilets. It was Kieron. I couldn’t believe that he seemed more nervous than me.”
It was through that involvement with Wales that the Melbourne opportunity really came to fruition;
“I remember Willie Poching who was at Wakefield at the time came up to me and said ‘listen Keith, the Storm want to sign you’. I said ‘who?’ and he said ‘the Storm. Melbourne Storm.’. So I did the deal with (former Melbourne administrator) Chris Johns. The ironic thing was I got a call from Leeds Rhinos asking me not to sign for Storm! This is where you get to get a bit of your own back and people have to eat a bit of their own you know what. Humble pie. It was tempting to join Leeds. They offered me a four-year deal but I knew that if I went to Australia as the youngest English player ever to go there and play it would make me a better player and a better person. I also knew that if I did decide to come back to England there would be clubs I could go toA. I went there as an ok player, a rising star, to being a good player when I came back. You can’t bottle that. I lived with Cameron Smith and we had Billy Slater and Dallas Johnson coming through too.”
On Keith’s return home one of those interested clubs was St.Helens in 2003, and a year later he ticked off another childhood dream by walking out for a Challenge Cup Final at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. Mason started at prop for Ian Millward’s side who could count the likes Cunningham, Scunthorpe, Wellens and Sean Long in their number. That the opposition that day was Wigan merely ramped up the sense of occasion, with Mason playing his full part in a glorious 32-16 win. This once young and impetuous fan remembers being so happy about the result that he decided to forego the coach journey home that evening and instead shell out for a hotel and a train fare the next day in order to continue the festivities. There had been other cup final wins but this was the first I had experienced in which Wigan were the vanquished. The scars of 1989 and 1991 remain, but they sting that bit less thanks to the efforts of Keith and his team-mates in 2004.
“The greatest game ever.” is how Keith remembers it;
“You can ask Sculthorpe, Cunningham, Longy, they’d all tell you the same. Chris Joynt said to me that the Challenge Cup is bigger than the Grand Final. I kind of understand him now. It’s been around for about 120 years or whatever it is. It’s a beautiful trophy. All I ever saw when I was a kid was Ellery Hanley, Brett Kenny, Wigan and Widnes and all these great players playing at Wembley. You look up to these players. We won our final at the Principality (Millennium) Stadium in Wales but to be honest with you it didn’t matter because the atmosphere was absolutely electrifying. Winning that trophy was very sweet. After what I’d been through. My mum was up in the crowd crying her eyes out. A week later I saw Dean Bell at Red Hall. I was in trouble for knocking out one of the Warrington players. It was accidental. Anyway Dean told me he thought I was the best forward on the pitch in the Challenge Cup Final.”
Keith went back to the Challenge Cup Final in 2006, this time unfortunately ending up on the losing side as his Huddersfield Giants team went down 42-12 to a Saints side starting a run of three cup wins in a row. It was there that he met film star Mickey Rourke and began a friendship which would take his life in a whole new direction;
“After the game we were all disappointed. We had a couple of tries disallowed that I thought should have been tries and they scored a couple that I thought weren’t tries. So anyway we all got together. We were staying at Park Lane. We’d been invited to this club. So we went there, about eight or nine of the boys, and I remember I’d seen this film called The Wrestler. I thought it was a brilliant film. Mickey Rourke had starred in the film. So at this bar I just saw him walk past me. And I thought ‘that’s Mickey Rourke’!
Keith’s not shy. So he took the initiative almost at once. Just another example of how he grasps opportunity when it presents itself;
“I asked his bodyguard if I could go up and talk to him. I had a black suit on, white shirt and tie and I went over and I said ‘Hi Mickey my name is Keith’. He looked at me and he said ‘what are you, Man? Are you a gangster?’ So I said ‘no I play rugby. I’ve played in a final today at Wembley. He said he had watched the game. He said he loved rugby!”
It was the start of a fruitful friendship between the pair;
“Later on he started arm-wrestling the boys. He whupped Scottie Moore. He then tried to take on Darrell Griffin but Darrell snapped Mickey’s bicep off the bone. He’d had so many tequilas he couldn’t feel it. It wasn’t until I challenged him to a match that I saw it. He showed me it. I couldn’t believe it. He just said ‘it’s alright’.”
