Time to get minds back to Super League matters as Saints visit Headingley to face Leeds Rhinos on Friday night (May 26, kick-off 8.00pm).
Paul Wellens’ side enjoyed a fairly comfortable passage to the last eight of the Challenge Cup last week when they saw off Halifax Panthers 26-6 at The Shay. The quarter-final draw has sent them to Hull FC for a tie which will be played just five days before the teams meet there in the league on June 22. Yet before worrying about all that the champions need to work on their currently underwhelming league position.
Saints sit seventh in the Super League table going into this one. A 26-12 win over Salford Red Devils in their last league outing was only Saints’ sixth success in 11 league encounters so far in 2022. Victory over Paul Rowley’s men came at home where the only loss so far this term was to Rohan Smith’s Rhinos in early March. It has been away from home where things have got a little sticky for Saints. Aside from last week’s cup win over Fax their only successes on the road have come at a hapless Castleford and at Huddersfield. Trips to Leigh, Hull KR, Wigan and Catalans have all added nothing to the win column. That’s not good enough for a side with designs on capturing a fifth Super League title in a row.
Leeds are the only side who have had comparable success to that of Saints in the summer era, yet the 2023 version are similarly inconsistent. They have six wins also, but they have tasted defeat six times having played a game more than Saints. They sit one place behind Saints in the table in eighth. A win would see them leapfrog their guests albeit having played that extra game. Defeat coupled with a win for Hull FC at Salford on Sunday would still leave Leeds eighth but only by virtue of a massively superior points difference to that of former coach Tony Smith’s latest project.
Saints’ disciplinary issues have been a constant problem so far this year. They became an even hotter topic in light of the events of the last 30 seconds of the win at Halifax. Morgan Knowles has paid for his latest mad moment with a two-game ban and is the only enforced change from Wellens’ 21-man selection. Fortunately Saints can welcome back James Roby who was rested for the visit to Halifax following his record breaking exploits against Salford a week previously.
Also returning are Curtis Sironen and Konrad Hurrell. Sironen - whose discipline has not been much better than that of Knowles - is back from a one-game ban while Hurrell returns after missing the last two while a neck injury was thoroughly investigated. Following Knowles out of the squad this week are prop Dan Norman and centre Wesley Bruines.
Matty Lees is another who is still suspended so look for Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook to make what will be just his 161st start from a total of 357 appearance. Like his fellow 37 year-old Roby, the Londoner was given the night off at Halifax. Roby should wrestle the starting nine job back from Joey Lussick with Alex Walmsley completing the front row. Knowles’ absence should give James Bell another opportunity to start at loose forward which would mean that one of Sironen, Sione Mata’utia or Joe Batchelor would have to start from the bench. Three into two doesn’t go. On form and - frankly - reliability, Batchelor should get the nod leaving the other two to fight it out to start alongside him. If Mata’utia came through his first game since Easter without any further worries about his recent head injuries then the smart money would be on him.
Hurrell should come straight back into the centres with Ben Davies’ place looking most vulnerable. That would see Saints form an all-Tongan centre partnership of Hurrell and Will Hopoate once again. Tee Ritson seems to be winning the battle to hold down the left wing spot ahead of Jon Bennison. When fit, Tommy Makinson picks himself on the other flank. There seems little evidence to suggest that Wellens will do anything other than stick by Lewis Dodd at halfback alongside the still magnificent Jonny Lomax. That would leave Jack Welsby to continue at fullback.
Agnatius Paasi and Jake Wingfield look certainties for the bench where Bennison may also feature as a versatile option. Lussick was left out altogether for the Salford game so it will be interesting to see if his two-try effort at Halifax has been enough to convince Wellens to bring him back into the 17. It would seem the sensible option for now given Roby’s advancing years. He’s no longer a regular 80-minute man. The question of whether Lussick is the man to take over from Roby next season - or even to hang around as a back-up for anyone who might yet come in - looks a question for another time.
Smith has made two changes to the 21 he called up for duty ahead of last week’s cup loss to Wigan. Blake Austin was a late withdrawal for that one and has not recovered from a calf injury in time to feature this week. That could be massively important. After all this is a Rhinos team which whacked Wigan 40-18 with only 12 men when Austin played in the league encounter a fortnight ago, but lost 18-14 when it was 13 on 13 in the cup without Austin.
The other change for the Rhinos is the omission of prop Sam Lisone. He has made 11 appearances since joining from Gold Coast Titans at the start of 2023. The only game he has missed was that win at Saints in March. Was it something we said, Sam? Smith doesn’t have the same level of experience to call on to replace Austin and Lisone. Their places in the squad go to fullback Luke Hooley - whose only appearance for the first team came against Hull KR at the end of March and second row Leon Ruan who has yet to make his debut.
James Bentley will not face his former club due to concussion protocols which are also the reason we won’t see Jack Sinfield. Zane Tetevano serves the second of a two-game suspension for the red card which sparked the hilarious annihilation of Wigan two weeks ago.
