Anyone feeling nervous?
I am. In the words of that great philosopher Marshall Mathers my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy. There’s vomit on my sweater already, mum’s spaghetti.
The cause of this sudden neurosis is of course the Super League semi-final between our threepeating, injury-ravaged Saints and the suddenly brilliant Salford Red Devils. The two meet this Saturday afternoon (September 17, kick-off 1.00pm) for a place in the Old Trafford Grand Final a week later.
There was a time when meeting Salford in a major semi-final would be cause for much joviality. Victory would be a formality and the chat would mostly be about how you were getting to the final and where you were going for a pint before kick-off. Not so much this year. After a late run which saw them win eight out of their final nine Super League regular season games Paul Rowley’s team are suddenly a very different proposition. Awkwardly, one of those wins was a 44-12 flogging of Kristian Woolf’s side on July 31. And these are wins that have been achieved in a style that can be classed as flambouyant amid the current dominance of conservative, go-through-the-processes rugby league.
Saints had key players missing that day in July but the thing is, they will again this weekend. The talk of the town in the week leading up to today’s squad announcement (September 15) has been all about who won’t be among Woolf’s 21-man party rather than who will.
Alex Walmsley was ruled out a couple of days ago with a foot injury which has prevented him from playing since the 30-10 defeat at Wigan on August 26. That was a pretty savage setback. Talk among the fans of how Agnatius Paasi or even Matty Lees have out-performed Walmsley this year is evidence of how the ex-Batley man is a victim of his own success. Though he may not be at the level he has been over the last two seasons Walmsley is still our best front rower by some distance.
Yet I felt even greater concern about the fitness or otherwise of Will Hopoate. The rarely seen fullback has only played 11 times in his debut season with Saints. When he has played he has been crucial. He slots in at fullback which allows Jack Welsby to move into the halves to fill the Lewis Dodd-sized hole alongside Jonny Lomax that has been there ever since Dodd suffered a season ending Achilles injury in the home win over Wigan on Good Friday. That was April 15.
Cutting to the chase, Hopoate has not made it. While this is about as surprising as the fact that my knees are weak it is also a serious problem. What does Woolf do? Does he leave Welsby in the fullback role that he was supposed to occupy after Lachlan Coote left for Hull KR and before Dodd suffered his injury? If he does then who plays in the halves with Lomax? Woolf has tried Ben Davies on five previous occasions to varying degrees of lead balloonery.
The coach has also tried moving James Roby there from the hooking role. The captain may still be one of the best players in Super League or even the world of rugby league but the uncomfortable truth is that he ain’t no halfback. He hasn’t really been a halfback since around 2005.
All of which means it will probably fall on Welsby to play there again. Fullback duties could be handed on to Jon Bennison as he continues his impressive breakout year. The 19 year-old has made 16 appearances in 2022, far more than perhaps even he would have expected at the start of the year. Back then the likes of Walmsley and Dodd were available and nobody could foresee the unreliability of Hopoate or the absolute ruin of a season that was about to be endured by Regan Grace.
Yet even the deployment of Bennison as the last line of defence won’t solve all of our issues. Who is going to play on the left wing with Grace now concentrating on getting fit enough to embark on his rugby union career in France? The most commonly suggested solution appears to be to switch the returning Mark Percival out wider to the wing from his favoured left centre position. Wherever you play Percival it should be remembered that he has not featured in the first team since the 12-10 win at Super League’s touring comedy act Warrington Wolves in the middle of May.
Bringing the England international centre straight into a semi-final represents a sizeable risk but with the lack of pace in the backs that has been so sorely evident in recent weeks I don’t really see what alternative Woolf has. If Percival is fit he has to play - even if it is just to plant the seed of the threat of pace in Salford minds. That said, maybe his body has more chance of holding up on the wing than it would in the centres. Yet even that depends on how often he is used as a battering ram to get Saints out of their own end. That is, after all, one of the core principles of Woolfball. It is still a surprise to me that Tommy Makinson’s face doesn’t look more like Paul Sculthorpe’s.
