Saints secured spot with a dominant dismantling of playoff chasing Leeds Rhinos.
Slipping out of the top two never seemed all that likely, but Saints went into this one needing a win to make absolutely sure. All of which is significant because the top two get the first week of the playoffs off and are just one home win away from the Grand Final. Almost as important as that was the need to move on from the aberration of the last five minutes against Catalans Dragons at Newcastle last week. Those memories were suitably banished, especially during a first half that saw Saints threaten to run up the proverbial cricket score. On days when cricket is not cancelled, you understand.
Although this was a Leeds team hit by injuries there was a nervousness coming into it for Saints fans as a consequence of our own absentee list. In particular there was a problem at prop with Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook out injured and Agnatius Paasi missing through suspension. Dan Norman was named in a 20-man squad on Wednesday but coach Kristian Woolf chose not to give him the chance to add to his one brief first team appearance. That meant just a three-man rotation of specialised props with Alex Walmsley and Matty Lees starting and Kyle Amor coming in off the bench. Joel Thompson came back into the 17 and he would have to muck in in the middle off the bench along with Jake Wingfield. Jack Welsby and Lewis Dodd continued their burgeoning halfback partnership with Jonny Lomax and Theo Fages both still out, while Joe Batchelor deputised at second row for James Bentley.
It turns out that three props is plenty if one of them is Alex Walmsley. The former Batley man put on a clinic in how to play the front row position. Sky’s coverage suggested he made 254 metres - which is itself off the charts - but the official stats from Super League calculate that he stomped for 275 metres on 23 carries at an average of 11.95 metres per carry. To put that into context the league’s best average for the season is the 11.62 managed by our very own Aaron Smith. Yet Smith has carried the ball just 21 times all year in a season of reduced first team opportunities. Perhaps a more useful barometer is the 10.99 metres per carry managed by Wakefield winger Tom Johnstone on 115 attempts.
Playing longer minutes due to Saints’ scarcity of props Walmsley was unplayable for much of his opening 30-minute stint. He ended the night with a try, an assist, 13 tackle busts and four clean breaks. On a weekend in which Emma Raducanu pulled off one of the greatest and most memorable triumphs in the history of British sport Walmsley produced a front row performance for the ages. I have been watching Saints since the mid-1980s and I have rarely if ever seen a prop forward produce that level of performance. At times he looked like a 16 year-old playing in an under-10s game. It was almost laughable at certain points. Leeds defenders regularly tumbled in his wake like incompetent villains in a Home Alone movie.
About that defence. Ok, it wasn’t great and there were clearly some stern words spoken by Leeds coach Richard Agar as it improved after the break. But there probably hasn’t been enough credit given to Walmsley and Saints as the experts clamoured on TV and social media to pillory the Rhinos for their failings. It can’t be easy with Walmsley running at you but there were others stepping up also. Morgan Knowles showed some of the attacking involvement that this column has regularly asked for with two tries in a 12-carry, 102-metre performance. Lees added another 106 metres and Amor 122 while in the backs Tommy Makinson gobbled up 232 and there were 130 and 126 for Regan Grace and Lachlan Coote respectively. Leeds were not at their best in that first 40 minutes but it is doubtful whether any Super League side could have coped with the onslaught. In any case, Phil Clarke’s analysis was very much undermined by his assertion that Alexander The Great was a Russian Tsar.
It took Saints only three minutes to open their account for the night. Welsby had already forced a dropout with a searching kick when Dodd and Coote combined to send Grace over for his 12th try of the season. It was reviewed as the Welshman only just managed to make it to the line before the Rhinos cover converged. When it was rightly awarded Coote tacked on the extras to give Saints a 6-0 lead.
For a short time Richie Myler almost single handedly repelled Saints attacks, diffusing Coote’s persistent bombs and being on hand to snuff out shorter attacking kicks by Welsby and Batchelor. Yet a sustained spell of Saints pressure always seemed likely to tell, which it did when Welsby scored Saints’ second try on 16 minutes. Dodd and James Roby combined and the hooker’s offload found Welsby who proceeded to dance through the challenges to put Saints 10-0 up. Coote could not add the conversion this time but Saints’ dominance was starting to pay off.
Walmsley’s first eye-catching break of the night set up the position from which Knowles scored Saints’ third try. Coote’s kick was batted dead by Jack Broadbent and from the resulting dropout Roby threatened the line before finding Knowles who spun out of the tackle of the Leeds youngster. Coote’s second conversion of the evening gave Saints a commanding 16-0 lead.
