I said I wasn’t going to start with a line about shit sequels, but how can you not?
Five days on from their Challenge Cup victory at the same venue Saints’ return to the MKM Stadium was a box office flop. A total turkey. They were monstered 34-6 by a Hull FC side transformed from that last meeting by the return of Jake Clifford. And by their ability to keep 13 players on the field this time.
A win would have taken Paul Wellens’ side into the top three behind only Catalans Dragons and Warrington. As it is they will drop into sixth - clinging to a playoff spot - if Wigan win at home to Salford on Sunday (June 25). Saints will still have a game in hand on everybody except Hudddersfield but a top two finish is going to require a level of consistency that we are just not seeing at the moment.
The champions went into this one without two key players in the back division. Mark Percival missed out due to concussion protocols after his brush with Brad Fash’s shoulder last weekend. Meanwhile Tommy Makinson will miss around five weeks after he damaged a hamstring in the cup win. Jon Bennison started his first game since mid-April on the wing and Will Hopoate was preferred to Ben Davies to fill Percival’s regular centre berth.
These were not the only changes as Wellens sprung a couple of surprises. Morgan Knowles last played at hooker in a Super League semi-final loss to Warrington in October 2018 (spoiler alert…although they got the better of us that night it still wasn’t their year). It had worked against the same opponents a fortnight earlier but it never looked like coming off this time. Regular incumbent James Roby was available from the bench while Joey Lussick was left out altogether amid murmurings from the grapevine about what that might mean for his future at the club.
If you move Knowles to hooker then you need to find someone to play in his familiar loose forward position. Wellens could have chosen James Bell to do it. He has performed very well there during the games which Knowles has sat out through suspension this year. Sione Mata’utia can’t get into the starting 13 as a second rower due to the form of Joe Batchelor and Curtis Sironen and was another option. Instead Wellens opted to leave the ex-Newcastle Knight on the bench and bring Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook into the 13 role. He had been left out of the 17 for the cup meeting as well as the league derby against Wigan a week previously. Now he started at the back of the scrum for the first time since a 22–20 defeat at Toulouse in March of last year.
Hull were forced into several changes. Head Coach Tony Smith was without ex-Saint Adam Swift on the wing as well as one of the black and whites’ standouts from last week in Tex Hoy. Without the ex-Newcastle Knight Smith chose to recall Jamie Shaul at fullback and move Davy Litten to the wing to fill in for Swift. Liam Sutcliffe had to be replaced in the centres by Cameron Scott while another Scott - Taylor - was ruled out with a dislocated shoulder and replaced by Ligi Sao. Josh Griffin received a seven-game suspension for THAT half-time run-in with Chris Kendall and subsequent red card. His place in the back row went to Joe Lovodua.
There was some good news for the hosts and it arguably made all the difference. Jake Clifford - who had missed the cup match due to concussion protocols - returned to put on an absolute clinic in the halves alongside the also excellent Jake Trueman.
It took the pair five minutes to make an impact. Trueman sent an accurate lob from left to right, landing it just metres from the Saints line. Hopoate was the nearest Saint to it but he was out-jumped and outfought by Darnell McIntosh. The former Huddersfield Giant offloaded to the supporting Clifford who crashed over for the first try of the night. He couldn’t convert it but FC held a lead they would not lose at 4-0.
Lewis Dodd aspires to be in the Clifford category but seems a fair way off it just now. On Saints’ first real attacking opportunity his meek dab ended up in the arms of Andre Savelio who set off on a 35-metre burst down the Hull right before he was chopped down by Knowles just inside the FC half. From there Saints gave away another set due to the usual shenanigans at the ruck to put their opponents within a few metres of the line. Still, the way they allowed Carlos Tuimavave to barge over from Danny Houghton’s pass from dummy half was disappointing. The kind of try you concede if you’re not quite operating with the level of intensity for which you are revered. It would be that sort of night for a Saints side which was decidedly off colour throughout. Clifford was on target with this conversion and the home side lead by double digits at 10-0 within the first quarter of an hour.
Clifford is clearly a confident lad. So much so that he felt able to engage in some unseemly shithousing when Konrad Hurrell could only find the touchline with an attempted pass to Tee Ritson. Delighted by this outcome the Hull halfback went for the head rub on Joe Batchelor, despite the Saints man having had little or nothing to do with the error. Head rubs are the final insult. Unfortunately as a wheelchair user I am especially susceptible to this very specific method of patronising arsehole-ery. I felt Batchelor’s pain. It was a rare occasion on which this column would not have criticised Batchelor if he had chosen to deal with it by smashing the Australian’s jaw like a melon. Head-rubbing is not cool either in polite society or on a rugby league field.