Keith was soon on his travels with his famous new friend;
“He flew me out to New York. I stayed with him in Hollywood which was just bizarre. And then when he was back in London he invited me down to the Jonathan Ross Show. It was the last one. David Beckham and Jackie Chan were on that show.”
All pretty random you’d think. But it turns out that Rourke saw something in Keith that couldn’t have been immediately obvious to him when they met;
“I remember one time he’d got upset. Started crying. So I said to the bodyguard ‘what’s wrong? Is he alright?’ And he said ‘yeah, he’s fine. It’s just you remind him of his brother’. I asked where his brother was and he just pointed upwards. You know? To Heaven. So sometimes I wonder whether he took me under his wing because I resembled his brother. But he looked after me. We spent a lot of time together.”
It wasn’t long before Keith followed Rourke into the film business, playing a part in Skin Traffic;
“He phoned me up and said ‘do you want to be in a film? We’re going to cast you. As my henchman. So I did. And when I did my scenes with him it felt just....natural. Because we were friends. When I see him again I will thank him. I’ll repay him. Some actors work in the business for years and never get an opportunity like that.”
And so to the present. Keith is open about a difficult period in his life after his retirement from rugby league. He lost that discipline that had served him so well. He turned back to alcohol and he even suspects he might have been suffering from a depression. Like any retired athlete he needs to have something else to focus on. He sets himself goals. Eighty miles road running in a week. A thousand push-ups a day. Whatever it is. He says you have to decide what you want to do to be a better human being and then ‘get after it’.
Rugby Blood, Keith’s new graphic novel series, isvanother example of that drive. It features characters based on Super League stars of the past and present such as Cunningham, Hull FC’s Jake Connor and Jermainevp McGillvary of Huddersfield Giants. It may even spawn a new Netflix series which Keith says is in the pipeline;
“Rugby Blood comes from all those struggles that I’ve had. I still have a lot of rugby league in me. So what I’ve tried to do is channel all that aggression into something new and something positive. David King (the story’s lead character) is about perseverance and overcoming obstacles so it’s a bit autobiographical. But as it goes on the story is going to open up and feature all kinds of stars from rugby league. And it will hopefully promote them and the sport too.”
Saints fans will approve of some of the attire worn by the protagonists. Saving the world through rugby league is one thing, but are you really saving the world through rugby league if you haven’t got a red vee on your shirt”
“I put him in the red vee. It’s the best kit.” Says Keith of our now iconic shirt design;
“It hasn’t got a St Helens emblem on it but I wanted to use the red vee because that was my favourite kit. What I want to do is market it not just here but in Russia, China, America. Places where it isn’t well known. If you can do that you’re showing rugby league to an audience that wouldn’t normally see it. You’re marketing the game not to rugby league fans but to comic book fans. I’ve also written a film script which I’ve been down to Pinewood to discuss it with a group of producers. But it takes a lot to get a film made.”
If you meet Keith Mason, just the once, you wouldn’t bet a penny on it happening....
Keith Mason was Talking to That Saints Blog You Quite Like via the WA12 Rugby League Show. The full interview is still available to listen to on wa12radio.net and to download via Mixcloud.
Rugby Blood is available on Amazon, priced £7.99 with the kindle edition at £4.99
If you asked those people they’d probably guess that Keith hasn’t faced the same level of adversity that they perceive I do. But it is in how far Keith has travelled that we can perhaps take inspiration. He has gone from struggling just to keep out of trouble as a youngster in Dewsbury Moor - to being told by one of the game’s biggest star names that he would not make it at the highest level of rugby league - to the NRL - to Saints and to a Challenge Cup winners’ medal in 2004. It’s been quite the journey and it is by no means at an end. Keith went on to appear in movies after meeting Mickey Rourke at a Challenge Cup Final and is now embarking on a new venture, launching what is thought to be the world’s first rugby league based comic ‘Rugby Blood’.
“There’s quite a lot of good players from Dewsbury Moor.” He begins.
