Saints and Hull FC are about to get sick of the sight of each other. They meet next weekend in the Challenge Cup semi final at Leigh Sports Village. First though, FC visit Saints in a Super League Round 8 clash on Friday night (May 28, kick-off 7.45pm).
Coaches Kristian Woolf and Brett Hodgson probably wouldn’t publicly admit that next week’s cup meeting is of greater importance. Yet if either was told that he could only win one of the two they’d be foolish not to choose the semi final. Neither is foolish, but it will nevertheless be interesting to see how they approach this league meeting. Will it be a phoney war? Will any players carrying slight knocks which wouldn’t ordinarily stop them from playing be given the night off? Does either side look likely to beat the other twice? And if not, is winning this one something of a booby prize?
Woolf’s squad selection suggests he isn’t treating this one any differently. He has been forced into just the one change to his 21-man party. Regan Grace suffered a head knock in scoring a late try in last weekend’s defeat at Catalans Dragons and will miss out due to the six-day turnaround between games. His replacement in the squad is Sam Royle, a 21-year old back rower who has yet to make his first team debut.
It’s tempting - given the way that Woolf’s side have played this year - to view this selection as the start of his grand plan to fill the team entirely with back rowers. There was a joke doing the rounds this week that Woolf’s lack of interest in the newly available George Williams was down to the fact that Williams isn’t great at those tough yardage carries beloved of Woolf and the Sky Sports commentary team. In reality, Saints are just fresh out of wingers with which to replace Grace. Tommy Makinson may or may not return for the semi final but will not be considered here, while Tom Nisbet is on loan at Oldham for at least another week. Someone is going to have to play out of position. The smart thing would probably be to give Josh Simm a run in the centres alongside Mark Percival and ask Jack Welsby to join Kevin Naiqama in covering the wing positions. Simm has had his own loan spell at Leigh Centurions this season, that after impressing in his occasional appearances last season but falling out of favour as Percival returned and Welsby continued to shine.
Elsewhere the team should look much like it did last week, with James Bentley and Matty Lees still out with long term injuries. Lachlan Coote has been the subject of murmurings on his future with no deal in place for next year and beyond, but for now is a fixture at fullback. Theo Fages is another linked with the exit who nevertheless is an almost automatic selection in the halves alongside Jonny Lomax. It will be instructive to find out whether the deepening injury crisis has any effect on Woolf’s apparent bench rotation policy between Lewis Dodd and Aaron Smith. We may see both, but I suspect we will certainly see Smith as any opportunity to give James Roby a breather before next week’s big show must surely be seized upon.
Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook has been the man to fill Lees’ starting prop role. He did so last week alongside Agnatius Paasi as Woolf reckoned that Alex Walmsley might be a useful impact player off the bench. And he was, the problem being that when you bench Walmsley you inevitably weaken the team from the start. It might not be a coincidence that Walmsley did not start and Saints only scored two points in the first half, although there have been other games in which Walmsley did start which have seen Saints struggle in attack early on. It’s almost certainly a tactical problem for which Woolf is responsible, but playing without Walmsley does not help.
With Bentley out the back row is fairly fixed, with Joel Thompson and Sione Mata’utia in the second row ahead of the recently returned Morgan Knowles. Royle will battle for a bench spot along with Joe Batchelor, Kyle Amor, Dan Norman, Ben Davies, Smith and Dodd.
FC have looked a more realistic title contender in their early days under new coach Hodgson. They have knocked Wigan out of the Challenge Cup, lost narrowly to the same opponents in the league and held Warrington to a 14-14 draw. You can now expect them to be competitive against any Super League opposition, though they will be a tad concerned about their last two performances. They lost 27-10 at home to Catalans on the Monday that fans were welcomed back into rugby league grounds and although they got back to winning ways last week against Leeds Rhinos they would surely have lost to a side with a few more ideas in attack than Richard Agar’s side. The Rhinos battered Hull for large parts of the second half without ever really threatening to score enough points to win. Saints attack is not flash, but you would imagine they have enough to take advantage if Hull afford them similar levels of possession and territory.
Hodgson has also made just a single change to his squad. Josh Bowden comes back in after an arm injury, replacing Connor Wynne. That means that pretty much all of his big guns are on deck. Jake Connor has moments of madness but is among the most talented players knocking around in Super League right now, while Marc Sneyd’s halfback partnership with Josh Reynolds seems to have pushed the black and whites to a new level. Across the backs former Saint Adam Swift is playing as well as he ever has - oh to have him in the squad to step in for Grace - while Mahe Fonua and Carlos Tuimavave are dangerous too. Josh Griffin made a mockery of Konrad Hurrell in the first half last week and will provide a stiff test for Saints right edge defence.
Up front Hull have their own Roby-lite in the tireless Danny Houghton while prop Chris Satae has performed consistently well this year. Scott Taylor is still out injured but Bowden’s return beefs up a pack that also could feature another ex-Saint Andre Savelio as well as Brad Fash, Ligi Sao, Mane M’au and Joe Cator.
Predictions are difficult with next week casting a large shadow over this one. There have been some slight cracks appearing in the Saints defence in recent weeks after some dominant displays earlier in the season. The nilling of Salford on May 17 showed that Saints can still be miserly, but it seems likely that if they have another off night and don’t defend well they will not score enough points to beat Hull with all of their attacking weapons.
If we can only win one of the two let it not be this one. We can recover from a defeat here whereas lose next week and the wait for a cup win extends to 14 years. But let’s be greedy and back Saints to edge both. After all, there is never really a meaningless game between Saints and Hull now that all meetings are part of the Steve Prescott Cup, held in memory of the former international fullback and champion fundraiser who served both clubs with such distinction.
Saints by four.
Squads;
St Helens;
1, Lachlan Coote, 3. Kevin Naiqama, 4, Mark Percival, 6. Jonny Lomax, 7. Theo Fages, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. James Roby, 11. Joel Thompson, 13, Morgan Knowles, 14. Sione Mata’utia, 15. LMS, 16. Kyle Amor, 17, Agnatius Paasi, 18. Jack Welsby, 19, Aaron Smith, 20, Joe Batchelor, 21. Lewis Dodd, 22. Josh Simm, 25. Dan Norman, 29. Ben Davies, 30. Sam Royle.
Hull FC:
1. Jake Connor 2. Bureta Faraimo 3. Carlos Tuimavave 4. Josh Griffin 5. Mahe Fonua 6. Josh Reynolds 7. Marc Sneyd 9. Danny Houghton 10. Chris Satae 11. Andre Savelio 12. Manu Ma’u 13. Ligi Sao 14. Jordan Johnstone 15. Joe Cator 16. Jordan Lane 17. Brad Fash 19. Ben McNamara 20. Jack Brown 21. Adam Swift 22. Josh Bowden 24. Cameron Scott
Referee: Chris Kendall
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