I wasn’t going to write anything this week. We don’t have a game due to that irritating Challenge Cup semi-final defeat to Wigan two weeks ago. The lack of activity is because the final is this weekend at Tottenham. The schedule must be cleared so that Brian Noble can use the phrase ‘in relation’ to a record number of times and union’s Jonathan Davies can tell us how he would take the two regardless of the situation to a maximised audience. And Wigan might just lose, and we wouldn’t want to miss that because we are away at Wakefield Trinity.
So why am I writing? Simply and only because Kyle Amor has joined Warrington Wolves on loan until the end of the season. Amor has been with Saints since 2014, joining from Trinity after starting out with home town club Whitehaven. In between those stops he had a spell at Leeds Rhinos. But we’ve all made mistakes.
He made his Saints debut in a 38-8 win at his new club Warrington (ironic by Alanis Morissette’s definition), scoring a try and playing alongside the likes of Gary Wheeler, Luke Walsh, Willie Manu, Sia Soliola, Josh Jones, Anthony Laffranchi and current assistant coach Paul Wellens.
In all the Cumbrian prop has made 211 appearances for Saints including 100 off the interchange bench. He has scored 21 tries in the red vee (and assorted multi-coloured away strip disgraces) and managed a best of six in the 2016 season.
That was slap bang in the middle of the now notorious period of Keiron Cunningham’s tenure. Surprisingly the great man couldn’t get a tune out of Matty Smith and Greg Richards. While they copped their fair share of the fans’ ire as we slipped to the humiliating depths of fourth, Amor was also unfairly singled out at times. And very probably by this writer but that was in my Redvee days. You probably won’t find that material now. Not unless you work for the Intelligence Services.
The truth of the matter is that Amor has been a great servant to the club with no small amount of success. He played in three Super League Grand Final wins and was an unused substitute in another. He featured in two Wembley Challenge Cup finals, losing to Warrington in 2019 (the ironies keep on coming - it’ll be a black fly in your Chardonnay next) and getting his hands on a winner’s medal when Saints beat Castleford 26-12 last year. Amor was again one of the try scorers.
The move comes when Amor is - to be polite - in the autumn of his career. He will turn 35 this week and is only contracted to Saints until the end of the season. That still makes him a year younger than Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook whose new contract announcement can only be days away. Yet while McCarthy-Scarsbrook has played in all but one of Saints’ 13 Super League assignments so far in 2022, Amor has only been seen four times.
One of those four was as the old stager in the virtual academy team which Kristian Woolf sent to Castleford at the end of April. That was Amor’s only start, though he did manage another try in a romantic Challenge Cup homecoming at Whitehaven. When the big guns are let loose he has fallen behind not only McCarthy-Scarsbrook but also Agnatius Paasi and Dan Norman in the scramble for bench places backing up starting props Alex Walmsley and Matty Lees.
But why are we dealing with Warrington, a local rival and potentially - should they turn their form around in the second half of the season - a playoff rival? It may just be a case of needs must at the moment. Saints are desperate to bring in a halfback with Lewis Dodd out and Jonny Lomax playing with a significant bicep injury. To do that they may need to offload somebody. We have an experienced, quality prop sitting around doing nothing but wait for his next TV commentary, while Wire have a desperate need to bolster their flagging pack. Looked at from that point of view the deal makes quite a bit of sense for all parties.
Besides the move isn’t the first time the two clubs have done business. Remember when Saints borrowed Gareth O’Brien from Wire in 2013 after injuries to Lomax and Lance Hohaia? Paul Sculthorpe, Alan Hunte and…er…Andre Savelio are all relatively recent examples of players who have turned out for both Saints and Wire.
Warrington’s need to strengthen their prop corps is fairly obvious. There is very little behind former England international Mike Cooper. It’s a small sample size but in those four outings for Saints this term Amor averages 94.3 metres per game. That compares favourably with the efforts of Joe Philbin (71.6), Matty Davis (52.14), Robbie Mulhern (79.58). and even Cooper (89.66) and Joe Bullock (86.83).
Amor could make a genuine contribution to Warrington’s currently invisible go-forward, his inexperience could be invaluable and - unlike most of his new team mates - he can show you his medals. Amor might just have become Warrington’s most decorated player of all-time. No, I haven’t fact checked that. I got it off a bloke off Twitter but it’s funny, isn’t it?
Turning attentions to Saints, if we are in Gareth O’Brien territory - that is bringing in a halfback on loan because all of our’s are broken - the names in the frame don’t really inspire. With the cap situation and this being mid-season you should probably not expect Nathan Cleary or Adam Reynolds to rock up outside the Cunningham statue carrying their boots.
Suggestions so far include Wakefield’s Jacob Miller, Halifax’s Joe Keyes or more Saints-Wire relations in the shape of Riley Dean, currently on loan to York. I even saw mention of Leigh’s ex-Wigan and Widnes man Joe Mellor but I was hoping somebody had just spelled Miller wrong. If you want one from left field how about Chanel Tevita-Harris who has just decided - Jamie Lyon style - that he has had enough of the New Zealand Warriors and the NRL at just 23 years of age.
There will be some dark muttering about Amor joining a traditional rival but that’s background noise. Amor has had a great eight years with Saints, has always given 100% even during his caveman hair and beard phase when he must have had difficulty seeing, and deserves an opportunity to play some more first team rugby in Super League before he moves from the pitch to the broadcast booth.
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