It was nervy for a short while - as nervy as a dead rubber can be - but Saints celebrated winning their 10th League Leaders Shield with a 36-16 victory over relegated Toulouse.
The French side’s return to the Championship had been confirmed by their home loss to Catalans Dragons nine days previously. Meanwhile Saints came into this one already assured of top spot after Wigan’s defeat at Hull KR rendered the champions’ own home loss to Wakefield on August 29 virtually meaningless. All it did mean is that Saints needed victory here to avoid a run of three straight Super League defeats for what would have been the first time since September 2017.
The build-up was inevitably dominated by the news - three days prior to the game - that head coach Kristian Woolf will leave the club at the end of the season. How to focus on a dead rubber when contemplating how to replace a man who has delivered back-to-back titles, a Challenge Cup and now a League Leaders Shield? Yet Woolf has unfinished business before he goes to the NRL’s newest franchise - Redcliffe Dolphins - as an assistant to Wayne Bennett with the promise of taking over when the old GOAT calls it quits. The visit of Sylvain Houles’ side would not unduly influence Woolf’s quest for a third straight Grand Final win. But it could serve as a useful first step on the road from here on in.
With that in mind the big guns came back. Konrad Hurrell, Jonny Lomax, Jack Welsby, Matty Lees, Curtis Sironen, Joe Batchelor and Morgan Knowles all missed the loss to Wakefield but were drafted back in here. James Roby made the 17 but was only available from the bench. Dan Norman, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and James Bell kept him company. All of that trio had started against Trinity.
Ben Lane - who was one of four debutants against Willie Poching’s side - kept his place on the wing with Josh Simm another on the injured list. Lane’s inclusion as part of a strong Saints side with a realistic expectation of winning is something I can get behind. Yes this was a Saints team still missing Will Hopoate, Mark Percival, Lewis Dodd, Alex Walmsley and Sione Mata’utia as well as the soon to be departed Regan Grace. But I feel sure Lane would have benefitted more from fitting in alongside the returning star names than he had alongside a clutch of his fellow academy graduates last week.
In the end it was the injection of the skipper midway through the second half which turned the game decisively in Saints favour. The contest had started at the kind of sedate pace that you might expect from an encounter with so little riding on it. Whatever the result Saints would be picking up the League Leaders Shield at the end while Toulouse thoughts would be turning to Whitehaven and Sheffield Eagles away for 2023. And no doubt having to foot the travel bill for the privilege of playing the Championship’s great and good at home too. At times during that first 40 minutes the atmosphere was more Wetherspoons indecipherable chatter than raucous, frenzied excitement.
The champions made the worst possible start. Ben Davies got way too much leg behind his opening kick-off and watched it sail over the dead ball line for a Toulouse penalty on halfway. Soon after that the league’s bottom club - the first team to beat Saints in Super League this season back in March - were in front. Ex-Wigan man Chris Hankinson was playing at stand-off due largely to the absence of the suspended Corey Norman. Hankinson showed his versatility when his testing bomb landed just over the Saints try line and into the arms of Ilias Bergal. The winger could hardly believe his luck when all he had to do was keep possession and fall to the ground to score. Hankinson could not tag on the extra two but Houles’ side led 4-0.
Saints hit back through Batchelor. The ex-York City Knight was back in his favoured second row position after playing in the centres at Wigan and being rested for Wakefield. He found himself in the right place when Lomax put Lees through a gap in the visitors’ defensive line. On a day of firsts the front rower had the awareness to find Batchelor on his shoulder for Saints’ first try of the afternoon and his first assist of the season. It was Batchelor’s eighth try in Super League and his 10th in all competitions in 2022. Makinson landed his first conversion to put Saints up 6-4.
There followed a period of scrappiness worthy of any Hull v Warrington basement scrap. First Knowles lost the handle on the ball in contact near the halfway line before Hankinson’s pass - intended for Bergal - found only touch on Toulouse’s next raid. Davies, Lees and Lane all then came up with mistakes in possession before Sironen provided a spark. Lomax and Welsby combined with Saints’ young number one - this week nominated for the Young Player Of The Year Award that he won last year - popping up a good looking pass for Sironen to burst on to before rounding the fullback to score. The ex-Manly Sea Eagle showed all of his quality to score his fourth try of the season. Despite finding it hard to avoid suspension throughout his debut year as a Saint Sironen has managed 22 appearances for his new club and looks like being one of the keys to Saints’ success in the knockout games to come. A strong runner with a liking for getting the ball out of the tackle. Makinson was on target again as Saints pushed out to an 8-point lead at 12-4.