There was no stopping Walmsley by this point. On the very next set he ripped through the Leeds line from inside his own quarter and set off on a 30 metre jaunt down the middle of the field. He found Makinson on his shoulder and the England winger did the rest despite a valiant chase from the other side of the field by Ash Handley. Another Coote goal put Saints 22-0 up.
Walmsley was next to cross as he capped a monstrous spell with his 5th try of the season. Myler handed Saints the i initiative when his kick went out on the full. Dodd and Batchelor linked up well, with Batchelor offloading in the tackle to enable Dodd to find Walmsley who crashed over from close range. It was becoming almost unfair on Leeds and Woolf took pity on them by giving Walmsley his first rest of the evening as Coote was adding the extras to put Saints 28-0 ahead.
It is often said - with some justification - that Saints experience a drop in their level whenever Walmsley leaves the field. Much like all of the other Super League clubs, Saints don’t have another forward quite like him in terms of his sheer size, strength and phenomenal work rate. So there was a certain inevitability about the blip that followed his exit. Grace was caught out flapping at a Myler skyscraper which put the Rhinos in position to strike. Bodene Thompson was held up just short of the line but on the next play Brad Dwyer sneaked over from dummy half. Rhyse Martin is second on the league’s goalscoring list in 2021 with 77 and he was successful with his only opportunity of the night to cut the arrears to 28-6 at the break.
It was a fast start to the second period for Saints. They extended their lead on 44 minutes through Sione Mata’utia. Batchelor had already been held up on the last near the Rhinos line and Saints were unfortunate when referee Chris Kendall incorrectly deemed that Welsby had passed the ball off the ground in the next set. Thankfully that infringement does not come at the cost of a penalty these days so Saints were still able to profit. Dodd put a pinpoint kick into the Leeds in-goal area and Mata’utia won the race to touch down. Coote was on target again with the conversion to push the lead out to 34-6.
Which is where things started to get a bit less jovial. Two minutes later Mata’utia suffered a nasty looking ankle injury in a tackle by Thompson and Leeming. The former Newcastle man was helped off, took no further part and was hobbling around on crutches after the game. Yet although Woolf has suggested that he will miss Friday night’s visit to Salford the coach also reckoned that it is not serious enough to keep Mata’utia out of the playoff semi-final on the weekend of October 1-2. If that turns out to be the case then Saints will have dodged a bullet. Mata’utia is in great form at the moment and with Bentley’s fitness also in doubt the loss of another second rower is one Saints can do without. Woolf could have faced a scenario in which he was trying to win a Grand final with back up pairings in both the halves and the second row. That would have been quite a challenge and one that hopefully he will not have to meet.
Unfortunately the injury issues did not end there in what turned out to be a disjointed second half performance. At times it was hard to keep track of who was playing in which position as both Welsby and Percival left the field for head injury assessments. Welsby was cleared and returned to the fray but Percival’s night ended when he was involved in a head clash with Luke Briscoe. There didn’t look to be too much in the Leeds man’s challenge in truth, but it was awkward enough to inflict a heavy blow on Percival. He didn’t look too clever as he was assisted to the sideline by the medical staff. Happily Woolf has confirmed that his centre is ok and that his withdrawal was just precautionary owing to the way he was hit and subsequently fell.
It took until seven minutes from time for a Saints side clearly trying to manage the game after last week’s trauma to add to their tally. When it came it was Knowles again, whose second try of the night meant that he had doubled his line-bothering exploits for the season in 80 minutes work. Whisper it, but Knowles is starting to add the attacking facets to his game which if done consistently will perhaps one day turn him into the player that he is often touted as. This try was another example of his strength and persistence as he took Welsby’s well timed pass to crash through Myler and Tom Briscoe to go over. Coote’s sixth conversion of the night ended the scoring at 40-6.
It’s all about the playoffs now for Saints. Next week’s trip to Salford has no significant consequences for either club. The eyes of the Super League watching public will be on the battles involving Leeds and Hull KR and Daryl Powell’s attempts to beat his future employers Warrington to ensure Castleford’s place in the top six. With that in mind Woolf may choose to do what he did at Salford late last season and rest most of his star men. And that decision was taken when Saints still retained an interest in the League Leaders Shield. That’s gone for this year - and how rugby league is it that the match which saw it presented to Catalans Dragons wasn’t televised? - but still Woolf has suggested that he wants to go into the playoffs with a bit of winning momentum.
Which means we may still not see Dan Norman.
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