“When I was about six years old my mum introduced me to rugby league. As soon as I picked a ball up it was just in me. Growing up on a council estate was tough. It was a tough start for me. I didn’t have any male mentors in my life. I didn’t really know my old man until I was about 15 or 16 years old. So I had a stint, as many young kids do that don’t have a father figure, where I got into a bit of trouble. I was a bit of a wild child.”
But in playing rugby league thanks to his persuasive mum Keith had an opportunity.
“Rugby League was always my way out.” He admits.
“I’d go over to the park, I’d score a couple of tries and then I’d end up getting in trouble with my mates. It took until I went to court and my mate who was with me got sent to prison. I got probation. I was very lucky. When I walked out of that courtroom I realised I had to change my life around. I’d seen what had happened to some of the older generation so from that day I just started training. I cut my mates off. They were getting into things I didn’t want to be getting into.”
That startling awakening meant that by the age of 16 Keith began to enjoy some success in his burgeoning rugby league career. He played for Dewsbury Moor alongside former Leeds, Bradford and Great Britain forward Matt Diskin. They won the under-16s national conference, pipping Leon Pryce’s Queensbury along the way.
“I then got picked for Yorkshire and we won a series against Lancashire. We had Leon Pryce and Danny Maguire and it was the first time Yorkshire had won the series in years. I then got picked for England schoolboys.”
Dedication was never a problem for Keith, even at that age. While many talented sportsmen find their development stalled by the multiple distractions that life throws at teenage boys, Keith remained focused and disciplined, in stark contrast to the self-confessed tearaway he had been before that court appearance;
“I used to even train on Christmas Day as a 15 or 16 year old.” He says;
“I just had this vision, this belief that I wanted to be a Super League player. After England schoolboys I went to Bradford for a trial. I remember Brian Noble was there. Everybody had been signed except me. Brian said ‘we’re not going to sign you, Keith, but we’ll pay for your bus fare.”
It was the first of a few setbacks that Keith would have to endure before finally making his Super League debut with Wakefield as a 17-year-old in 2000;
“I went to Castleford and played six or seven games there, but then they also decided they were not going to sign me. I then went on to Leeds Rhinos. Leeds had many star players who went on to win Grand Finals. Rob Burrow, Diskin, Maguire, Chev Walker. All of those players. I was 17. I played eight or nine games on trial until (then Leeds coach) Dean Bell took me aside one day after training and said ‘listen Keith, I don’t think you’ll ever play Super League.”
Receiving this verdict from one of the legends of the game was a potentially shattering blow. Yet Keith’s response was the same as it had ever been whenever he he had taken a knock to his confidence and ambition. Persistence;
“Many, many, many kids would have given up. But I knew what I had already overcome just to get this far. To this day that fire to prove Dean wrong has stayed with me. It took me about a week but I got a lot of positives and power out of that. I was thinking about giving up but someone asked me to give it one more shot because Wakefield wanted to sign me. So that’s what I did. I signed for Wakefield.”
Something tells me that if Keith had not been signed by Wakefield, then under the tutelage of John Harbin, he would have found the resolve to give it yet another last shot and would still be sitting here with a Challenge Cup winners medal, two other Challenge Cup final outings, 63 Saints appearances and two Welsh caps to his name. It’s impossible to imagine a scenario in which a young Keith gives up on his rugby league career and goes to work in an office or a factory. His will and his faith are unshakeable;
“Wakefield hadn’t won a game all year when I signed for them. After that we had a run of 11 games undefeated. I got the players’ player of the year award that year. So Dean Bell was wrong. I did play Super League about eight months after he said I wouldn’t. I then went on to play NRL. I was 19 years old. All of the drive and perseverance I have all comes from that, what I call my favourite failure when Dean Bell told me I wouldn’t play Super League.”
