Saints maintained their two-point lead at the top of the Super League table with a hard fought if not exactly pretty win over Huddersfield Giants on Monday (April 18).
The champions had fresh injury worries coming into this one, just three days on from a fairly physical derby win over Wigan. Morgan Knowles left the field early in that one with a head injury. Having failed his head injury assessment Knowles was forced to sit it out on Monday and will also miss Friday night’s trip to Castleford (April 22) He’s not alone there though as we’ll see.
Lewis Dodd also left the Good Friday action before the end and was sadly ruled for the rest of the season with an Achilles injury. This presents Saints coach Kristian Woolf with a problem with no natural, experienced halfback to draft in now that Theo Fages plies his trade with the Giants. Ironically, the Frenchman was out injured for Ian Watson’s side. For this particular game Woolf chose to solve the conundrum by moving James Roby to halfback to partner Jonny Lomax and offering Joey Lussick an opportunity to start at hooker.
Curtis Sironen returned to the back row alongside Joe Batchelor but it was Jake Wingfield and not impressive derby debutant James Bell who got the nod to complete the back three. Dan Norman was restored to the interchange bench after being left out of the 17 on Good Friday.
As well as Fages the Giants were without another of their key off season recruits in the shape of veteran prop forward Chris Hill. He was missing from a pack also shorn of the experience of Chris McQueen. The forward group did feature three former Saints in Jack Ashworth, Josh Jones.
Fages’ halfback role went to Jake Cogger who partnered Oliver Russell. Centres Ricky Leutele and Jake Wardle were also out along with 2017s Jermaine McGillvary so Leroy Cudjoe started along with both Innes and Louis Senior.
Saints took an early lead when Jon Bennison went over for his first try of the season and only his second in his four starts for the first team. Konrad Hurrell set up the position, taking an expertly timed pass from Lomax, cutting inside both Senior brothers and tearing off downfield. He was eventually hauled down but when the ball went through the hands of Roby and Lomax it fell to Wingfield to send a looping ball out to Bennison who cut inside the cover to score. Tommy Makinson’s first conversion of the afternoon gave Saints a 6-0 lead.
Alex Walmsley was next to go close for Saints but after the Giants defenders just about clung on to the Saints man referee Tom Grant made it all academic by ruling that Lussick’s pass to Walmsley had gone forward.
The Giants got back into it on 24 minutes. Tui Lolohea’s clever low kick towards the Saints line was brilliantly fielded by Jack Welsby. The fullback managed to avoid being trapped in-goal but then his attempted offload hit the grass where it was seized upon by Innes Senior. Sam Hewitt found an offload to Lolohea and he combined with Cudjoe to send Ash Golding over in the right hand corner. A spectacular touchline conversion from Russell had the Giants level at 6-6.
Agnatius Paasi was beginning to cause havoc off the bench and it was from one of his typically impactful bursts that Saints went close again. That set culminated in Lussick being adjudged to have been held up over the line. A slightly disconcerted Giants defence was starting to display one or two lapses in discipline. Firstly they gave up a set restart on the last tackle for interference as Bell tried to play the ball, and then were similarly guilty in trying to stop Paasi’s progress. On the latter occasion the ball came free and so Saints were awarded the penalty rather than the set restart. It was virtually bang in front so Makinson added an easy two points to put Saints 8-6 up with eight minutes to go until the break.
Along with Roby, Bell was perhaps fortunate to get away with holding down Lolohea soon after. They were not so lucky moments later when Cogger sent a relieving punt downfield and was duly clobbered late by discipline vacuum Sironen. The former Manly Sea Eagles man has since incurred a two-match ban for his latest indiscretion. It is the third time that Sironen has been banned in the opening nine rounds of the season. He needs to address the problem before this negative far outweighs the positives in his game. Sironen had a fine game otherwise, putting in a 112-metre shift, making 34 tackles and an offload.
While Sironen’s impending absence gives Woolf a headache of more immediate concern were the in-game consequences of the offence. Late hits on kickers result in penalties awarded at the spot where the kick lands, which afforded Russell an easy opportunity to level the scores at 8-8 with four minutes until the break. The half ended in Lolohea’s ignominious drop goal attempt which barely left the ground. It was hardly the stuff of Joe Lydon in the 1989 Challenge Cup semi-final for Wigan against Warrington. Ask your dad.
Saints didn’t start the second half much better when Lussick’s attempted touch finder went out on the full. The hooker was having an interesting afternoon on what was a rare start with Roby required elsewhere. Yet if he had his moments in attack he was tireless in defence, finishing the game with 45 tackles. That tally was more than anyone else on either side. If Woolf continues with Roby at halfback in the longer term - ignoring the shambolic squad selection for Castleford - Lussick will get more opportunities to start, more minutes and we will surely see the best of him.
