I’m not totally sure how we got here.
The Magic Weekend turned out to be anything but for Saints as they somehow, bewilderingly allowed a 30-12 lead to evaporate in the last five minutes before losing to James Maloney’s extra-time Golden Point drop-goal. The Dragons’ highly improbable victory meant that they secured a first ever League Leaders Shield. Saints will have to settle for second but optimists are right to point out that they did so last year before bouncing back to claim Grand Final glory with a miracle of their own. The glass half fulls would also be correct in highlighting that although losing this game deprives Saints of another League Leaders Shield the playoffs are structured in such a way that it does not in itself do any major harm to their chances of defending their title. It would surprise nobody if this match-up were repeated at Old Trafford on October 9.
Which on the evidence of how 70 minutes of this one panned out should not cause too many sleepless nights. Saints were in total control for most of it. Should they produce a performance of this quality again then the chances are they will be celebrating a Grand Final and Challenge Cup double. The likelihood of being hit with another comeback of this magnitude is what people in TV legal dramas call vanishingly small. Huge credit to Catalans for hanging in there and inflicting the kind of madness on Saints that they used to dish out regularly to others. Wembley 96, Warrington in 2005, Wide To West. But the fact is that the Dragons are going to need to do better if they are going to beat Saints again.
Coach Kristian Woolf kept changes to a minimum. That seemed a fair enough call coming in off the back of an impressive performance and win at Warrington. The only change saw Kyle Amor come on to the bench in place of Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook. Woolf explained that McCarthy-Scarsbrook has a slight injury concern and would not be risked ahead of bigger games to come. Which first of all tells you how highly Woolf rates the achievement of winning the League Leaders Shield and secondly says something about where standards are in the game compared with 15-20 years ago. McCarthy-Scarsbrook would not have played A Team rugby for Saints in the days of Keiron Cunningham, Paul Sculthorpe, Sean Long and Jamie Lyon. Now he is a prized asset to be rested for when it really matters. All Hail the salary cap.
Let me take you all the way back to the start before we address the elephant in the room that is Saints stunning late collapse. The Dragons started the game well, Sam Tomkins going over after only three minutes after Jack Welsby appeared to fall over in the defensive line. There were some suggestions on social media that he was impeded but referee Liam Moore thought not. Had it been reviewed there is a reasonable chance that the decision would have gone Saints way. There was a considerable amount of contact on Welsby, deliberate or otherwise, and we have become used to those being chalked off in televised games. Welsby did most of his defending on the right hand edge where the Dragons found more and more space as the game wore on. Samisoni Langi had an outstanding afternoon, reeling off a ridiculous 232 metres on 26 carries. He ended the day in hospital as Agnatius Paasi’s ill judged high challenge earned him the game’s third yellow card. But the Dragons centre had made his point.
The first yellow card arrived after only six minutes with Catalans up 6-0. Again Tomkins was involved, stepping away from Mark Percival before the Saints centre hooked the ex-Wigan beard-wearer around the neck with a slightly desperate lunge. It wasn’t the worst act of violence you’ve ever seen on a rugby league field but in the current climate where almost any high contact results in a sin-binning there is little to complain about.
It didn’t seem to hamper Saints too much. Even with 12 men on the field they dominated, and were next to score when Tommy Makinson got over on 12 minutes. As he so often is Lachlan Coote was the main architect, slipping a perfectly timed pass out to the winger who dived over in the corner. Coote could not add the extras out wide. There was no indication at that point of just how crucial that would turn out to be.
Seven minutes later Coote grabbed a try of his own. Lewis Dodd shifted it left to Coote and he executed a textbook give and go with the returned Percival before touching down. Coote was on target with the conversion this time and Saints led 10-6. Saints were beginning to dominate but it took them another 15 minutes to add to the lead. Dodd was involved again, linking up well with Welsby before Sione Mata’utia’s strength proved too much to handle for Tomkins and Mike McMeeken. Coote’s second conversion of the day moved Saints out to an 18-6 lead.
A few minutes before half time there was an incident which looked like it might have significant consequences for the Dragons but ended up arguably costing Saints also. Sam Kasiano was deemed to have put too much pressure on the neck of professional hot head James Bentley, a crime for which the giant Catalans prop also was ordered to take a 10-minute break. Woolf looked mystified in the coaches box but again in the present arena where player safety is paramount it seemed a reasonable call.
It was the toll it took on Bentley which may have proved more influential. The Leeds-bound back rower sat out the second half with what Sky Sports described as a back injury. It’s all hindsight but his defensive presence on that right edge might have helped when Langi started running riot. Also, he’s exactly the sort of exponent of shithousery who would have laid on the tackled Catalans player until the hooter sounded rather than allow the play-the-ball which lead to Josh Drinkwater’s crossfield bomb and subsequently Kasiano’s late, scarcely believable try. But more on that shit show later.
Back now to a time more fondly remembered, when things were going swimmingly for Woolf’s side. There was one more pivotal moment before the break. Two minutes before the interlude Dodd’s cute kick bounced kindly for the chasing Joe Batchelor. Seeing this, Maloney took it upon himself to stick a shoulder into the Saints man with enough force to make the ball squirt away from Batchelor. It was checked by the video referee who strangely found nothing wrong with it. The assessment of the disciplinary panel is that it was shoulder to shoulder contact. This smells like nonsense to me. I would argue that Maloney knew exactly what he was doing. Given what we have seen in Super League to this point it looked a certain yellow card. Regardless, had Saints gone in to the sheds with a 24-6 lead rather than an 18-6 advantage then the task of recovering would probably have been beyond Catalans despite their late heroics.
