Pack-Shuffling While We Wait For Action

After months of inactivity due the ongoing public health crisis Saints have made some significant recruitment moves in recent weeks.

First there was the sudden departure of Luke Thompson to Canterbury Bulldogs in the NRL which you can read about elsewhere on these pages. We are still waiting on the official confirmation of James Graham’s return to the club to temporarily fill the void left by Thompson. Graham’s current club St George-Illawarra Dragons formerly announced his departure earlier this week, paving the way for the scouse prop to finish 2020 and in all probability his career with Saints. Graham made 225 appearances for the club between 2003-2011. He won three Challenge Cup winners medals in that time, was a key member of the treble-winning side of 2006 under Daniel Anderson and was named Man Of Steel in 2008. Yet just as Saints prepared to move into the newly built Langtree Park for the 2012 season and following a trauma-inducing run of five consecutive Super League Grand Final defeats Graham chose to test himself in the the Australian competition with the Bulldogs. He moved on to the Dragons in 2018. If Is can be dotted and Ts crossed he should now get the opportunity to grace the turf at Saints still relatively new home, though whether there will be any fans there to witness it remains up in the air.

While we wait on Graham’s arrival in the front row there is activity in the back row department. First Zeb Taia announced that he will be leaving the club at the end of the 2020 season. Whenever that might be. Taia plans to return to Australia when this heavily interrupted campaign ends to continue what he calls ‘the next chapter’ in his life. Taia has made 95 appearances for Saints since becoming Kieron Cunningham’s last signing in March 2017 when he arrived from Gold Coast Titans. The deal saw Joe Greenwood move in the other direction and was met with no small amount of harrumphing from the fans. Cunningham’s record in recruitment had been less than stellar and Greenwood was prized as a hot prospect who had risen up through the club’s youth ranks. Cunningham was blamed for misusing Greenwood and forcing him to view his future elsewhere. At 32, Taia was not seen as a suitable replacement by many.

Perhaps because of that perception, unfair criticism has been a theme of Taia’s three-year spell at Saints. He has been outstanding in the left second row berth. He has twice made the top five in the league in offloads and has so often been the creative spark in the pack. Saints fans demand a flamboyant style even among the forwards and Taia has been a back rower in the very best traditions of the club. He has a languid style that might make the occasional error look like it has come about through carelessness or laziness, but that is an illusion. There have been few who have given more for the cause these last three seasons than the man who captained the Cook Islands at the 2013 World Cup and made the 2015 Super League Dream Team during his spell with Catalans Dragons.

Taia and the club itself have come a long way since the ignominy of an abject home defeat by Wakefield in his debut. He has formed a consistent second row partnership with Dominique Peyroux, another player who fans were not convinced about when he was brought in by Cunningham from New Zealand Warriors in 2016. Those who perceive Taia as anything less than a real grafter might also like to know that he has twice been in Super League’s top five metre makers and even in 2020, with Saints having endured a bumpy start before lockdown, you will find his name in the top 10 in that category.

Born in Australia, his Cook Islands heritage initially saw him represent New Zealand in the 2010 Anzac Day test against Australia. That was while he was with Newcastle Knights in the NRL having started his professional career with Parramatta Eels in 2006. He then moved to France in 2012, had a two-season stint with the Titans from 2016 before arriving in St Helens to begin the most successful phase of his club career. Taia has won two League Leaders Shields in his two full seasons with Saints and was a try-scorer in the 2019 Super League Grand Final defeat of Salford back in October. The only honour in the U.K. game that has eluded him is the Challenge Cup, though he did play in the Wembley defeat by Warrington last season. Taia will hopefully get one more crack at filling that gap in his CV if the authorities can figure out a way to get the competition up and running again post-Covid.

For all the positives around Taia and all the plaudits he is now rightfully receiving it is almost certainly the right time for him to move on. Taia will be 36 by the time this year’s re-scheduled Grand Final comes around. Although there are examples of players who have gone on beyond that age in Super League (Gareth Ellis and Steve Menzies spring immediately to mind) it is perhaps time to look to the future. That is why it is important that Saints have announced today that James Bentley has agreed a one-year extension to his contract. That ties him to the club until the end of the 2021 season. A few eyebrows have been raised at the length of the extension. Ordinarily you would expect a player who does not turn 24 until October to be secured on a longer term deal. Yet perhaps this is a sign of the times we are currently living in. It is arguably prudent for Saints not to commit to too many long term deals until the full financial implications of Covid-19 are clear.

There is every reason to believe that coach Kristian Woolf should want Bentley around for a few years more when financial circumstance allows. His versatility has proven invaluable since making his debut in a win over Hull FC in September 2018. In his 25 appearances for the first team to date Bentley has played second row, centre, hooker and loose forward. He has made 12 starts and scored four tries, including a controversial winner in a classic 32-30 win over Salford last May which turned out to be a dress rehearsal for the Grand Final. Disappointment followed for Bentley as he was left out of the Old Trafford showpiece as well as the Challenge Cup final by Justin Holbrook after making the initial 19-man selection ahead of both games. He will no doubt be keen to put that behind him to play a major role in what we hope will be further success under Woolf.

Perhaps that versatility has worked against Bentley as much as in his favour so far in his Saints career. He arrived at the club in 2018 on the back of Leon Pryce’s assertion that he was the best player in the Championship while playing at second row and loose forward for the Bulls. The young forward scored 18 tries in 28 appearances for the Bradford club as his reputation grew amid the chaos of the fall of Bullmania. Pryce has been wrong before, most notably about Bondi and Blackpool, but he wasn’t the only one making comparisons with John Bateman at that time. Bateman had just begun to star at Wigan at that point and there were hopes that the similarly built Bentley could develop at the same rate. Yet his failure to hold down a regular slot at second row or loose forward is down largely to the excellent form of Taia and Peyroux and the emergence of Morgan Knowles as one of the league’s most consistent performers at loose forward.

Bentley, who has made three appearances for Ireland, has more regularly found himself slotting in at hooker in the increasingly regular absences of James Roby. Bentley and Aaron Smith have often filled Roby’s role by committee. Woolf May choose to develop that strategy as Roby heads towards the twilight of his great career. Yet should the Tongan coach choose instead to bring in a big name replacement for the skipper when the time comes Bentley may find that he needs to establish himself in the back row in the longer term.

Wherever he fits in there’s little doubt that Bentley has been a useful contributor so far in 2020. When the action stopped he had scored tries in wins at Hull FC and against Toronto at Warrington in his five appearances. It might be telling or it might be coincidence, but an ankle injury kept Bentley out of the last two games before lockdown which both ended in meek defeat. A home loss to Huddersfield was followed by a game at Castleford which Saints were never in before the government called its belated halt to professional sport.

If Bentley has put that ankle knock behind him during the suspension he could yet be a key figure when play resumes.