Having been narrowly thwarted by the Catalans Dragons in Perpignan last week Saints face another of Super League’s most onerous tasks when they meet Wigan Warriors in the less sunny climes of Newcastle on Saturday (July 9, kick-off 4.45pm).
If it doesn’t seem like a year since Super League last flogged the tiring concept of the Magic Weekend that’s because it isn’t. In another ingenious bout of deckchair shifting on the Titanic the event has been moved from last year’s early September date to this midsummer slot. No doubt the hope is to raise attendance and TV viewing figures. Yet in all likelihood wherever it is held it has at best peaked and at worst had its day. Its distortion of the fixture list is less of an issue in this age of loop fixtures but its place on the calendar surely impacts on the Challenge Cup final and Super League Grand Final attendances. Especially in the midst of one of the worst cost of living crises in living memory. Not everything has to be an event anyway. This isn’t darts. Something has to go. And it’s probably this.
For now though we are stuck with it and in a show of consistent lack of imagination derbies are back on the agenda. As luck would have it though this derby arrives at a time when its two protagonists are occupying the top two spots in the Super League table. Saints’ loss to the Dragons last week was only their third in 17 Super League outings and their first in the last seven, while Wigan have been beaten only four times in the league this term. Saints lost away at both French sides Catalans and Toulouse and also at Castleford with an under-strength team. Wigan lost at Saints on Good Friday, have gone down to both of the other two sides currently in the top four in Catalans and Huddersfield Giants and also managed to lose to Hull FC in May before the black and whites’ annual implosion. Win this one though, and Matty Peet’s side will again be level on points with the champions at the top of the table, trailing only on points difference.
There are problems within the Saints ranks which make that eventuality more likely than perhaps it might have been earlier in the season. Already without Lewis Dodd and Mark Percival, the latest blow to Kristian Woolf’s side is the loss of Tommy Makinson to a hamstring injury. Makinson has been in great form this year, topping the Super League try-scoring charts while still finding time to do a lot of the heavy lifting when Saints need to bring the ball out from their own end of the field. Makinson is Saints’ top metre maker in Super League in 2022 with 2242. Only Catalans’ Tom Davies and Leeds Rhinos’ Ash Handley sit above him on that list. If you were to choose a player to miss out on a game of this magnitude you would get through a lot of names before you’d even consider Makinson. This one is likely to hurt.
So how do you replace him? Well, sending Josh Simm on loan to Hull FC feels like a statement move from Woolf. The statement being that whatever crisis befalls our back line Simm is not going to play for the first team again. Simm would have been a candidate to fill in for Makinson having made six appearances on the wing already this term. Yet he appears not to have been forgiven for a rather fraught display against Wigan in the Challenge Cup semi final in early May. Will Hopoate is back - for this week at least after which I’m sure there are no promises - and so either he or Jon Bennison will probably take Makinson’s regular right wing slot. The other should slot in at fullback to allow Jack Welsby to continue to dictate play from the halves alongside Jonny Lomax.
Percival’s left centre berth has been filled by Sione Mata’utia when the former Kangaroo has been fit and available. He might be required there again but Konrad Hurrell makes a welcome return after illness so there is the opportunity to use the more natural centre pairing of the Tongan ex-Leeds Rhino and Ben Davies. The final three-quarter slot on the left wing still belongs to Regan Grace though not for much longer. It was announced this week that he will switch codes at the end of the season to join French rugby union outfit Racing 92. That’s a can of problems we can kick down the road for now so long as Grace’s focus remains on rugby league and his current employers for the rest of the year. If he slips into injury avoidance mode we might find ourselves in a bit of a spot.
One area where Saints are indisputably stronger than the increasingly noisy neighbours is in the pack. Matty Lees had a one match ban overturned on appeal this week and is free to play. Presumably the appeals panel had no more luck trying to decipher what Lees had allegedly done wrong than I did as I trawled through the footage for clues. And in case you’re new to it this column is not averse to hammering Saints players for poor discipline. I genuinely found nothing. I did see Alex Walmsley throw an arm over the shoulder and end up around the neck of a Wigan player but that was not deemed ban-worthy so he and Lees should be the starting props with hooker James Roby set for game number 512 in Saints colours.
If Mata’utia is needed in the backs then Curtis Sironen and Joe Batchelor should get the starting second row berths with Morgan Knowles at 13. Should Mata’utia move back into the pack then Sironen looks the more likely to drop to the bench. Batchelor will hope to stay in the pack for the full 80 this week having been pressed into action at right centre after Makinson’s exit in France forced Woolf into a reshuffle. James Bell will hope to stake a claim also. Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook returns from a facial injury and looks a cert to hold down a bench spot along with prop Agnatius Paasi and back up hooker Joey Lussick. One of Bell or Sironen may well occupy the fourth and final place on the interchange bench but both Jake Wingfield and Dan Norman have realistic claims too. Dan Hill makes up the initial 21-man selection.
Wigan coach Matty Peet has been receiving lavish praise in his first year at the Warriors helm and not just for putting on an impressive spread at the buffet. Even his tearful rant about Academy star Matty Nicholson’s move to Warrington garnered sympathy from his champions in the press. He arrives here with an almost fully fit squad to choose from. Iain Thorniley’s absence is hardly a seismic blow to Peet’s plans so perhaps the most significant no show will be 127 year-old veteran halfback Tommy Leuluai who has a calf problem. That loss is helped slightly by the return of former Manly man Cade Cust.