Saints recovered well from that disappointment initially. Six minutes after the restart Mata’utia notched his second try. The same triumvirate did the damage with Dodd and Welsby combining before the former Newcastle man jinked away from two defenders to score. Another successful Coote conversion and it was almost time to put the cigar on at 24-6.
The Dragons then lost half of their Tomkins quota, but unfortunately for us it was the less hirsute, less talented one who left the scene. Joel sustained a neck injury which also needed hospital treatment. Still well on top at this point, Saints almost scored again through Makinson. Welsby sent a long ball out to Kevin Naiqama and he handed on to Makinson who was hauled down just short of the line. Crucially, he could then not resist attempting to get up and plant the ball down as the tacklers fell away. Inconveniently there was a Dragons defender still in contact with Makinson, grimly hanging on to his boot, which constituted a completed tackle and a double movement. It was another misfire which didn’t seem to matter all that much at the time.
Even when Julian Bousquet crashed over after an exchange of passes between Maloney and Kasiano there was no great cause for alarm. It was goaled by Maloney to draw the French side to within 12 points at 24-12, but it came largely against the run of play. There were less than 25 minutes remaining and the highest points total conceded by Saints in a Super League game to this point in 2021 had been the 20 managed by Castleford in mid-August and by the Dragons themselves back in May. Not much chance of conceding 12 more in 25 minutes then, right?
Just to make absolutely sure that Catalans didn’t go getting any funny ideas about ridiculous comebacks Saints scored again 12 minutes from time. Morgan Knowles deserves the highest praise for a monumental solo effort in which he barged and twisted his way through no less than five would be defenders. It was outstanding, possibly the best thing Knowles has done in an attacking sense in his life. Yet from a Catalans point of view the defending was pretty woeful. They were more like ushers than defenders. If Saints allowed an opponent to score in those circumstances the inquest on Facebook would break the internet. It was the kind of defending you would see from a team which is being soundly beaten and knows it.
Which makes the events of the last 10 minutes of the game all the more unfathomable. There were a couple of warnings, first when Sam Tomkins was held up over the line and then moments later when Dean Whare dropped the ball close to the line under good pressure from Makinson. Yet the reprieve was temporary. A Coote knock-on near half way was compounded by the concession of a set restart, allowing Mikael Goudemand the opportunity to run at Welsby and offload for Whare to correct his earlier mistake. Maloney landed the extra two to cut the lead to 30-18. Still not exactly time to jump into the panic room and sound the alarm.
It got a bit more jittery two minutes later when outstanding youngster Arthur Morgue danced through a suddenly fraught Saints defence before finding Gil Dudson. The Welsh international strode over fairly easily and when Maloney tacked on two more points it was suddenly, somehow, a one score game at 30-24. Steve McNamara’s side launched one last attack as the clock ticked around to 80 minutes. Drinkwater’s kick seemed to hang in the air forever, yet never looked like being claimed by any of the by now shell-shocked Saints defenders. The panic room was now full to capacity with Saints defenders. Panic button pressed, lights flashing, police dogs barking and I’m certain I heard an air raid siren as that ball floated over.
With the Saints defence paralytic it was left to Kasiano to climb highest, claim possession and fall to the ground for an easy put-down. It was reviewed, but this felt like nothing more than cruel false hope. Maloney’s conversion completed an incredible comeback and sent us to Golden Point extra time. If momentum is a real thing then there was only ever going to be one winner from this point.
And so it proved. Saints could have still rescued it had Coote been more accurate with a lete drop-goal attempt. Yet by then Saints were playing with 12 men again. Paasi decided to solve the problem of Langi’s influence by aiming a shoulder to the head of the Dragons man. There was a lengthy delay while Langi was treated and eventually carried off, at the end of which Paasi was given 10 minutes for the double whammy of use of the shoulder and contact with the head. He has received a two-match ban and can have few complaints. With Saints all but certain to finish second whatever the results of their final two games against Leeds and Salford it may not turn out to be a significant punishment in any case.
There were less than two minutes on the clock when the end came. Believe it or not the authorities have not yet completely obliterated the concept of a draw. There was a certain inevitability about the winner despite its late arrival, and also about the fact that it was Maloney who dealt the final blow. His had been a performance of persistent nuisance value, of creativity, of goal-kicking accuracy and on one notable occasion of blatant cheating. He didn’t get a lot of elevation on his game winner but it arrowed flatly with just enough on it to get over the bar. As Alice Cooper once said about Barbara Streisand - it was ugly but it worked.
In many ways the anarchy of this game defies analysis but for the record along with Langi’s supreme effort Tom Davies helped himself to 201 metres while in the pack all of Kasiano, Matt Whitley, McMeeken and Dudson broke the 100 metre barrier. Saints best ground-gainer was Percival with 166. Walmsley (147) and Mata’utia (121) were the only Saints forwards to get there yet an acceptance that we are too reliant on the big former Batley man seems no nearer to arriving.
James Roby came off late with a knock and that, added to Bentley’s injury and Paasi’s ban could mean a few changes for the visit of Leeds this week. It Walmsley is going to get the help he needs it is imperative that Bentley and Roby in particular are fit for the playoffs. Nobody would blame Woolf if he wrapped both in cotton wool until then.
The best thing Saints and Woolf can do is park this one and move on. Shit happens. Learn the lesson that you have to respect the game and your opponent for 80 minutes but don’t let it inhibit you going forward. It really, really won’t happen again.
Probably.
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