There are a dozen or so English players currently playing their trade in the NRL now, but when Keith made the move to Melbourne Storm in 2002 they were rare. Only Adrian Morley had cracked Australia having moved to Sydney Roosters from Leeds in 2001;
“We’d been to Australia with Wakefield and I was told there was interest from North Queensland Cowboys. There was a few of us in that team they were looking at. We also had Bennie Westwood, Gareth Ellis and Danny Brough as well as me. We had quite a good team. I was due to go back over there and that’s when I got the call about playing for Wales. I had to get a letter from (then RFL Director Of Rugby) Greg McCallum to say it wouldn’t affect my chances of playing for England before I would play.”
He played twice for Wales, where one of his international team-mates was Saints legend Kieron Cunningham.
“I had a poster of Kieron Cunningham on my wall when I was younger. Then I was in the dressing room with Wales and I remember we were beating England 26-10 at half-time. They had Paul Sculthorpe, Paul Wellens and Andy Farrell in their side. I could hear someone barfing up in the toilets. It was Kieron. I couldn’t believe that he seemed more nervous than me.”
It was through that involvement with Wales that the Melbourne opportunity really came to fruition;
“I remember Willie Poching who was at Wakefield at the time came up to me and said ‘listen Keith, the Storm want to sign you’. I said ‘who?’ and he said ‘the Storm. Melbourne Storm.’. So I did the deal with (former Melbourne administrator) Chris Johns. The ironic thing was I got a call from Leeds Rhinos asking me not to sign for Storm! This is where you get to get a bit of your own back and people have to eat a bit of their own you know what. Humble pie. It was tempting to join Leeds. They offered me a four-year deal but I knew that if I went to Australia as the youngest English player ever to go there and play it would make me a better player and a better person. I also knew that if I did decide to come back to England there would be clubs I could go toA. I went there as an ok player, a rising star, to being a good player when I came back. You can’t bottle that. I lived with Cameron Smith and we had Billy Slater and Dallas Johnson coming through too.”
On Keith’s return home one of those interested clubs was St.Helens in 2003, and a year later he ticked off another childhood dream by walking out for a Challenge Cup Final at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium. Mason started at prop for Ian Millward’s side who could count the likes Cunningham, Scunthorpe, Wellens and Sean Long in their number. That the opposition that day was Wigan merely ramped up the sense of occasion, with Mason playing his full part in a glorious 32-16 win. This once young and impetuous fan remembers being so happy about the result that he decided to forego the coach journey home that evening and instead shell out for a hotel and a train fare the next day in order to continue the festivities. There had been other cup final wins but this was the first I had experienced in which Wigan were the vanquished. The scars of 1989 and 1991 remain, but they sting that bit less thanks to the efforts of Keith and his team-mates in 2004.
“The greatest game ever.” is how Keith remembers it;
“You can ask Sculthorpe, Cunningham, Longy, they’d all tell you the same. Chris Joynt said to me that the Challenge Cup is bigger than the Grand Final. I kind of understand him now. It’s been around for about 120 years or whatever it is. It’s a beautiful trophy. All I ever saw when I was a kid was Ellery Hanley, Brett Kenny, Wigan and Widnes and all these great players playing at Wembley. You look up to these players. We won our final at the Principality (Millennium) Stadium in Wales but to be honest with you it didn’t matter because the atmosphere was absolutely electrifying. Winning that trophy was very sweet. After what I’d been through. My mum was up in the crowd crying her eyes out. A week later I saw Dean Bell at Red Hall. I was in trouble for knocking out one of the Warrington players. It was accidental. Anyway Dean told me he thought I was the best forward on the pitch in the Challenge Cup Final.”
Keith went back to the Challenge Cup Final in 2006, this time unfortunately ending up on the losing side as his Huddersfield Giants team went down 42-12 to a Saints side starting a run of three cup wins in a row. It was there that he met film star Mickey Rourke and began a friendship which would take his life in a whole new direction;
“After the game we were all disappointed. We had a couple of tries disallowed that I thought should have been tries and they scored a couple that I thought weren’t tries. So anyway we all got together. We were staying at Park Lane. We’d been invited to this club. So we went there, about eight or nine of the boys, and I remember I’d seen this film called The Wrestler. I thought it was a brilliant film. Mickey Rourke had starred in the film. So at this bar I just saw him walk past me. And I thought ‘that’s Mickey Rourke’!