Both teams were huffing and puffing at this point. Lolohea’s inventive dribble was snuffed out expertly by Lomax. Lolohea responded by catching the Saints stand-off high. That set up a position to attack and McCarthy-Scarsbrook went close to scoring. It wasn’t quite coming together though as Lomax’s pass was intercepted by Cudjoe who fed Golding only to see the winger bundled into touch by that miserly Saints defence.
Six minutes into the second half Saints made a breakthrough. Lussick was involved, linking up well with Roby before Welsby’s expert catch and pass allowed Percival to wriggle out of a couple of tackles to score. Makinson was on target again with the conversion and Saints led 14-8. Makinson went close to scoring what would have been a 12th try of the season when he hauled in Lomax’s crossfield kick only to have the ball stolen one-on-one by Louis Senior.
As Saints looked to press home their advantage they were hit with a classic counter. Welsby’s inside ball close to the Giants line was knocked down by Cudjoe and fell kindly for Lolohea to race away, going 95 metres to score. The fullback never looked likely to be caught but the nearest to doing so was Paasi who showed incredible effort to chase back and put in a despairing attempted ankle tap. Russell could not repeat his earlier touchline conversion so Saints clung on to a slim advantage at 14-12.
When Paasi was not putting in ultimately fruitless defensive efforts he was one of Saints most eye-catching performers on the day. He reeled off 105 metres off the bench, visibly puncturing the Giants defensive line regularly. The one negative in Paasi’s game is his apparent inability to judge the right moment for an offload. As a Saints fan of a certain vintage offloading forwards is exactly the sort of thing I want to see. But do it selectively. It is counter-productive to gain 10 metres with an explosive carry and then lob the ball back to nobody in particular. If Paasi tightens up this area of his game he’ll be hard to stop.
After a pinpoint Lomax kick hit a Giants upright Saints looked to be applying more pressure. However they quickly needed the intervention of Makinson who produced an arguably try-saving tackle on Louis Senior. The value of that was emphasised on the hour when Joe Batchelor went over for Saints’ next score. Again the new halfback pairing did the damage, Roby feeding Lomax who produced a beautifully timed pass to Batchelor who had run such a great line that the Giants defenders barely touched him before it was far too late. It was Batchelor’s fourth try of the season and his third in as many games. With Mata’utia having been absent since the win over Warrington on March 11 and Sironen all too often unavailable Batchelor has been an especially key figure in Saints’ good start to 2022. Makinson’s third conversion and fourth goal of the afternoon gave Saints a two-score lead for the first time in the game.
The Giants tried to find a response. Welsby and Bennison just about dealt with a Cogger kick to the in-goal before Ashworth almost found his way through. Bennison had to concede a second dropout in short order but ultimately the Giants scuppered themselves when they were penalised for an obstruction while in possession deep inside Saints territory.
Then came the final, decisive blow. Lolohea was having a mixed afternoon and it was the former Salford man who was unable to handle Welsby’s testing low kick. From that position Wingfield picked the ball up from the back of the scrum and found Lomax who expertly glided over, holding off two defenders in the process to score. The England man is another in hot try-scoring form, grabbing his third in four games and his fourth in the last seven. Makinson missed for the only time all day with the attempted conversion but at 24-12 but with only six minutes remaining the points were now secure. The Giants’ last chance evaporated when Ashworth’s attempted catch and pass to Golding went forward after good work by the winger as well as Cudjoe and Cogger.
Given what we know now about the Saints squad for the trip to Castleford this could prove a crucial win. Many fans will shrug at the idea that resting so many players could cost us the League Leaders Shield but from my point of view it drives me quite insane that Saints have never finished top of the pile under Woolf. They have been by far the best side in Super League now for over three seasons and it would be nice to see them put the exclamation mark on that superiority. I understand why Woolf has gone down the route that he has. He will view his job description as winning the Grand Final and/or the Challenge Cup and will go about that task the best way he sees fit. Few will complain if resting players now leads to a fourth successive Old Trafford triumph. But the League Leaders Shield must mean more.
Perhaps the answer is to finally do away with double header weekends. Hull KR winger Ryan Hall has been very vocal this week on what he thinks of them. Woolf’s selection for Castleford looks like a message to the authorities that he doesn’t much care for them either. Yet if coaches and players don’t like them perhaps they could lobby their club’s hierarchies to stop insisting on them for financial reasons. I can take them or leave them.
Frankly, judging by this encounter and the two televised games on Easter Monday the product is suffering as a result.
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