Danny Does One

Forget about Brexit with its warring factions, the issue that is dividing opinion the most among Saints fans this week is the departure of Danny Richardson.

The 23-year-old half has signed a three-year deal with Castleford Tigers which brings to an end a promising but some might say all too brief stay at St Helens. Richardson was an ever-present in 2018, enjoying a superb breakthrough season which culminated in his selection for the Super League Dream Team. It was a consolation prize given that Saints fell in the semi-finals of both the Challenge Cup and the Super League but it was what it promised for the future which stirred the imagination. Some got totally carried away, wittering on about the second coming of Sean Long, but there was no doubt that the potential was there for a successful career.

Fast forward to the start of 2019 and the picture changed somewhat. Coach Justin Holbrook cited a pre-season groin injury as the reason for leaving Richardson out of the opening Super League encounter at home to Wigan. At that point it was felt that a few weeks rehabilitation would see Richardson return to the fold. The form of Theo Fages and the fact that the team kept winning in the absence of Richardson rather poked a spanner in the works. As Richardson toiled to regain his place in the team speculation grew that his attitude might not be what you would expect from a player at the highest level. When he was fit he invariably found himself shipped out to Leigh Centurions on dual registration.

This sort of shit never happened to Sean Long. Actually it did. Released by Wigan in 1997 Long had to play nine games for Widnes in the Championship before Saints snapped him up and set him on his path towards legendary status. We will never know now whether Richardson could have made the same transition from Championship cast-off to Saints immortality. Many fans have already claimed that the loss of Richardson could come back to haunt Saints, but in truth recent history is not littered with examples of players who have left the club and become greats of the game elsewhere. Lee Briers is the closest, but although Warrington managed to win the Challenge cup three times during the former Welsh international's time with the Wolves it was not enough to stop Saints picking up a few pots of their own. We still managed to win four Super League Grand Finals and five Challenge Cups during Briers' 15 years at Warrington. If we have to suffer a couple of Castleford Challenge Cup victories between now and 2034 I will take it if it means we increase our Super League title tally to 11 and our Challenge Cup haul to 17 then that will be just fine with me.

In any case, can we be certain that the decision to let Richardson move to the Tigers was made by the club? Along with the criticism of his attitude from certain quarters there were also murmurings about his disquiet about having been left out of the first team squad during the majority of Saints' Grand Final winning 2019 campaign. Richardson played just 12 times for Saints in 2019, bringing his total with the club to 59 appearances in which he scored 10 tries and kicked 175 goals. That is just not enough for him to properly develop or to fulfil the potential that he obviously believes he has, and that Daryl Powell has identified to the extent that he now sees Richardson as a quality replacement for Leeds-bound Luke Gale. It is not inconceivable that Richardson is the one who has driven the move, though whether or not he discussed it with incoming coach Kristian Woolf first is another unknowable factor in all of this.

Arguably Richardson's most memorable contribution to the Saints cause was the 50 metre penalty goal that he landed to help Saints beat Warrington 14-12 in July of 2018. This was enough to persuade some fans that Richardson should be included in the team ahead of Fages irrespective of who was the better all-around player. The theory was that goal-kicking is becoming ever more important but this was probably based on the painful memory of losing the 2017 Super League semi-final at Castleford on a night when Mark Percival got the rugby league goal-kicker’s equivalent of the yips. In reality Richardson did not fully convince. Perhaps it is something to do with the Holbrook style of play in which the scrum-half tends to play second fiddle to the stand-off and fullback at times in terms of playmaking, but games would often pass Richardson by.

Fages has had that problem too at times but the key difference which might have compelled Holbrook to stick with the Frenchman at Richardson’s expense is defence. Fages can and will tackle anything or anyone, whereas Richardson is often targeted by opposition coaches who see his defence as a major weakness in not only his game but the entire Saints team when Richardson is in it. It only takes one weak link to open up opportunities at the highest level. Countering this argument we return to Long, who was never the best defender, often shifting out to the wing when the opposition had the ball. If he could be hidden, why not Richardson? The key is that Long’s all around brilliance at half-back, his speed, his guile, the masterful kicking game he developed, were all things that no coach could ignore. Richardson was and is a fine player, he’s just not so good that you can tolerate the weaknesses in his defence or justify his selection above Fages because he can land goals from half way.

If we can agree that letting Richardson go is a fair enough call from the club thoughts turn to what will happen now in terms of competition for places in the halves. Richardson’s exit leaves only Fages and Jonny Lomax as experienced first team halfbacks with Jack Welsby having impressed more at fullback than in the halves when he has got his chances this year. There is a lot of talk about Lewis Dodd from the academy side breaking into the first team over the coming year or two. It might be that Woolf will try to get by with what he has in the meantime while slowly introducing Dodd to first team action as Holbrook has with Welsby. Certainly there don’t seem to be too many obvious candidates to replace Richardson that are ready made. If you are a first choice half at another Super League club are you going to Saints to back up Fages and Lomax and with the threat of Dodd emerging behind you? It would be a hard sell.

Richardson showcased his ability in England Knights' win over Jamaica at the weekend and he may yet go on to make the senior England and GB 7 shirt his own over the next decade. His partnership with Jake Trueman at the Tigers will never be dull, but Cas fans must have reservations about whether two younger guys are quite the right blend to lead the team around the park in the short term. Saints will march on regardless. This isn't like losing Gary Connolly or Andy Platt in the pre-Super League days. I wish Richardson the best of luck in West Yorkshire while also looking forward to the next chapter for Saints without him.