Abbas Miski has scored six tries in his last two games and will look to continue that good run with the equally in form Liam Marshall on the opposite wing. However, Bevan French - out of contract just when Saints are looking for a winger for next year 👀 - and who has been causing opposition defences all kinds of damage at fullback may revert to the wing if Cust returns. That will allow Jai Field to revert to fullback and likely cost Miski his place. Wherever the duo of French and Field slot in to the back five their searing pace makes them a real danger especially with Saints missing a couple of key backs.
Kai Pearce-Paul got the nod at centre over Jake Bibby during last week’s 46-22 drubbing of Wakefield Trinity but that may just have been to hold the former Salford man back for this one. If you’re looking for consolation about Saints’ problems in the back line then consider that Peet may still have to run with head-hunting’s Willie Isa at centre too. If Cust slots back into the halves he is likely to be partnered by the ever improving Harry Smith.
There’s really not that much to fear in the front row of Wigan’s pack. It is still made up of the same old reprobates who have been disgracing their shirts for some time now. Alongside the returning psychotic attack dog Morgan Smithies there’s chief crusher Sam Powell at hooker, reckless Ollie Partington and ex-Leeds plodder Brad Singleton at prop with perhaps stints also for Patrick Mago, Ethan Harvard and Liam Byrne. The real quality is in the second row where John Bateman and Liam Farrell remain international class. Their problems will start if one of those two goes down and they have to go nuclear and deploy Isa.
This is the third meeting between these two in 2022. The possibility of another meeting in the playoffs or at Old Trafford hammers home the old adage about familiarity breeding contempt. Back in the glory days of Dodd and a full strength squad Saints breezed past Wigan 22-4 at home on Good Friday. Yet revenge was sweet for the Cannonball Kids in May’s Challenge Cup semi final at Elland Road when Peet’s Cheats raced into a 14-0 lead, got reeled in to trail 18-14 before winning it when Marshall intercepted an errant Lomax pass and took it the full length of the field. That Wigan went on to win the final against Huddersfield turned up the volume of Wigan’s ‘we’re back’ narrative while also adding an extra layer of ouchiness for those among us who wouldn’t want to see Wigan win a free diet coke on a McDonald’s Monopoly promotion.
Going back further the overall record in the Super League era between these two is dead even at 49 wins apiece if you include cup games. There have been four draws. The teams have met five times at Magic Weekend but not since 2012 when a violent, card-filled encounter ended with a thumping 42-16 Wigan win. Overall in those five meetings both sides have won twice with the 2011 clash ending in a 16-16 draw. Sensibly there was no golden point in those days. They were simpler times when a draw was nothing to be ashamed of and a Prime Minister was expected to leave office immediately if he or she resigned. Saints’ best result during those encounters was a 57-16 rout of the Warriors at Cardiff in 2008.
In all Magic Weekend fixtures Saints have seven wins, six losses and that one draw. That record should be slightly better but for a traumatic experience last year when a 30-12 lead over the Dragons after 75 minutes turned into a 31-30 golden point extra time defeat. No wonder I want this nonsense event scrapped. No wonder I like draws. Wigan have fared slightly better, winning in eight of their 14 appearances, losing four times and drawing twice. The second of those draws was a 24-24 affair with Warrington in 2017. Oh what both teams wouldn’t give to be playing Warrington this week. And every week.
Just because it pleases me to mention it and as a portent for what might happen later in the year the teams have also met in four Super League Grand Finals with Saints winning three to Wigan’s one. Which if nothing else is a stat which will have BBC researchers reaching for the smelling salts.
As to what will happen this time there is uncertainty among many fans, including this one. That cup semi final defeat had a profound effect on the belief of Peet’s side and in turn on the confidence levels of their Norweb-clad Tina Turner devotee fan base. Since that painful defeat Saints backs have been falling away like Tory ministers while Wigan’s form has continued to improve. Peet can be mocked for his journo-schmoozing and his over emotional outburst over the sum total of bugger all, but not for the way he has transformed his team. Particularly in attack since the nadir of the Adrian Lam days. Proof indeed that you can make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Just add pace.
Worryingly, Wigan might just do it this time. But I’m not tipping them to do so. You can’t, can you? Besides, having lost last week Saints should have all the motivation they need to wrest back control of the race for top spot. There is still enough quality in the Saints line-up if they are anywhere near their best so I’m sticking with Woolf’s men to win by four.
Squads;
Wigan Warriors;
1. Bevan French 2. Jake Bibby 5. Liam Marshall 6. Cade Cust 8. Brad Singleton 9. Sam Powell 10. Patrick Mago 11. Willie Isa 12. Liam Farrell 13. John Bateman 14. Morgan Smithies 15. Kaide Ellis 16. Harry Smith 17. Oliver Partington 19. Ethan Havard 20. Liam Byrne 21. Kai Pearce-Paul 22. Joe Shorrocks 23. Jai Field 24. Abbas Miski 28. Brad O’Neill
Saints:
1. Jack Welsby, 3. Will Hopoate, 5. Regan Grace, 6. Jonny Lomax, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. James Roby, 10. Matty Lees, 11. Sione Mata’utia, 12. Joe Batchelor, 13, Morgan Knowles, 14. Joey Lussick, 15. LMS, 16. Curtis Sironen, 17. Agnatius Paasi, 19. Jake Wingfield, 20. James Bell, 22. Ben Davies, 23. Konrad Hurrell, 24. Dan Norman, 27. Jon Bennison, 29. Dan Hill.
Referee: Liam Moore
Video Referee: Chris Kendall
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