Should Percival be used as a winger – a role he actually occupied in his last two appearances before getting injured – then the smart money is on another returnee – Sione Mata’utia – to fill the centre berth ahead of Davies. Mata’utia is a second row forward, a fact which is abundantly clear whenever he fills in at centre. Yet don’t expect that to be a barrier to his selection in the position. Woolf just does not have a winger available in this 21 other than Makinson. And as the more shrewd among you will have spotted, you need two in your starting 13.
Josh Simm is not in the squad, nor is Ben Lane who played in the last two regular season games – a defeat to Wakefield alongside several of his fellow academy class – and a win over Toulouse in which the youngster was accompanied by a lot more experience and quality. Bennison can play on the wing but as we have already established, he will probably have to play fullback. It is difficult, isn’t it? Imagine how Woolf feels ahead of his final home game as Saints boss. Picking a right edge combination is not so troublesome with Makinson joined by his regular partner on that side Konrad Hurrell.
Despite the loss of Walmsley things look a little more straightforward in the pack. Paasi should step up from his regular bench spot to start alongside Lees, with Roby at hooker. If Mata’utia moves to the centres then expect Curtis Sironen and Joe Batchelor to form the second row pairing with Morgan Knowles at loose forward.
Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook has another one-year deal in his back pocket. It is possibly the most undeserved one-year stretch since Deirdrie Rachid was sent to prison in 1998. Yet the former London Bronco remains welded to the bench along with ex-Salford Red Devils Grand Finalist Joey Lussick. There are a clutch of candidates to join them. Standing out among them James Bell has featured in the last eight games while Jake Wingfield has been involved in the last 12.
That surely makes them more likely to get the nod from Woolf than either Taylor Pemberton or Sam Royle. Davies’ involvement would appear to rest on whether Woolf would prefer to use him – a natural centre – ahead of Mata’utia in the three-quarters and switch the former Newcastle Knight back into the forwards.
Our visitors arrive in palm-sweating, knee-weakening, vom-inducing form. Following that run of eight wins out of nine during the regular season run-in Paul Rowley’s side dismissed Huddersfield Giants 28-0 in their own back yard in their playoff opener last week. Former Red Devils coach Ian Watson and his troops had no answers to the flair on offer from the likes of Brodie Croft, Tim Lafai, Deon Cross and Kallum Watkins. With Marc Sneyd pulling the strings in the kicking game and Andy Ackers an eye-catching presence at hooker Rowley’s men had all the tools they need to trouble any Super League side.
And then Croft got injured.
The former Melbourne Storm and Brisbane Broncos man left the action at the John Smith’s Stadium just before half-time having briefly lost consciousness. Concussion protocols now dictate that a player who has been knocked out or failed an HIA must sit out of action for a period of 11 days. So this game comes around just too quickly for Croft whose Steve Prescott Man Of Steel nominee form has been a huge driver in Salford’s own upturn in fortunes during the second half of the season. He is a breathtakingly good player who would walk into any Super League side.
Yet he is not the only reason for Salford’s rapid rise into major contention. Structurally I don’t expect too much to change. Chris Atkin is likely to come in for Croft and although he isn’t on the level of his inspirational team-mate he is a more than capable player. When Sneyd was out during Salford’s last visit to Saints in April Atkin formed a formidable partnership with Croft. The former Hull KR man could have won it at the end but was denied his moment of glory by a scarcely believable but quite heroic last ditch tackle by Knowles on the North Stand touchline. You get the feeling Saints will need that kind of commitment to get through this one.
Rowley will be without Greg Burke and James Greenwood, while there is no Danny Addy either. Ex-Wigan trio Jack Wells, Dan Sarginson and Morgan Escare all miss out too as well as former Saint Matty Costello. But in Ryan Brierley, Sio, Cross, Lafai, Burgess, Atkin and Sneyd there is still plenty for Saints to think about in the back division.
