Saints will play in the Super League Grand Final for a record 13th time after a dominant win over an outclassed Leeds Rhinos.
It was the kind of performance which has characterised the season under Woolf this year. Not really dazzling and not especially fluent at times but one which left you in no doubt from fairly early on about which way the result was going to go. Saints scored six tries to the Rhinos’ two, with Mark Percival and Regan Grace scoring two each to add to further efforts by James Roby and Kevin Naiqama. In response Leeds crossed through Ritchie Myler and Luke Briscoe, but it never looked like being enough for Richard Agar’s team.
Wholesale changes were expected from the Saints team which lost its final regular season game at Salford a fortnight ago. That was a dead rubber for Saints and Woolf used it to rest Lachlan Coote, Tommy Makinson, Naiqama, Percival, Alex Walmsley, James Roby, Joe Batchelor and Morgan Knowles. All of these were brought back into action and Woolf was also able to call on Agnatius Paasi who returned from suspension and Sione Mata’utia who had been recovering from an ankle knock.
That Salford game also allowed Woolf to ease Jonny Lomax back into the line-up. With that run out under his belt it was probably little surprise then to see the Steve Prescott Man Of Steel nominee get the nod to start in the halves alongside Lewis Dodd. And yet that still seemed harsh on Jack Welsby whose partnership with Dodd in recent weeks has made Saints infinitely more watchable. Ever the pragmatist, Woolf opted for the greater experience in a game which when all the talking stops was only ever really about the result. It is difficult to argue with that call now given the convincing manner of Saints’ win.
If you were just looking at the match facts without having watched the full 80 minutes you might get the impression that this was a bit of a tear up. Referee Chris Kendall produced four yellow cards - two for each side. Mata’utia and Knowles were sat down for 10 minutes each for Saints while Tom Briscoe and James Donaldson suffered the same fate for Leeds. Yet those decisions said more about the way the game is officiated now - in particular with regards to a strict liability policy on head contact - than they did about the spirit in which the game was played. The only time it threatened to boil over was when Robert Lui hit Grace with a bell ringer to which Percival in particular took exception. Players ran in, handbags were swung, but on that occasion Kendall decided that his cards should stay in his pocket.
The reason there were so many yellow cards is arguably that Kendall gave himself nowhere to go after dishing one out to Mata’utia. He’d had little option but to sin bin Briscoe earlier. The Rhinos man - the only survivor from the Rhinos last Grand Final appearance in 2017 - went very high on Coote and with the kind of force which has been known to result in a card of a colour other than yellow. Few but the ‘game’s gone’ brigade would have had any complaints if that had been the last we saw of Briscoe for the evening.
Mata’utia was more unfortunate. It is hard to see how he could have avoided contact with the head of a falling Luke Briscoe 10 minutes later. Still there is a good argument that this strict liability is needed if we are going to future proof the game. Links between head injuries sustained in sport and degenerative brain conditions later in life mean that player safety is more important than whether a few dinosaur fans think the game has gone soft. There are still incidents where players are not over-protected. Bodene Thompson’s third man in shot into the hip of Makinson was legal as the rules stand but is probably something the game could do without also. Makinson was not making any further progress having already been held up by two Leeds tacklers. Thompson’s shot was unnecessary and can have appealed only to those who come for the violence.
In the immediate aftermath of Mata’utia’s yellow it meant that from being a man down Leeds were suddenly a man up as Briscoe returned shortly after. It was a much needed advantage for the Rhinos at that point as Saints had already built a 14-0 lead. Grace had gone over inside the first five minutes with Dodd, Lomax and Coote all combining to allow the Welshman to just about get the ball down in the corner. Coote could not convert that one but he added further penalties - first when Rhyse Martin was guilty of interference at the play the ball and then after the Saints fullback picked himself up from Tom Briscoe’s high shot. Saints’ second try was scored by Roby, exchanging passes with Walmsley and spinning out of Matt Prior’s tackle like it was 2007. Coote’s third goal of the evening pushed the lead out to 14-0 before the numerical advantage swung back to Leeds with Mata’utia’s departure and Briscoe’s return.
Before Mata’utia could return Leeds did manage to reduce the deficit on the scoreboard. It was Myler who went over, rolling over in the tackle to plant the ball down. It was some effort to stop him grounding the ball by the Saints defence but the try was awarded on review. Martin could not convert so the teams headed for the break with Saints still in control at 14-4.
