Saints 12 Sydney Roosters 20 - World Club Challenge Review

There were plenty of plaudits but ultimately no silverware for Saints as they went down 20-12 to Sydney Roosters in the weekend’s other world title spat. Kristian Woolf’s side were just a shade below where they needed to be to get the better of the back-to-back NRL and now world champions, but unlike in that other bout it had nothing to do with the weight of their costumes.

Saints were right in this game for most of the way. Only when Luke Keary scored 12 minutes from time could the Roosters breathe easily at 18-6. That came after a pass from influential prop Sio Siua Taukeiaho that was so far forward it could have been manufactured in Warrington. Yet in truth it was a lack of cutting edge in attack which cost the Super League champions their chance at winning a third world crown.

One day we might look back with nostalgic, dewy-eyed pleasure at the giddy quarter of an hour during which Saints held the lead. Luke Thompson introduced himself to future NRL opponents with a fifth minute try which had been handily crafted by Theo Fages. As the ball moved left to right the Frenchman stepped back on the inside and offloaded to Thompson who reached over to breach a helpless defence. Tommy Makinson stepped up to take over the kicking duties with both Lachlan Coote and Mark Percival out injured and Saints were six points to the good. These were halcyon days. Like a time before Brexit, before Boris Johnson, and before Avry from Inside Super League.

The absences of Coote and Percival were always going to leave Saints facing an even stiffer task than the one that was already in front of them. Percival had been named in the initial 21-man squad by Woolf amid suggestions that he would be able to delay the shoulder surgery he requires and play without worsening the problem. Yet that did not materialise, and with Regan Grace also out having picked up a knock in the win at Hull FC last week it left Saints decidedly thin on what is usually a formidable left edge. Zeb Taia was immense all night, and there wasn’t too much wrong with the performances of James Bentley at centre or Matty Costello on the wing. We’ll never quite know how much stronger Saints could have been, how much more of a threat they could have provided, had those two strike players been involved.

It’s too simplistic to say that they would have made all the difference against a defence as good as that of the Roosters. The continued thwarting of Kevin Naiqama and Makinson on the other flank proved that crossing the Roosters’ whitewash is a big ask no matter how good you are in Super League terms, but it would have been nice to find out what impact they could have had. That little bit less pace and guile on that side seemed to be a constant frustration to Jonny Lomax who prompted and probed all night, barely putting a foot wrong but also not quite able to hit anyone on a good enough line with enough pace to break down the tri-coloured wall.

Coote was arguably missed more than either Grace or Percival. Jack Welsby was a willing deputy again, but found out on just his 16th appearance for the club that mixing it with the NRL’s best is a whole different proposition to the weekly grind of Super League. Few worked harder than Welsby but he came up with four errors on the night, two of which were in the act of trying to find that killer pass to his wing man having received it out of the back door from the play-the-ball. It is a play that Coote has all but perfected and which we have also seen Welsby pull off domestically without too much fuss. But the way the Roosters shifted across in defence was unlike anything you will see in the northern hemisphere. It shone a light on exactly where Welsby is at this point in his development and where he needs to improve. All of which should not be a reflection on him necessarily. He is 19 years old. Few players at that age or with such limited first team experience can be considered the finished article.

One side of the Roosters game that was not so pretty was the height of their tackling. Blaming referees for defeats is the last refuge of the pub bore, but there were times when tackling above the shoulders started to look less like a careless habit and more like a strategy from the Australian outfit. New Zealand international prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves - a man with a name no mother would want to pay to have printed on the back of her child’s replica shirt - was especially guilty in the first half and was perhaps lucky not to see a yellow card from referee Chris Kendall. Had he done so we might have seen Saints take more of their chances.

Instead what we saw was the Roosters slowly force their way back into the game, firstly from Daniel Tupou’s brilliant pick-up by his bootlaces to go over in the left hand-corner in the east end of the ground, and then through Joey Manu who bagged the first of his brace after another searing break from Taukeiaho. Debutant scrum-half Kyle Flanagan, replacing the recently retired Cooper Cronk, laid on both of Manu’s tries in similar fashion. For years now we have complained that we do not have a halfback willing to take on the line and take hits in order to create opportunities. Fages had a fantastic game in many respects, but he and perhaps his heir apparent Lewis Dodd would do well to study the way that Flanagan went about his work. It is probably not a coincidence that Danny Richardson’s inability or unwillingness to engage the defensive line like that has culminated in his moving to Castleford.

Staying with halfback play, the kicking game of each side was another notable difference between the two sides. Fages often found himself kicking under pressure and with poor field position so invariably went high. That was meat and drink to James Tedesco, one of the game’s most outstanding fullbacks. It wasn’t until 25 minutes in that Lomax managed to find grass with a territorial kick to turn the Roosters around and make them start a set in uncomfortable circumstances. These are little differences, but they make the difference from becoming world champions and not.

After Makinson had been denied by the video referee it was left to Alex Walmsley, an absolute colossus all night long to the extent that he probably outshone Thompson, to force his way over from close to the line to bring Saints back to within eight points in the final few minutes. That came after a series of penalties near to their own try-line saw Kendall put the visitors on a team warning. But it was too little too late for Saints, whose bid for glory was ultimately a failed one but who can take great pride in their performance. On this evidence they are still the team to beat in Super League. Nobody revelling in their defeat should be in any doubt that they are still a firm favourite to retain the crown they won in October in Justin Holbrook’s last match in charge.

And if they do, maybe next year they will have added that 10 or 15% to their game that they need in order to take on the Roosters and their ilk.