The Hurrell error was a precursor to more pain on the scoreboard. When it came Saints’ way it was self-inflicted and quite farcical. Trueman put a low kick into the Saints in-goal but it looked to be too strong. As McIntosh chased it Jack Welsby attempted to shield it from him long enough for it to roll harmlessly dead. Only it didn’t. Like a soap character who has been written out years ago but brought back to boost flagging ratings it was very much alive.
The dithering Welsby somehow allowed McIntosh to save it from going dead, batting it back off the Saints fullback’s legs and sending it spinning back towards the try-line but still inside the in-goal area. First to it was Trueman who had followed up his own kick while Welsby and McIntosh performed their little in-goal frolic. Referee Jack Smith sent the incident up for review to ensure that Trueman - who had stepped beyond the dead ball line in pursuit of the loose ball - had re-established himself in the in-goal area (and therefore back in the field of play) before grounding. He had, but only just. He didn’t get a foot down but his knee made contact with the grass a heartbeat before his hand pushed down on the ball. An easy extra two for Clifford put Hull 16-0 up.
It was a howler from Welsby. They are becoming a habit. You think of the time he ran into Ritson ahead of Trueman’s try in the last meeting. Or his collision with Makinson which allowed Cameron Smith to score in the golden-point win over Leeds in May. Or the time he slipped to allow Bevan French to score in the derby. And what about his fumble of a Stephen Crichton bomb which allowed Brian To’o to force the World Club Challenge clash with Penrith Panthers into extra time? Welsby is a genius of a player. If he wasn’t people might start talking more about these lapses. Some have suggested that he is not a fullback and he should play in the halves or at loose forward instead. Trueman’s try was Exhibit A in this case.
It was a full 12 minutes before the hosts scored again. The raid started when Dodd went high on McIntosh before Sironen failed to gather a wayward Savelio offload deep in Saints territory. It was one of four errors by the ex-Manly back rower who would finish the evening with his hamstring iced up. He was one of three Saints - alongside Knowles and Welsby - who were unable to stop a fairly standard charge to the line by Chris Satae. The prop had received it from Shaul around 10 metres out and took the shortest route. Again the defensive effort was indicative of a side which was lacking its usually rabid desire to defend its own try line. Another Clifford conversion saw Tony Smith’s side go 22-0 up. It was as good as over.
It almost got worse before the break. Shaul was put through a gap by Clifford. The fullback raced around Hurrell before throwing a suspiciously forward looking pass to Litten on the left wing. Ritson was the final obstacle between the Hull man and the try line. There wasn’t enough time or space for Litten to go around Ritson so he attempted to go over him in the style pioneered on these shores by Makinson.
At full speed it looked as though Litten had pulled it off but referee Smith wasn’t convinced. He sent the final say upstairs where Marcus Griffiths eventually found some separation between Litten’s hand and the ball before it made it to the ground. It was a dodged bullet for Saints but in truth they had already been hit by more than enough to kill them off. All Hull really needed to do at this point was refrain from engaging in any debates with the official as they walked into the dressing rooms for their cuppa.
Two minutes into the second half Saints briefly flickered into life. Hurrell set sail on a voyage through the Hull defence as Satae and Houghton were left in his wake. Shaul brought the Tongan centre down around 10 metres out but the home defence was scattered. By now Roby had been introduced and when he found Dodd the halfback shuttled it on to Welsby to hit Bell on a great line to go over under the posts. It helped that Lovodua went all in on a Mata’utia dummy run leaving Shaul and Satae with too much space to cover to have any chance of stopping Bell. His third try of the season and his second in consecutive games against Hull was converted by Bennison to bring the margin back down to 16 points at 22-6.
There was barely time to take stock of the slight foothold Saints now had in the game before it evaporated. Again Clifford was involved, grubbering through on the left were a favourable bounce allowed Scott to gather ahead of Welsby and twist over. The Saints man was unlucky on this one to an extent but generally he was enduring the sort of day that will lead to fans’ calls for him to switch positions to get louder. Clifford was on target again with the extras and FC led 28-6.
Saints responded briefly but were still making errors at the worst times. Mata’utia lost the ball close to the line after being pushed back by Trueman, Sao and Shaul. Back-to-back-to-back penalties offered a real opportunity to get the score that Saints needed to have any chance of getting back into the game. But the best Saints could do was force a goal-line dropout as the black and whites’ defence held.
Though they had been more resolute in the second half Saints never really convinced anyone that they were going to make inroads into the deficit. Even with more limited possession and territory it was Tony Smith’s side who looked the more threatening. Having been denied by the video referee late in the first half Litten came back for another go with seven minutes remaining. The relentless Clifford placed another searching kick into that left corner. This time Litten beat Ritson to it but still needed to produce a flying finish to make it count. Again it looked good at full speed but again our eyes deceived us. This time there was even greater separation between hand and ball as the FC winger went for the put down. Be in no doubt though - this scoreline could have been worse.
