At the risk of sounding like an especially deluded Warrington fan, this really could be our year. Saints are back at Wembley following a breakdown-inducing 33-18 victory over Hull FC. It’s a comfortable looking scoreline, but it was anything but until Regan Grace’s miraculous intervention five minutes from time with Hull knocking on the door and threatening to take what could have been a decisive lead. Instead Saints will get an opportunity to end a 13-year wait for a Challenge Cup triumph when they face Castleford Tigers on July 17. So no, not Warrington then. Not their year.
There were changes to the 17 which had beaten FC at home in the league a week previously. Some were welcome and others were forced on coach Kristian Woolf. Grace came back in after missing out last week due to concussion protocols and Tommy Makinson also returned after a month out with a foot injury. However, Mark Percival’s persistently uncooperative hamstring kept him out and a similar fate befell Tongan prop Agnatius Paasi. It meant that the return of the two wingmen was especially timely as it allowed recent stand-ins Kevin Naiqama and Jack Welsby to return to the centres where they are arguably more effective. Josh Simm was the unfortunate man to miss out.
Paasi’s place in the prop rotation went to Dan Norman. If you’re not that familiar with the name it’s because the former London Bronco had yet to feature in a competitive first team match for Saints. A cup semi-final is quite the game in which to be making your debut. You sensed that even Woolf realised this, choosing not to use Norman until the final two minutes of the game, by which time the result had been settled.
Woolf effectively went with 16 players in the biggest game of the season so far, which if you were being kind you might call an eccentric decision. If you were not you would call it something else entirely. To be fair to Woolf Saints were all out of props with Paasi and Matty Lees out injured but it would surely have made more sense to have Aaron Smith on the bench if the intention was not to use Norman? Or, here’s an idea, pick Norman and give the lad some game time and show that you have a modicum of trust in him. To his credit Norman remained positive about making his brief debut but the experience will not have filled him with confidence.
The game featured one inescapable talking point. Saints led 8-2 thanks to Grace’s first try and a penalty from the boot of Lachlan Coote when the first half’s pivotal moment arrived on 24 minutes. Josh Griffin stepped out of a tackle and into space before suddenly and quite shockingly hopping his way to the floor with no defender near him. As he did so he let go of the ball and immediately made a grab for his ankle. There was a moment of hesitation before Theo Fages scooped up the loose ball and raced over for a try which Coote converted to give Saints a 14-2 lead.
Fages did not break any rules. In fact, there is a reasonable argument that he did what would have been expected of him by his coach and his team-mates, not to mention the majority of fans. Play to the whistle, ask questions later. Yet scoring such a huge try in a mammoth game like this does not sit well. Referee Liam Moore was apparently also powerless to stop the game because it was not a head injury. This seems a curiosity within the laws of the game. For all the claims to the contrary it was abundantly clear from the moment he went down that Griffin’s injury was serious. Top players do not just drop the ball on the floor 15m from their own posts.
I’m not familiar with the pain of a ruptured Achilles, which is what Griffin’s injury turned out to be. I have never felt any lower leg pain of any description. In the area of leg pain I’m like Clark Kent. If you attacked that area of my person you would be waiting a long time to elicit a response. Yet since Saturday I have heard ex-players describe it as like being shot through the back of the ankle. So you can think what you like about Fages actions - with which I have no problem - but if you’re selling me the idea that nobody knew the severity of the injury I’m not buying. There has to be some scope in that situation for Moore to stop the game.
There have even been suggestions that having scored a try in such queasy fashion Saints should have let Hull run one in at the other end. Just as parallels were drawn to Paolo Di Canio’s catching of the ball to stop play for an injured goalkeeper at Everton in 2000, so there have been comparison’s to Marcelo Bielsa’s insistence that his Leeds United team allow Aston Villa to score after Leeds had scored with a Villa player down injured. These things get remembered and perhaps that is bigger than any one game - even a cup semi final. But it’s a tough balancing act. After all, had Fages stopped how long would it have been before we started to see players in busted defences feigning injury to halt the attack? It’s a tricky moral dilemma. To be fair to Hull coach Brett Hodgson he had no complaints afterwards, accepting it was fair play from Fages. It has already been pointed out what a stark contrast this is to the way certain senior members of staff at Saints reacted to Robert Hicks’ failure to review what looked a fair Morgan Knowles try at Wembley in 2019. The incidents are very different but there is certainly something to be learned in there about accepting your ill fortune with a bit more decorum.
In the end it was a good job for our cup prospects that Fages did the ruthless thing. After Welsby had pulled off a fine finish in the left hand corner to put Saints 20-2 up we seemed to be cruising. Mahe Fonua’s try created a bit of doubt but when Fages - turning in his second consecutive impressive display against the black and whites just as it looks as if he might be headed to Huddersfield - smartly dropped a goal to make it 21-8 we seemed comfortable once more. That was before Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook was penalised for a two-on-one ball steal close to his own line to set up the position from where Carlos Tuimavave offloaded to put Danny Houghton over. A Marc Sneyd conversion made it 21-14.
The twitchometer soon cranked into overdrive. Cameron Scott hustled his way over on the left edge through some average Saints defence and suddenly the lead was just three at 21-18. Sneyd could not convert that one but when Josh Reynolds conjured up a sublime and frankly infuriating 40/20 moments later the Saints boat was well and truly rocking. That it did not capsize is down almost entirely to Grace, who darted out of the line in a defensive move that can be best described as shit or bust to snaffle Jake Connor’s pass and take it 90m in the other direction. It was an absolute bloody miracle. There was joy, there was emotion, and not a small amount of relief as the Welshman streaked away. The 10 or so seconds it took him to make it to the Hull line were quite glorious. The only way he was not scoring once he’d got behind the Hull players still lined up to attack was if he’d suffered a Griffin-like injury calamity.
For all that heart-stopping drama, the scoreline toppled further towards Saints when Naiqama was first to a Fages bomb and tapped it back for Coote to go over. It gave the scoreline a healthy look which reflected the fact that Saints were the better team over the 80 minutes but masked the horrors of the events of 10 minutes earlier. Ultimately what won this one for Saints - aside from Fages’ much talked about try - was another strangling defensive showing in that first half. A 14-2 half-time deficit always looked a steep hill to climb for Hull and when Welsby’s effort stretched the lead to 20-2 it looked an impossible task for Hodgson’s side. And so it proved, if only just as it turned out.
After their surprise win over Warrington in the other semi final it will be Castleford Tigers standing between Saints and that first Challenge Cup win since 2008. Saints will start favourites but we shouldn’t take anything for granted against a side which bounced back from the ignominy of a 60-point towelling by Leeds Rhinos to deservedly beat what was an in-form Wire side in the space of a single week.
For Saints the scramble for shirts will start now, with many questions for Woolf to ponder over the next six weeks. Will Percival make it and if he does - should he go straight back into the side at the expense of either Welsby or Naiqama - both of whom were excellent in this semi final triumph? Should Paasi start instead of McCarthy-Scarsbrook? Will Norman have to pay to get in? And whose turn will it be that week to make the bench between Smith and Lewis Dodd?
But most importantly...is it finally our year?
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