Shortly before half-time Woolf again showed us the potential versatility of Welsby. He had come on in place of Knowles and slotted into the Cumbrian’s regular loose forward position. It is not a criticism of Knowles to suggest that this may be something which offers Saints another dimension in attack. If Welsby can handle it physically - and all the signs are that he can - then he could be used as a more old school ball playing loose forward of the type that has lamentably gone out of the game in recent years. He has a kicking game too, although on the couple of occasions when his intuition spotted the opportunity to use it he didn’t quite have the execution. Still these were plays that the 13 as an extra prop would not even of conceived of. Clearly, a place has to be found for Knowles just because of the energy and defensive excellence he offers. Shaun Wane’s decision to use him as a prop on his England debut against the Combined Nations in June is thought provoking when you have a guy like Welsby around and you are over-reliant on one outrageously good specialist prop.
Donaldson’s sin-binning was the next big moment in the game just a few minutes into the second half. Like Mata’utia he was perhaps a little unlucky but nevertheless had to go. He lunged at Coote who had made half a yard on the outside of the Leeds man. In his desperation - and right at the moment Coote began to lose his balance - Donaldson hit Coote with what looked a pretty painful forearm. Having marched Mata’utia out of the action earlier Kendall could only make one decision without opening himself up to accusations of inconsistency. Woolf diplomatically remarked on Kendall’s consistency in that area in his post game comments. It is often said that all we want from referees is consistency and that was Woolf’s view also. Yet consistency only works if you get the first call right. Consistently incorrect calls are surely not what we want to see. Two or even three or four wrongs do not make a right.
Donaldson was still off the field when Saints scored the try that - notwithstanding that once in a lifetime implosion against Catalans at Newcastle - convinced many that the champions had done enough. It was Percival who claimed it - taking a deft short ball from Mata’utia (not Lomax, Bill) to crash over. Coote’s goal-kicking radar was slightly off but even after another missed conversion Saints were comfortable at 18-4.
If there was any lingering doubt at that point it disappeared 10 minutes later. Dodd and Lomax were involved but again it was Coote that provided the killer pass as Naiqama marked his last home appearance for the club with a try. It was the Fijian’s 37th try in 76 appearances since joining from Wests Tigers at the start of 2019. Naiqama has his critics but when he looks back on his time at Saints he will be able to reflect that in not one of his three seasons at the club did Saints fail to reach the Grand Final. That’s not a bad record by anyone’s standards. It is also one held by the imperious Coote who - after a shaky start in this one when he dropped a routine territorial boot downfield - recovered to turn in a performance which included two assists and saw him make 166 metres with ball in hand. He couldn’t cap his final home game with a try but he has managed to cross 34 times in 65 appearances while also landing 282 goals. He may not have Ben Barba’s explosive talent but he has been a more than adequate replacement.
Leeds raged briefly against the dying of their playoff light when Luke Briscoe went over in the right hand corner thanks to a good ball from Lui. The former Salford man is another bidding farewell as he retires at the end of the Rhinos’ campaign. Yet it was another score which arrived with Saints short handed after Knowles left the scene following a hardly violent but certainly ill advised late hit on Kruise Leeming.
It was only a mild, brief and slightly rude interruption to Saints’ progress. Coote was the inadvertent creator of Saints’ fifth try when his kick was half charged down and picked up by Grace who turned it back inside for Dodd to put Percival over for his second of the evening. It was his 11th of the season and his 99th for Saints. If he gets one more he will become one of only seven players to score 100 tries and kick 100 goals for the club. That part of the equation is already boxed off as the England centre has landed 230 goals since his debut in 2013. The other six players - and thanks to Dave Dooley at Saints Heritage Society for this zinger of a fact - are Sean Long, Len Killeen, Paul Sculthorpe, Tommy Martyn, Jonny Lomax and Tommy Makinson. Percival’s 99th was added to by Coote’s 281st goal in the red vee and the party could get started at 30-8.
There was time for some icing on the cake, provided by Grace when he effortlessly stepped inside Myler after a searching wide ball from Lomax. Another Coote goal and the scoreboard had a similar look to the one after Leeds’ last visit to Saints three weeks ago. That was explained by Leeds fans and other deluded optimists as a consequence of a lengthy injury list. With Konrad Hurrell, Alex Mellor, Zane Tetevano and Mikolaj Oledzki all back in the line-up there could be none of that this time around. Richard Agar’s side can only reflect that they are not yet quite up to the standard required. Their acquisitions of Aidan Sezer, Blake Austin and James Bentley for next year are an admission of that.
As for Woolf and Saints they move on to one more game. Only the Catalans Dragons stand between Saints and the first so-called ‘threepeat’ since the Rhinos won three in a row between 2007-09. Saints have painful memories of all three of those Leeds victories so there would be a pleasing symmetry if they were the club to match it.
No comments:
Post a Comment