Up front Ackers is a leader by example with no small amount of skill. His try against the Giants in which he dummied the last defender out of West Yorkshire was an example of everything that is good about Salford. They can mix it too, with Jack Ormondroyd in the form of his life at prop. He has bobbed around the Championship since his 2018 release by Leeds Rhinos but this year has made 23 appearances in Super League for the Red Devils, scoring five tries. Former NRL pair Elijah Taylor and Shane Wright can be found in the back row giving the side both skill and solidity.
Now you may have seen or heard it mentioned this week that Salford have not won in the town of St Helens since 1980. That’s 42 years ago. That was the year when the Empire Struck Back, Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda mistakenly believed they had poisoned boss Dabney Coleman and Kramer took on er…Kramer in the courtroom. On January 12 that year Salford won 18-17 at Knowsley Road with Clive Griffiths, Roy Matthias and Eric Chisnall crossing for Saints’ three-point tries. Griffiths kicked four goals and Roy Haggerty was on the bench. It has been a long time since the Saints match day squad contained two men in it called Roy. That is just how long it is since Salford won in St Helens.
Since then Saints have dominated at home against Salford. That Knowles-preserved 14-10 win in April was just the latest in a long line of successes. It has sometimes been ugly for the visitors. The first match with fans in attendance post-Covid ended 28-0 in Saints’ favour in May 2021. Going back to May 2001 Saints scored 11 tries and Sean Long kicked 11 goals - the most he managed in a single game in his stellar 331-game, 2625-point Saints career - as Saints demolished Salford 66-16. In 2018 I witnessed a 34-2 home success from the South West side of the ground after the lift in the North Stand simply refused to operate. Even machinery couldn’t summon up enthusiasm for a visit from Salford at times during the last four decades. This current Salford crop is a special exception.
Semi-finals between the two have sometimes been close. Not particularly the 1997 Challenge Cup semi-final which Saints won 50-20 at Wigan’s old Central Park ground. More the 1977 Floodlit Trophy clash which Saints won 7-4, or the Lancashire Cup last four tie in 1932 which ended 2-2 before Saints won the replay 17-10. The teams have only ever met in one major final, that being Saints’ 23-6 victory in 2019 which started the current run of three Super League titles in a row.
Will it be four? Or will Salford deny the champions the opportunity to contest a fourth successive Grand Final? It could have been five if Ben Barba hadn’t made a business decision to stop tackling at the end of his highlight-stacked 2018 campaign. It could have been six if Ryan Morgan hadn’t given a daft penalty away in the dying moments at Castleford in 2017. It could have been seven if…no. I can’t make a case for winning the 2016 title. We had Jack Owens on the wing, Dominique Peyroux at centre and Jordan Turner at 6. Greg Richards was a starting prop. Atelea Vea lurked ominously on the bench, and sometimes even started.
Regardless of injuries this Saints team still has the quality to make it through. They can worry about how to win at Old Trafford if and when they get there. In knockout football you only get one shot.
They must not miss their chance to blow.
Squads;
Saints:
1. Jack Welsby, 2. Tommy Makinson, 4. Mark Percival, 6. Jonny Lomax, 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, 26. Sam Royle, 27. Jon Bennison, 31. Taylor Pemberton.
Salford Red Devils;
1. Ryan Brierley 2. Ken Sio 3. Kallum Watkins 4. Tim Lafai 5. Joe Burgess 7. Marc Sneyd 8. Sitaleki Akauola 9. Andy Ackers 11. Shane Wright 13. Elijah Taylor 15. King Vuniyayawa 16. Ryan Lannon 17. Harvey Livett 18. Chris Atkin 19. Jack Ormondroyd 22. Rhys Williams 26. Sam Luckley 27. Amir Bourough 28. Deon Cross 29. Alex Gerrard 32. Tyler Dupree
Referee: Chris Kendall
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