Finally, in the searing Wembley heat, Saints 13-year wait for Challenge Cup final success came to an end.
It was a struggle at times. Watching Saints under Kristian Woolf always is. But on this day more than most the Tongan coach had justification for keeping the gameplan simple. Winning was all that mattered, to the point where analysing exactly how victory was achieved becomes almost superfluous. Added to the magnitude of the occasion, the weather made free-flowing rugby difficult. I was absolutely frying along I’m sure with all the other Saints fans housed in the end of the stadium most exposed to the sun. I literally struggled to breath at times, taking several opportunities during breaks in play to go and cool off in the shade near the concourse. Admittedly my breathing improved once I’d stopped plying myself with hot, £6 beer. Who knew? But if I was struggling just sitting there I dread to think what it must have been like for the players on the field.
I know I just said analysis is almost superfluous but if I did not at least try this would be a very short column. Which some of you may prefer. For the rest of you I’m going to crack on. Saints won this game in the way they have won many others this year. By strangling the life out of it, dominating possession and territory and waiting for the other lot to fall over. John Kear and Jonathan Davies might think it was some kind of classic, but this is an overstatement.
It was not a total snoozefest by any means but like many finals much of its excitement stemmed from the level of tension involved. And given that Woolf’s team kill their prey far more slowly than Saints teams of the past that tension tends to hang around for a bit longer. All of which is a nice way of saying that we tend to make hard work of it. Victory was not really sealed until Lachlan Coote’s penalty goal pushed Saints out to an eight-point lead at 20-12 inside the last 10 minutes. Cas had not threatened for a while before that but it gave the reassurance that even a sudden counter - as had happened earlier when Niall Evalds scored following 15 minutes of total Saints dominance - would not be enough.
Saints were certainly better in the second half than the first, though they were fairly dominant throughout. They trailed 12-6 at half time after Theo Fages’ opening try was cancelled out by that Evalds score and another by Jake Trueman. Fages had capitalised inside the first 10 minutes when a Coote grubber bounced off the post and deceived Oliver Holmes. Yet within 15 minutes of that Cas were level through Evalds’ inspired breakaway effort and then in front when Trueman out-jumped Fages to gather Gareth O’Brien’s kick. Fages struggled after his try and was eventually withdrawn with what is being described as a shoulder injury. It’s probably not a coincidence that Saints improved after Jack Welsby replaced the Frenchman alongside Jonny Lomax in the halves.
If this game had a turning point it came quickly and some would say controversially after half-time. The first minute after the break is arguably a good time to score but I’m not sure James Roby’s try was quite the game changer of the Tigers’ post game narrative. With the weight of possession and territory that Saints had in the second half the Cas dam would probably have burst at some point. That’s the Woolf methodology. Score enough points to be confident about defending and then manage the game to death. Had Roby’s try been chalked off you get a sense that Saints would have just kept turning the screw.
In the event - and contrary to the claims of most people who don’t support Saints - the decision to award Roby a try was probably correct. There were two elements of doubt for video referee James Child to look at. First, did Mark Percival knock on from Coote’s high kick towards the left hand sideline? Second, was Regan Grace in touch when he batted the ball back to Roby who spun out of a tackle and plunged over?
Taking these questions in order, the angle from behind the contesting Saints players seemed to suggest it may have gone forward off Percival. But from the side angle, which is often more telling when trying to judge the direction of the ball, it looked ok. It had been sent up to Child as a try by on-field referee Liam Moore so indisputable evidence of a knock on needed to be found to overturn that decision. If anything Percival would have been given benefit of doubt under old rules and certainly owned that under the current regulations.
The second question is more difficult, both because the rule is not well known and because the footage showed how close it was to call even if you know the rules. One would hope Child would know the rule as a long-time professional referee. I confess that I did not at the time. Thankfully former Super League referee Ian Smith was on hand on Twitter to clear it up. He explained that although Grace had his left foot in touch at one point it is then raised and his right foot is on the ground in the field of play before he goes up again and touches the ball. Therefore he is deemed to have jumped from the field of play and is allowed to make a play for the ball. He has re-established himself in the field of play. So, much to the anger of opposing fans it all seems fair enough, if a little fortunate. Certainly we won’t be seeing Eamonn McManus ranting about it in his programme notes this week.
There was an element of scrappiness to the try that gave Saints the lead, that is until Welsby took hold of the situation. Coote had made a sloppy pass which had been bobbling along the turf before it was picked up by Saints Grand Final hero. He set off, crab-like across the field before finding just the right line to tempt the defenders in so he could find Kevin Naiqama with a perfectly timed pass. The Fijian expertly shunted the ball over to Tommy Makinson in an instant and the winger raced over to put Saints 16-12 up with half an hour remaining. Coote missed with the conversion but he would have more opportunities to add to his points tally before the end.
Before that he had a major defensive contribution to make. The Tigers had few chances in the second half but a few minutes after Makinson’s try one arrived. Evalds made a great break and seemed to be going clear. He only had Coote to beat but the soon to be Hull KR man was having none of it. It was a bit awkward, hardly Connolly-esque in its technique, but Coote managed to close Evalds’ space down and bundle him to the floor. A Tigers try at point could have seen them regain the lead and pile the pressure back on to Saints but Coote made sure the threat was nullified.
If this were a bog standard league game this is the bit where I would moan about Saints insistence on kicking for goal at penalties instead of trying to score tries. But in a cup final if you get the right result it is always the right decision. Fifteen minutes from time Percival was run off the ball illegally by Peter Mata’utia while the Saints centre was chasing the umpteenth Coote bomb of the day. Coote’s goal opened up a six-point margin before he pushed it out to a magical eight six minutes later when Cas were caught offside.
Coote had time to miss another penalty shot before the icing on the cake (which if it were not a lazy metaphor would have melted in these temperatures) was delivered. Kyle Amor spun out of a tackle and drove low to get the ball on the ground with three minutes left. It was the kind of boring barge over that ought to be worth -2, but it isn’t so who cared at that point? Certainly not Amor for whom I am absolutely delighted. Possibly in his last year since signing for the club in 2014 he has been a reassuring presence through the good and bad in that time, given everything for the team and deserves to milk his success for all its worth. If he tells his mates down the pub in 30 years time that he sprinted 50 yards to score they should just accept it and let him bask in it.
It was striking how much this win meant to the players when the final hooter sounded. The celebrations were wild. Winning the cup after so long appears to have been as high on the players’ wish list as it was on that of most fans. Even the failure of any Saints player to win the Lance Todd Trophy could not dampen spirits. The honour went to Evalds, on the losing side for a second cup final in a row and a third major final in the last four having played for Salford in the 2019 Grand Final. It was hard to argue with the call. He was consistently Castleford’s most dangerous player and was pretty faultless under the aerial assault from the boot of Coote. The Saints fullback would have been another worthy winner but at least now he has a winner’s medal to compensate for the 2019 loss to Warrington. The only time any of us have seen him fall below his high standards in the three season’s he has been a Saint. Roby would have been another decent choice, getting through his usual mountain of work defensively but also being in the right place at the right time to take his try-scoring opportunity when it arrived.
You can read about how farcical the end of my night turned out to be in another blog. The day itself was joyous, a triumph. Less than a week on from the pretty shameful scenes at Wembley ahead of the Euro 2020 final the rugby league community showed that it can still come together peacefully on its big day. Shirts of all kinds of clubs at all levels of the game were sported in the stadium and in the pub before and after.
You can never take these days for granted. I just hope it isn’t 13 years before I get to write about the next Saints Wembley win.