Keith’s not shy. So he took the initiative almost at once. Just another example of how he grasps opportunity when it presents itself;
“I asked his bodyguard if I could go up and talk to him. I had a black suit on, white shirt and tie and I went over and I said ‘Hi Mickey my name is Keith’. He looked at me and he said ‘what are you, Man? Are you a gangster?’ So I said ‘no I play rugby. I’ve played in a final today at Wembley. He said he had watched the game. He said he loved rugby!”
It was the start of a fruitful friendship between the pair;
“Later on he started arm-wrestling the boys. He whupped Scottie Moore. He then tried to take on Darrell Griffin but Darrell snapped Mickey’s bicep off the bone. He’d had so many tequilas he couldn’t feel it. It wasn’t until I challenged him to a match that I saw it. He showed me it. I couldn’t believe it. He just said ‘it’s alright’.”
Keith was soon on his travels with his famous new friend;
“He flew me out to New York. I stayed with him in Hollywood which was just bizarre. And then when he was back in London he invited me down to the Jonathan Ross Show. It was the last one. David Beckham and Jackie Chan were on that show.”
All pretty random you’d think. But it turns out that Rourke saw something in Keith that couldn’t have been immediately obvious to him when they met;
“I remember one time he’d got upset. Started crying. So I said to the bodyguard ‘what’s wrong? Is he alright?’ And he said ‘yeah, he’s fine. It’s just you remind him of his brother’. I asked where his brother was and he just pointed upwards. You know? To Heaven. So sometimes I wonder whether he took me under his wing because I resembled his brother. But he looked after me. We spent a lot of time together.”
It wasn’t long before Keith followed Rourke into the film business, playing a part in Skin Traffic;
“He phoned me up and said ‘do you want to be in a film? We’re going to cast you. As my henchman. So I did. And when I did my scenes with him it felt just....natural. Because we were friends. When I see him again I will thank him. I’ll repay him. Some actors work in the business for years and never get an opportunity like that.”
And so to the present. Keith is open about a difficult period in his life after his retirement from rugby league. He lost that discipline that had served him so well. He turned back to alcohol and he even suspects he might have been suffering from a depression. Like any retired athlete he needs to have something else to focus on. He sets himself goals. Eighty miles road running in a week. A thousand push-ups a day. Whatever it is. He says you have to decide what you want to do to be a better human being and then ‘get after it’.
Rugby Blood, Keith’s new graphic novel series, isvanother example of that drive. It features characters based on Super League stars of the past and present such as Cunningham, Hull FC’s Jake Connor and Jermainevp McGillvary of Huddersfield Giants. It may even spawn a new Netflix series which Keith says is in the pipeline;
“Rugby Blood comes from all those struggles that I’ve had. I still have a lot of rugby league in me. So what I’ve tried to do is channel all that aggression into something new and something positive. David King (the story’s lead character) is about perseverance and overcoming obstacles so it’s a bit autobiographical. But as it goes on the story is going to open up and feature all kinds of stars from rugby league. And it will hopefully promote them and the sport too.”
Saints fans will approve of some of the attire worn by the protagonists. Saving the world through rugby league is one thing, but are you really saving the world through rugby league if you haven’t got a red vee on your shirt”
“I put him in the red vee. It’s the best kit.” Says Keith of our now iconic shirt design;
“It hasn’t got a St Helens emblem on it but I wanted to use the red vee because that was my favourite kit. What I want to do is market it not just here but in Russia, China, America. Places where it isn’t well known. If you can do that you’re showing rugby league to an audience that wouldn’t normally see it. You’re marketing the game not to rugby league fans but to comic book fans. I’ve also written a film script which I’ve been down to Pinewood to discuss it with a group of producers. But it takes a lot to get a film made.”
If you meet Keith Mason, just the once, you wouldn’t bet a penny on it happening....
Keith Mason was Talking to That Saints Blog You Quite Like via the WA12 Rugby League Show. The full interview is still available to listen to on wa12radio.net and to download via Mixcloud.
Rugby Blood is available on Amazon, priced £7.99 with the kindle edition at £4.99
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