Hull FC 18 Saints 32 - Review

What were we all worried about?

Oh go on alright then I’ll level with you. I was a tad concerned when Saints reached half-time of this one without troubling the Hull FC try-line. Following the fairly disastrous 19-0 thumping at Warrington 10 days earlier it all added up to 120 minutes of rugby league without Saints crossing the whitewash. All they had to show for that endeavour was Tommy Makinson’s penalty. Not only that but as they headed to the break at the KCom Stadium they trailed the black and whites 6-2 courtesy of Carlos Tuimavave’s try. Regan Grace flapped at a crossfield kick before James Bentley absolutely butchered an attempt to kick the ball dead, hitting nothing but air and allowing Tuimavave the easiest of opportunities.

All of which had even those of us who consider ourselves among the least hysterical of our following ruminating darkly about a time before Justin Holbrook. Keiron Cunningham is a bona fide rugby league legend, let alone a Saints legend, and it was great to see him back on Saints TV this week recounting some of his happier times associated with the club. Yet you were not human if you were not sitting there at half-time at the KCom and wondering whether the great man had somehow managed to sneak his way back into the coaching booth.

But that doesn’t pay enough credit to the way that Lee Radford’s side defended in that first 40 minutes. Though Saints drew a blank in terms of crossing the try-line there wasn’t too much wrong with how Kristian Woolf’s side approached their task in attack. This wasn’t the reckless abandon of Saints in the 1980s but nor was it the five drives and a kick mundanity of the Cunningham coaching era. With Makinson back as well as Alex Walmsley and Morgan Knowles there were plenty of metre-munchers in the Saints ranks, while Jonny Lomax was his usual busy, enterprising self without quite finding any weaknesses in the black and white wall.

Hull FC showed last season and arguably over the last few seasons under Radford that they have trouble maintaining their very highest standards. It was almost inevitable that they would break but the manner in which they did in the early moments of the second half was still quite startling. This spell did have more common with some of Saints’ best performances of yesteryear as they ran in four tries in a barmy 12 minutes after half-time. First Matty Costello, standing in ably for Mark Percival after he was ruled out for several months with a shoulder problem, took Lomax’s pass to cross in the left hand corner, before Luke Thompson pounced on a mistake from Mahe Fonua following Theo Fages’ bomb close to the Hull FC line. It was another breathless performance from Thompson who racked up 108 metres on 13 carries and made 26 tackles. It is great to watch him in this kind of form, even if Saints blue and white away shirt offers a disturbing glimpse into the future and what Thompson will look like in a Canterbury Bulldogs uniform. Make it stop.

Aside from Walmsley and Thompson both Zeb Taia and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook backed up their creditable showings amid the carnage at Warrington with useful contributions here. Both ran for 141 metres, with McCarthy-Scarsbrook managing it on two fewer carries than Taia. Alongside Taia, Dominique Peyroux was subdued in attack, which is probably what will happen until he finds an alternative signature move than the step back on the inside cutting in from the right, but on the plus side he was Saints top tackler with 31. That is some way short of the 59 that Danny Houghton managed for FC but that is a reflection of how Saints slowly took the game over in the second half and asserted a position of dominance.

One of the keys to the improvement after the break, aside from a drop-off in defensive solidity from a Hull point of view, was the introduction of Aaron Smith at hooker. The injury to Grace was unfortunate and is a possible concern ahead of this week’s World Club Challenge clash with Sydney Roosters but it did allow Bentley to move out to the centre position and Smith to slot in at dummy half. With James Roby having been missing for the early weeks of the season it is vitally important that Saints find someone who can step in and do a serviceable job in that position. Nobody is asking anyone to be Roby. Arguably only Cunningham has ever matched the brilliance of Roby for Saints in that position, but having Smith in there does open up more attacking options for the team. It is less about the quality of distribution from dummy half – James Bentley can pick up a ball and pass it to the first receiver as well as anyone – but more about putting doubt in the mind of defenders. With Bentley in there the defence has less to worry about in terms of a running threat from dummy half. Bentley averaged five metres per carry when he jumped out from there whereas Smith was good for an average of 10 on the two occasions when he went alone.

Yet it was Lomax who proved the biggest difference in that second half. Having spent the first 40 minutes being frustrated that his probing and string-pulling was not having the desired effect he burst into life in the second half. He ended up with another three assists which takes him to six for the season. He leads the league in that category alongside Wigan’s Jackson Hastings. Lomax was also Saints’ leading metre-maker, ripping off 162 on 19 carries at nine metres a carry. He left most of the kicking to Fages but we know that he also has that in his armoury when he needs it. If Saints are to have any chance of becoming world champions you sense that Lomax is going to be one of the majorly influential factors.

The win not only helps banish the memories of the Warrington loss but is an important confidence booster ahead of the visit of the Roosters. Saints will be bidding to win a first World title since 2007 when Trent Robinson’s side come to town. It will be an extraordinarily difficult task, but one that you feel would have been made even tougher on the back of a loss on Humberside in the wake of the one at Warrington. Saints may find themselves playing catch-up a little bit in the early going of the Super League race with some teams having played a game more than them by the end of this weekend but this victory gives them a solid foundation from which to build the defence of their Super League crown irrespective of what happens when they meet the NRL Premiers.

And anyway it is just the Roosters. What are you worried about?