It did get slightly worse with four minutes left. Having missed out when a Roby offload hit Agnatius Paasi and went forward into Roby’s arms Saints had one more futile foray into Hull territory. It ended in more ignominy as Jonny Lomax’s pass went behind Welsby on the Saints left and was scooped up in space by McIntosh.
He had 80 metres still to travel but the only player looking likely to catch McIntosh was Ritson. The ex-Barrow man sprinted from all the way over on the other side of the field to get to McIntosh with time to spare. If the pace he showed to get there was elite Ritson’s tackling technique did not match it. He grasped at McIntosh’s ankles but was brushed away effortlessly as the FC man registered his side’s sixth try of the night. Another inevitable Clifford goal completed the rout at 34-6.
A look at the stats shows just why Saints were off the pace in this one. Wellens’ side came up with 13 errors. That is way up on the season average of 10,28 per game. Sironen made four all by himself. Missed tackles were a problem too. The halfback pairing of Lomax and Dodd made 10 between them in a team total of 36. That also is above the season’s average. The bulk of the defensive work was done by Batchelor with 40 tackles and Lees with 34.
In attack Alex Walmsley’s relatively quiet 95-metre night was a factor. Saints can sometimes be too reliant on the England prop to get the pack rolling forward. That is less of an issue when ground is gained Makinson and Percival but both were absent. Hurrell stepped up with 194 metres as did Bennison with 141. After that the only players over 100 for the night were Ritson with 106 and Paasi with 104.
Predictably a reverse of this magnitude - particularly against a side that has been so average in 2023 to this point - was always going to provoke some hysteria from the fans. Adjectives like ‘embarrassing’, ‘disgraceful’ and ‘shambolic’ were bandied around on social media in response. This happens whenever we lose. It was never going to be avoided after a 28-point thumping to ninth placed Hull FC. But it comes from an over inflated sense of entitlement coupled with an inability to see a bigger picture. Having seen so much success in recent years there are some fans who cannot countenance defeat, let alone this kind of drubbing.
Ok so it isn’t great. For large parts of it we made Savelio look like Viliame Kikau. But it’s not as if this kind of shoeing is all that rare. Who can forget losing 44-12 at Salford last July, just two months before sealing that fourth successive title? It has been happening throughout our Super League history.
You can take it all the way back to 1997 when I remember watching Saints lose 65-12 to Wigan at Knowsley Road. In 1999 a Saints side featuring Paul Newlove, Paul Sculthorpe, Keiron Cunningham, Chris Joynt and Coach Wellens were hammered 40-4 in a playoff game by Bradford Bulls at Odsal before edging the same opponents 8-6 in the Grand Final less than a fortnight later. In 2002 they repeated the trick, losing 54-22 to the Bulls in April before edging them 19-18 in that year’s Grand Final. Barry Ward played at loose forward in that springtime shellacking and was even switched to centre for a spell. Which proves also that batshit crazy team selections aren’t a new thing. So can we all just calm down? There are four months to go to the Grand Final. This is not a terminal loss.
Which is why I’m not remotely worried about Wellens’ position. As much as I disagreed with some of his selections for this one, and as much as I’m underwhelmed by our world champion team dossing about in fifth in a league not exactly coated in quality, he has to be given time. He has coached 18 competitive games since taking over from Kristian Woolf. He’s inherited an ageing squad who may or may not have one more push for glory in them before an overhaul is required. He needs two seasons minimum before we can make a reasoned judgement on him.
The boss has a tough job ahead of him this year. Expectations - like it or not - are that we will challenge for that fifth consecutive gong. That would be made easier by climbing a little higher up the league table. Ideally into the top two. Last season 38 points were required to reach that position. If that were to be the case again in 2023 then Saints would need to win 10 of their 12 remaining regular season fixtures. Considering they have won only eight of their last 12 that is far from an easy task. Unless we can iron out our inconsistencies we may have to do something special in the playoffs. But you know…never write off the Saints and all that…
I’m not considering missing the playoffs. Yet.
Hull FC: Shaul, McIntosh, Litten, Tuimavave, Scott, Litten, Trueman, Clifford, Fash, Houghton, Sao, Lovodua, Savelio, Cator. Interchanges: Satae, Lane, McNamara, Brown.
Saints: Welsby, Ritson, Hurrell, Hopoate, Bennison, Lomax, Dodd, Walmsley, Knowles, Lees, Sironen, Batchelor, McCarthy-Scarsbrook. Interchanges: Paasi, Mata’utia, Roby, Bell
Referee: Jack Smith
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