On the face of it those losses would appear to make Leeds weaker. Yet there is still plenty of quality in Smith’s ranks. Former New Zealand Warriors winger David Fusitu’a is a long term absentee but the dependable Ash Handley should play after pulling out of the Wigan game through illness. A lot of attention will be on Harry Newman after his decision not to pass to the supporting Ritchie Myler cost Leeds a late chance to score and probably edge through to the cup quarter-finals at Wigan’s expense. Many blamed it on Myler for over-running Newman but it’s not hard to believe that the latter wouldn’t have released the pass anyway.
Nevertheless Newman remains a key threat alongside his centre partner, former Leigh man Nene McDonald. As well as impressing with the then Centurions and earning a move to Headingley McDonald has made almost 100 appearances in the NRL for five different clubs. The other side of that coin is that he’s had seven clubs at age 29. Why doesn’t he ever keep still?
Replacing Austin is tricky, and places a greater creative burden on Aidan Sezer. He has been disappointing overall since his move to Leeds from Huddersfield but he still has the class in there somewhere to cause problems. Smith went with Morgan Gannon to partner Sezer in place of Austin last week but has the option of moving Myler into that role and switching Handley to fullback.
In the pack Tom Holroyd is ever improving alongside England international Mikolaj Oledzki but Kruise Leeming’s recent departure to Gold Coast has not helped strengthen Smith’s hand. His seeming reluctance to do too much to hold on to Leeming suggested problems between the pair which have yet to be elaborated on. Jarrod O’Connor will likely fill in while Bentley’s second row berth could be occupied by James McDonnell. On the other side of the second row Rhyse Martin is one of Leeds’ best, who also happens to be a deadly goal-kicker. At loose forward Cameron Smith is about as close as you’ll see to an old school exponent of the role now that we are entrenched in the era of middles and edges.
Saints’ defeat to Leeds earlier in the season beggared belief. They never really looked in any bother but failure to be ruthless in attack ended in their undoing. It was a similar story at Leigh the following week. It is not enough to dominate territory and possession. You have to score points. In Saints’ defence a quite baffling decision by referee Chris Kendall to ignore a Sam Walters head shot and instead penalise Saints led to Hurrell losing his marbles and seeing red, and to Austin popping over the one-pointer which was the difference between the sides.
There’s always plenty of talk about how difficult it is to go to Headingley and beat Leeds. The perception is that the partisan South Stand turns visiting players to mush and influences referees. That hasn’t been the case for Saints recently. They haven’t lost there since suffering two league reverses there in 2017, just after Justin Holbrook took over the coaching reins from Keiron Cunningham. Saints haven’t even conceded a point on their last two visits. They won 26-0 on April Fool’s Day last year, a sequel to an even more dominant 48-0 win in August of the covid-ravaged 2020 season.
Saints haven’t fared so well against Leeds when the territory is neutral in the big knockout games. They did see off the Rhinos in last year’s Grand Final but few Saints fans over the age of 25 will have forgotten about the four Grand Finals in five years in which Leeds overcame Saints between 2007-09 and in 2011. Older fans still get pangs of regret about the 1978 Challenge Cup final and Derek Noonan’s infamous drop. Six years earlier tries from Graham Rees and Les Jones helped Saints to victory over Leeds under the Twin Towers in game 371 of Kel Coslett’s record setting Saints career.
Based on league position you’d maybe expect it to close this time round. Yet the unpredictable nature of both sides so far this term means that it wouldn’t be a massive surprise should one side or the other run away with it. Although the jeopardy in league games is greatly reduced by the playoff system both teams’ need is approaching the signpost marked urgent. My confidence in Saints is not what it was but the absence of Austin is swaying me towards the world champions. I’ll back Saints to edge it by 6.
Squads;
Leeds Rhinos:
1 Richie Myler 3 Harry Newman 4 Nene MacDonald 5 Ash Handley 7 Aidan Sezer 8 Mikolaj Oledzki 12 Rhyse Martin 13 Cameron Smith 14 Jarrod O’Connor 16 Derrell Olpherts 17 Justin Sangare 18 Tom Holroyd 19 James McDonnell 20 Morgan Gannon 21 Luke Hooley 22 Sam Walters 23 Liam Tindall 24 Luis Roberts 25 James Donaldson 26 Corey Johnson 31 Leon Ruan sponsored by Moortown
Saints;
1. Jack Welsby, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Will Hopoate, 5. Jon Bennison, 6. Jonny Lomax, 7. Lewis Dodd, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. James Roby, 11. Sione Mata’utia, 12. Joe Batchelor, 14. Joey Lussick, 15. Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, 16. Curtis Sironen, 17. Agnatius Paasi, 18. Jake Wingfield, 19. James Bell, 21. Ben Davies, 22. Sam Royle, 23. Konrad Hurrell, 25. Tee Ritson, 30. George Delaney.
Referee: Liam Moore
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