Saints 4 Castleford Tigers 0 - Matters Arising

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.