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.