St Helens v Salford - Review

New season, same relentless, dominant Saints team. With no new additions to the playing squad for 2020 the only new face for the champions is Head Coach Kristian Woolf. Watching them over this 80-minute dismantling of Ian Watson’s 2019 Grand Finalists you would be forgiven for thinking that nothing whatsoever has changed at all for Saints. It’s clearly very early but Woolf’s side laid down a marker here. They won’t be easy to topple from their perch.

Looking back now at the 48-8 score-line it is hard to believe that it was the visitors who got on the scoreboard first. Much has been made pre-season of a directive for officials to crack down on incorrect play-the-balls. This had been largely ignored in the season opener between Wigan and Warrington 24 hours earlier despite the fact that players seemed to continue to step over the ball rather than play it with the foot.

It’s perhaps understandable that players would transgress given that many of them have known no other way. Playing the ball with the foot became a thing of the past around 20 years ago so it is going to take players some time to adjust. But if you’re going to have a clampdown on it then enforce it. No penalties were given at the DW Stadium despite no discernible change in the way the play-the-ball was executed, and it was a similar story here except for one occasion very early in proceedings when referee Liam Moore awarded a penalty against Jack Welsby.

The rest of the game passed by without a single intervention from Moore for play-the-ball transgressions. He gave a knock-on against Dan Sarginson for a very similar looking incident, but generally the concept of applying this interpretation consistently went straight out of the window after Welsby’s error led to Tui Lolohea’s penalty goal for the game’s first points. It’s especially perplexing because even if we humour Moore and agree that Welsby’s was the only play-the-ball which failed to involve the foot, the directive demands that the offender be punished with a scrum to the opposing team rather than a penalty.

So not only do we have no consistency in interpretation we also seem to have confusion about the appropriate sanction. At this stage, as players adapt to the new way, consistency would ruin the game and from that point of view might not be all that desirable. Who wants to watch a game in which five out of every six plays are pulled up for an infringement? But at the same time it can’t be applied just once in 80 minutes and then forgotten about. If it were whistled more regularly it would spoil a game or two, but surely if that were to happen players would learn more quickly? That’s the only way to get to where they seem to want to go, to a place where players play the ball with the foot automatically even if that does slow the restarts down a touch. If we’re not serious about that then we should just forget about the whole thing and let the play-the-ball continue as it has for as long as anyone can remember.

That early setback didn’t faze Saints who soon set about destroying Watson’s new-look side. This is a different Salford side from the one which reached Old Trafford in October. There were seven new faces in the line-up. Jackson Hastings was so important to Salford last year but with the Steve Prescott Man Of Steel now in Wigan the onus is on the ageing, injury-prone Kevin Brown to provide a creative foil for Lolohea. Brown had his moments but he and Lolohea were largely outclassed by Saints halfback pairing of Jonny Lomax and Theo Fages. Lomax put Zeb Taia over for the first of Saints eight tries and by the time he was done he had another two assists and had made over 100 metres on just 22 carries. Salford genuinely didn’t seem able to predict what Lomax was going to do at any given moment and he pulled them apart with ease at regular intervals. Fages too looked dangerous, never more so than when his show and go parted the Red Devils’ defence as he helped himself to Saints third try. Prior to that Alex Walmsley had taken several defenders with him on the way to the first of his two tries on the night.

We shouldn’t forget also that this was a result achieved without three key players from the last time Saints faced Salford and became champions. Tommy Makinson and Morgan Knowles are still recovering from shoulder surgeries while James Roby is out with what has been a persistent groin problem. In Knowles’ absence Woolf gave the start at loose forward to Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook. The Londoner operates as an auxiliary prop when he plays at 13 and he brought his usual energy and endeavour to proceedings. He made 88 metres on 15 carries and put in a 24-tackle defensive stint. But with Knowles out Saints have two players of contrasting styles to lock the scrum. Joseph Paulo is an often maligned player who found himself left out of the Grand Final squad and maybe wondering about his future at the end of last season. But he came off the bench here after around half an hour and delivered a very enjoyable cameo. You don’t get the crash, bang, wallop that McCarthy-Scarsbrook brings but instead Paulo is a touch player more in the tradition of how loose forwards used to play. Smart, quick passing created an opportunity for Lomax who was well stopped but there was no holding Fages when Paulo found him in space moments later. Knowles should hold down the 13 position when he regains his fitness but both McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Paulo showed that Saints have options and real depth in that area.

Woolf might need to find a temporary solution at fullback too. Lachlan Coote had already been hit late on the game’s very first kick by Gil Dudson and hit high by both Brown and Kris Welham before he was finally forced out of the game by a knee injury picked up when trying to step inside Luke Yates. No blame could be attached to Yates for the challenge but having seen what had gone before it was hard not to draw the conclusion that Coote had been targeted. Early indications are that the Great Britain international has medial ligament damage. A scan later in the week will determine the extent of that damage but it will be a major surprise if he is fit to face Warrington in Round 2 on Thursday night (February 6). The priority should be getting him fit for Saints World Club Challenge clash with Sydney Roosters on February 22.

That temporary solution I refer to is likely to be Welsby. The teenager started the game on the wing in place of Makinson but switched to fullback when Coote was forced off. He went on to help himself to two tries, first taking Lomax’s delicious inside ball to score and then displaying some admirable footwork to dribble past a couple of defenders football-style before falling on the ball to score. Yet it was his assist for Kevin Naiqama’s first of two tries which caught the eye most. Arcing around behind the play-the-ball he delivered a stunningly timed catch and pass, in one movement with defenders converging on him, to the Fijian who provided a devastating finish. Naiqama repeated the dose soon after from Lomax’s pass and the rout was completed by Walmsley’s second as he charged through a massive gap in the tiring Salford defensive line.

Defensively there were few alarms for Saints with Ken Sio’s second half score the only occasion on which the line was breached. Sio has gone close earlier but put a foot in touch as had Rhys Williams. The former London Bronco also suffered the indignity of being run down by Luke Thompson when the game was still reasonably close in the first half. Welsby had vacated his wing looking to get involved in the play but when Williams intercepted a pass he looked like breaking clear. Thompson was having none of it, showing great desire to run Williams down almost immediately. Thompson rather spoiled it by throwing Williams down with a second effort to concede a penalty but even that didn’t change the fact that the Red Devils’ didn’t even have the speed out wide to out run the Saints prop forward. It must have been soul destroying for Salford fans as it became evident that a sizeable gap has opened up between these two teams from that last, more famous meeting in Manchester.

Salford won’t be the only side to find Saints too hot to handle in 2020.