Toulouse then spurned a chance to get back into it. Come the off-season they may reflect that a lack of clinical finishing throughout the year has cost them their place in the top flight. This time the chance came when Dan Norman coughed up possession on his own 20. Houles’ men knocked on the door but didn’t get the answer they wanted when Harrison Hansen couldn’t hang on to it near the try line.
When the visitors’ next score did arrive it was from a Saints mistake. Welsby was a bit too laid back about getting his kick away on the last play just inside the Saints 40, which allowed Nathan Peats to get a block on it. The ball bounced hard off the former Leigh man and rolled to within five metres of the Saints line before he caught up with it for an easy pick-up and score. Hankinson added an equally easy two and it was close again, Saints leading by just a couple of points at 12-10 at the break.
Things got worse for the title holders before they got better. Next to put his name on the scoresheet was another former Centurion, ex-Catalans Dragons hooker Eloi Pelissier. He burrowed over from dummy half, no doubt to the extreme displeasure of the defensively astute Woolf. Toulouse had been a little lucky in the build up too, when an Olly Ashall-Bott pass was batted up in the air by Makinson and grabbed at by Guy Armitage before falling kindly into the arms of Hurrell. However, referee Michael Small ruled that it had gone forward off Makinson first giving Toulouse the position they needed to set up Pelissier’s score. It was right in front of the sticks so Hankinson had little trouble in firing Toulouse into a surprise lead at 16-12.
And that’s when Roby entered the fray. Until then I hadn’t ruled out the notion that the skipper had been named on the bench just to make sure he was in full kit for the trophy lift. You could never see Roby doing a John Terry if he had not been involved in the 17 at all. He’s just not a John Terry sort of guy. He doesn’t lead by ego. Had Saints handled their opponents a little better then lifting the trophy might well have been his only job for the day. As it was he was needed to bring a little more intensity to proceedings, to speed up distribution from dummy half and to make everyone else that little bit better in the way that the true greats often can.
I mentioned earlier that it was a day of firsts for Lees with that maiden assist for Batchelor. When his first try arrived it was one of the real highlights of the afternoon. Not just because it rewarded him for his industry throughout the year - especially in defence - but because he was able to finish a genuinely spectacular move.
Hurrell did most of the damage, breaking from just inside his own half before finding Lomax. He exchanged passes with Roby before finding Lees on his left hand side. All the prop really had to do was fall over the line. His first of the season was only his third for the club in 108 appearances since his 2017 debut. His last one had been in a 38-12 home win over Warrington in April 2019. Toulouse’s Dominique Peyroux and Joseph Paulo had been among his team-mates that day. The try also got Lees off the nude run, if that is still a thing in modern rugby league culture. I must say I sincerely hope not. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to see some hairy arsed prop screeching by me on Prescot Road on the way home from a few jars at the Bird I’th Hand.
Back to the plot, where Makinson’s third successful conversion of the game had put Saints back in front at 18-16. They would be there to stay. It helped also that they got a fairly generous call from the officials to go further in front. Toulouse has suffered the blow of losing prop Daniel Alvaro to an HIA just after being frustrated when Roby - who else? - chased back to upend Bergal who was threatening to go clear on the south touchline.
That intervention looked decisive when Hurrell - receiving it on the right edge from Lomax - kicked ahead and was deemed to have got there just in time to touch down before the ball crossed the dead ball line. It didn’t look quite right live, still looked iffy at full speed on the television and would almost certainly have been ruled out after forensic examination from the VR in a televised game. But right there, right then it stood and pretty much knocked the stuffing out of the visitors. When Makinson landed the goal from the right hand touchline a comeback looked even less likely at 24-16.
Hurrell’s first regular season as a Saint has yielded 10 tries in 25 appearances in all competitions. Nine of those have come in Super League. His best return in three years at Leeds is the 14 he managed in 2019 but he only added a further 10 in the last two seasons combined. He’s enjoying something of a new lease of life at the champions and will be around again next year despite the fact that the coach will not.
