A win is a win. When all the talking stops, when all the glib amateur reflection pieces have been written, all that really matters is that Saints have made it into the last eight of the Challenge Cup. The dream of ending a 13-year wait for a Wembley win lives on.
But it was not a performance to remember. With Leeds missing almost their entire back line a more comfortable passage to the quarter finals was expected. There were times when you got a sense that a straightforward passage into the last eight draw was the expectation of the Saints players too, and that this affected their performance. The Rhinos had already announced a 21-man squad missing all of Jack Walker, Harry Newman, Konrad Hurrell, Ash Handley, Ritchie Myler and Robert Lui. When it was revealed that England halfback Luke Gale wouldn’t be involved either the odds on Leeds surprising a previously unbeaten and frankly untroubled Saints side grew even longer. It looked as though Saints believed this a little too readily also.
Saints had one or two problems of their own but they were mild by comparison. Like turning up to a gunfight with a few bullets missing from your barrel but shrugging indifferently because your opponent has brought a water pistol. Mark Percival was recalled to the 21-man squad on Thursday after missing the win over Hull KR but did not make the 17. He joined the still absent Morgan Knowles on the sidelines but their loss was offset somewhat by the return to the starting line-up of Lachlan Coote. The fullback was featuring for the first time this season after missing the two opening Super League wins over Salford Red Devils and the Robins. It showed at times.
With Coote restored to the number one role Jack Welsby was moved into Percival’s left centre berth. That meant no place in the 17 for Josh Simm who had started against Rovers. His omission perhaps tells us something about where he currently sits in the pecking order. With Percival currently unreliable physically there has been some debate about whether Welsby or Simm should be the regular back-up. Welsby’s selection suggests he is the man for the job in the mind of coach Kristian Woolf. Elsewhere Lewis Dodd came into the 17, and was ultimately used not as a halfback option but in relief of James Roby at hooker. That role would normally be occupied by Aaron Smith but he had picked up a head knock in scoring the game-breaking try against Rovers last weekend.
He wasn’t alone by any means but Coote looked well short of his best form, particularly in Saints error-strewn first half performance. They started well, good handling from Theo Fages, Jonny Lomax and Kevin Naiqama putting Tommy Makinson over in the right hand corner inside three minutes. Perhaps the last thing you need in a game you expect to win handily against a weakened opponent is to score so early. Complacency seemed to set in for long periods after that. Saints made simple, basic handling errors and then as their frustration grew they started to make poor decisions in possession which only led to more errors.
The malaise even spread to their defence. Saints had been all but impregnable throughout the first two Super League rounds - conceding only six points and one try over the two games. But the try conceded to Mikolaj Oledzki which tied the game up at 6-6 was the result of some decidedly brittle tackling. The Leeds prop easily bumped off two or three tacklers and suddenly just 10 minutes in it became apparent that this was going to be an awkward day at the office after all.
That feeling wasn’t eased any by the early loss of two bench options. Sione Mata’utia sustained a head knock just before Oledzki’s try and never returned after failing his HIA, while Matty Lees had already gone down with an ankle injury which would rule him out the rest of the way also. Rotation of front rowers then became an issue for Woolf and perhaps the likes of Kyle Amor and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook had to put in a longer shift than is normally expected of them and longer than any of us are entirely comfortable with. Including those players themselves.
One man who benefitted from having to stay involved a bit longer was Agnatius Paasi. It doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to suggest that the result may have been different without the efforts of the former New Zealand Warrior. He turned in a stunning performance, and was easily Saints standout player. Each of his carries seemed to yield at least 10-15 metres territory and he always looked likely to create a second phase with an offload. One of his runs during the second half produced significantly more than 10-15 metres but he was unfortunate enough to find that McCarthy-Scarsbrook was the only man who had made it on to his shoulder in support. The fact that Saints didn’t have anyone a little speedier in the right place at the right time at that moment kind of summed up the performance. Paasi missed the win over Rovers due to concussion protocols but if this sort of effort - in only his second competitive outing for the club let’s remember - becomes the norm then the Tongan will quickly become very popular among the supporters. It is a bit of a cliche but on this evidence he looks like a traditional Saints player as I understand the term.
For all their sloppiness Saints were perhaps unfortunate not to go in with an advantage larger than the 8-6 lead given to them by Makinson’s penalty goal. The England winger slotted two points on half an hour after Zane Tetevano was guilty of a high shot on James Bentley. Before that Roby had been denied a possible try when referee Ben Thaler ruled that he had been held up by the Leeds defence. I couldn’t decisively tell you that the ball was grounded but it certainly seemed worthy of a review, particularly in the current climate where reviews are often ordered as soon as ball carriers reach the same postcode as the goal-line. This - and another Roby effort which was chalked off in the second half - was not totally dissimilar to Brad Dwyer’s second try which got Leeds back into the game at 20-18 with less than 10 minutes left. In the latter instance the video referee could not find compelling evidence to overturn the original award of a try, but in the case of Roby’s second effort he apparently could. This particular jury is out on that one.
The decision to kick the goal was arguably a sign of Saints frustration at their inability to complete sets consistently and often enough to really threaten the Rhinos try-line in that first half. Tetevano did not learn from it and it was his second half dismissal which went a long way to turning this game back in Saints favour. The 2020 NRL Grand Finalist was abruptly removed from proceedings just five minutes after the break for a late, high, armless but hardly harmless assault on Fages.
The Frenchman was not braced having turned away to pass the ball to his left when he was unceremoniously clattered by Tetevano. It was the reddest of red cards. Redder than a lobster’s corset. The kind of challenge which when it is punished appropriately often provokes ludicrous complaints about how the game has ‘gone soft’. Those complainants will nevertheless nod in agreement at the suggestion that something needs to be done to reduce head injuries given the increasing prevalence of long term brain injuries among former athletes. If you don’t legislate against hits like Tetevano’s you might not have a game to watch in the not too distant future. Thaler got the decision absolutely right.
Before Dwyer’s two-try intervention Saints had stretched out to a 20-6 lead thanks to two Regan Grace scores. It looked as though that would be that, and that this writer might finally get a prediction right having tipped Saints to win by 14 in the preview. But the same frailties in defence which had allowed Oledzki’s early try were on display for Dwyer’s double. The former Warrington man twice just simply forced his way right through the middle of Saints rearguard from fairly close range. Saints finally restored order late on when they went out wide to the right again for Naiqama to put Makinson in for his second try of the afternoon. Yet there is plenty for Woolf to fix up in both attack and defence ahead of next week’s Super League clash with Wakefield Trinity.
Looking further ahead the quarter-final draw threw up a meeting with the winner of Sunday’s tie between Leigh Centurions and Huddersfield Giants. Either offers a very presentable opportunity to get through to a last four tie. Getting to that and through that tie and then the final itself is the only thing that really matters. Which is just as well after this unconvincing, distinctly iffy performance against a gallant but decimated opponent.
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