Before suffering a hamstring injury in Perpignan in July which kept him out for four weeks Makinson was in with a shout of finishing as the league’s leading try scorer. That absence slowed his scoring rate down somewhat but he has added another five tries since returning for the win over Castleford in early August. He was next to score here, and ends the regular season with 22. Four behind Salford’s Ken Sio and nine shy of Bevan French’s league-leading effort of 31.
Makinson’s latest four-pointer came about as a result of that familiar link up between Welsby and Lomax and was finished off with a trademark leap to the corner. Another touchline conversion took Saints well clear at 30-16, and the winger’s personal points tally for the day up to 14. He has 230 for the regular season at an average of almost 11 points per game across his 21 Super League appearances. Not bad considering he isn’t viewed as the team’s first choice goal-kicker.
Saints had one last flourish before the end. Welsby already had two try assists - taking his season’s tally to 27 behind only Tui Lolohea and Jake Connor - before he grabbed his 12th try of the campaign. Yet many of the plaudits for this one have to go to Bennison. Fielding Hankinson’s desperate chip and chase 10 metres inside his own half the Saints youngster tore through some admittedly bedraggled Toulouse defenders, beating five or six before finally being grabbed around 15 metres out. Bennison still had the presence of mind to offload one-handed to the supporting Welsby who just evaded the last desperate lunge of the defence to give himself an easy task in touching down.
It would have been another easy two for Makinson had he not handed the responsibility to Lane from in front. A chance for the young winger to get his name on the list of Saints points scorers no matter what happens in his career going forward. He didn’t waste it, pushing Saints out to a 20-point win at 36-16. A margin which never looked likely until Roby entered proceedings in the wake of Pelissier giving Toulouse the lead.
Given his limited minutes you won’t see Roby’s name appear in the significant stats, though he was arguably Saints’ most influential player in his short stint. Sironen was Saints’ best go-forward man statistically with 152 metres, followed by Hurrell with 136. Bennison managed 127 - around 35 of which were on that delirious run through the opposition to set up the final try for Welsby - Makinson another 118 and both Batchelor and Agnatius Paasi 101.
For the French outfit Bergal racked up 142 in a spirited display while all-action footballer’s partner Ashall-Bott made 116.
As well as getting his first try and assist of the season Lees topped the tackle count with 40. Batchelor is Saints’ top tackler on the season with 736 and he contributed heavily to that here with 37. Lussick did Roby’s regular shift with 31. You would think the visitors would be somewhat busier in defence but only Peyroux (36) and Alvaro (33) topped 30. Houles will be fairly horrified at a missed tackle count of 42 while Saints’ 22 was a marked improvement on the 52 that got away against Wakefield.
Saints made more errors at 13 to 8 but again that is a consequence of having more ball. Despite less possession the bottom club had the edge on offloads at 14-12. Discipline was an issue for them as they conceded eight penalties to just three from Saints.
Most people stuck around for the post game pleasantries. Roby’s trophy lift was his seventh since taking over the captaincy from simulation enthusiast Jon Wilkin in 2018. It was also a great pleasure to see the injured stars and the season’s young debutants take their part in the celebrations too. Let’s hope we see some of them again at Old Trafford and who knows - hopefully one or two of them might even make it on to the field.
For now Woolf and his troops can sit back and watch as the teams who finished between third and sixth fight it out to face one of Saints or Wigan in the last four. And then a maximum of two games left in Woolf’s reign. But a chance to pull off a unique piece of history with a third Grand Final win in his three seasons, and a fourth in succession for the club.
We’re not quite at full tilt but it could still happen.
Saints: Bennison, Makinson, Hurrell, Davies, Lane, Welsby, Lomax, Paasi, Lussick, Lees, Sironen, Batchelor, Knowles. Interchanges: Bell, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Norman, Roby.
Toulouse Olympique: Ashall-Bott, Bergal, Jussaume, Armitage, Laguerre, Hankinson, Paulo, Belmas, Peats, Alvaro, Peyroux, Stefani, Marion. Interchanges: Pelissier, Bretherton, Hansen, Sangare.
Referee: Michael Small
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