Saints missed the chance to get within striking distance of top spot as they went down narrowly at home to the league leading Dragons.
The loss was Saints’ seventh of the season - their second against Steve McNamara’s side - and saw the champions slip down a place in the table after Wigan’s win over Warrington on Friday night (July 14). Meanwhile the Dragons restored a four-point lead over second placed Leigh Leopards ahead of their game at Salford on Sunday (July 16).
Paul Wellens was able to name an unchanged side for the third consecutive match. It was a 17 which had been good enough to shut out Castleford Tigers a fortnight ago and to win a close one at Warrington last time out. However, it is not just hindsight which leads me to believe that Wellens would have liked to have been able to make one or two changes. He was still without the influential Tommy Makinson and Joe Batchelor while Tee Ritson was not ready to return either. Curtis Sironen had been named in the initial 21-man squad offering the promise of at least one change. Unfortunately the former Manly second rower suffered a setback with his hamstring injury and remained absent.
Will Hopoate and Jon Bennison occupied the wing spots in relief of Makinson and Ritson while James Bell continued in the second row alongside Sione Mata’utia with both regular starters in the second row sidelined.
McNamara was able to welcome back former New South Wales State Of Origin halfback Mitchell Pearce. The last time Saints faced the Dragons Pearce was again reintroduced after a period on the sidelines. It made a huge difference then and we saw a similar story here. Pearce partnered fellow NRL Grand Final winner Tyrone May in the halves which allowed Adam Keighran to switch back to a more familiar centre role. Sam Tomkins also returned to the fullback role in place of the injured Artur Mourgue.
We’ll come to the detail of how it unfolded but the headline is the damage this loss may have done to Saints’ bid for a top two spot. A win here would even have had Wellens’ men well placed to defend the League Leaders Shield. Still, they are not completely out of the running by any means. All of the sides in the top six and beyond seem capable of suffering a surprise defeat. Even the Dragons are not immune having managed to lose at home to Huddersfield Giants leading into this one. But a top two slot - let alone the League Leaders Shield - is now out of Saints hands which could yet prove decisive.
A place in the top two provides the opportunity to play one home playoff game for a place at Old Trafford. Finish outside those places and you are going to have to win on the road at some point to reach the big dance. And irrespective of all that, it would be nice for the old fashioned types among us to again be able to celebrate the undervalued achievement of finishing top of the pile. That honour is the Dragons’ to lose now as they seek to win it for a second time in three seasons.
Predictably there has been oodles of hyperbole about the quality of this contest. Your modern day fan loves a good energy battle. Hearing the coaches talk in terms of semi-final football ramps up the giddiness even further. From where I was sat - on the North platform 30 metres out from the East Stand and then again on my sofa in front of my TV - this was a hard fought but ultimately conservative and risk averse spectacle. The sort of game you wouldn’t choose to rewatch even if we’d won it. Unless you have to so you can knock up 3,000 words about it. It’s entire appeal was in its tightness and the tension that creates. There’s a lot of talk about a lack of jeopardy in regular season games much of which rings true. But judging by the tactics on show from both sides nobody has told Wellens or McNamara. Both sides appeared very worried indeed about losing. Semi-final football.
Of course most fans don’t care how the opponents play. Many of them appear unable to see the opposition at all judging by some of the post-game comments on social media. So let’s concentrate on the Saints approach. After three years of Kristian Woolf getting away with calling the attack ‘clunky’ by continually winning matches and trophies, people are now starting to notice that Saints might not be the entertainers of old.
It’s tough to judge Wellens tactically in his first season but the evidence suggests that like Woolf he likes to keep everything close to the ruck. Set completion and controlling where you turn the ball over when you have to are the priorities. In this one there was also a resurgence of that fan-baiting staple of the Keiron Cunningham era - the inside drop off pass. It all added up to a predictable attacking game plan. Saints hardly looked like scoring even when they secured the field position they had been playing so carefully for. It was a genuine surprise when Mark Percival and Lewis Dodd did get over.
The one feature of their play which contradicts all of this was the number of offloads they attempted. Saints averaged 9.1 offloads per game coming in yet they came up with no fewer than 16 in this game. Alex Walmsley alone had six, which is two more than the entire Dragons team managed. To put that into context the Saints prop had previously only managed 14 in as many appearances in Super League in 2023. There was a distinct plan to play off the big man. As if we are the Milwaukee Bucks.
Of course, you can be as conservative as you want to be as long as you win. Only the likes of me dared rail against Woolf’s methods during his glorious stint in charge. And even then I stopped short of ever suggesting that we would be better off without him. Unfortunately for Wellens his side didn’t win this one and have had several similarly disappointing outcomes during his short reign.
That creates extra scrutiny and sees somewhat lazy comparisons to Cunningham dusted off. If Wellens has two full seasons in charge and Saints don’t make it past a semi-final in either Super League or the Challenge Cup during that time then those comparisons will have some validity. It’s too early to judge his suitability to the Head Coach’s role. But not too soon to point out that at the moment the plan of attack is not an exciting one and that here it relied far too heavily on the Walmsley offload and the imagination of Jack Welsby and Jonny Lomax. Even Dodd plays like he has been given a script to learn. Like a fading celeb in a terrible pantomime.
Flying in the face of the general air of conservatism was the Saints policy on what to do with penalties awarded within goal-kicking distance. There were three occasions on which Wellens’ side could have chosen to get the scoreboard ticking over. All of these came when the deficit was eight points. Taking an easy two at any of those points would have reduced the arrears to a converted try. A one score game in modern parlance. That at the very least has a psychological effect on the team being chased and could even have a visible effect on their decision making and overall strategy.
Two of these opportunities arrived in the last quarter of the game, by which time it had become abundantly clear that try scoring opportunities were going to be scarce. The easy argument to make for taking those cheap points is that given the final margin of the defeat they could have made all the difference to the result. Goal-kicking may not be a strength right now - particularly with Makinson out - but you would still expect Percival and later Joey Lussick to have added to the points tally on each occasion. But still it isn’t the no brainer that it appears.
Kicking at goal on any of those occasions changes everything that happens in the game thereafter. These decisions are sliding doors moments. A successful penalty goal means receiving possession from the kick-off deep in your own territory. Straight away the battle for field position - so coveted by both sides in a game like this one - is flipped in the opponents’ favour. What if you then make an error in your own quarter? Tapping and running at these situations may look like the bold choice but it may also be seen as a safeguard against anything which might lead to suddenly defending on your own goal-line.
This was not a loss that could be attributed fully to either the uninspiring attacking play or the consistent refusal to take shots at goal. There were other mitigating factors. Not excuses, mitigating factors. Chief among these was some fairly fetid luck with injuries. You can cope with these if you know about them in advance of kick-off. That’s what you have a squad for. It gets more difficult when you lose a couple during the game.
After Keighran booted an early penalty (no qualms about that from the pragmatic McNamara) Saints went 8-0 behind to a length of the field Tom Johnstone try. Almost immediately one of the red vee’s most important players left the scene for the night. First, Lomax’s attempted lob to the right corner was dealt with by Keighran who quicky slipped the ball wide to Johnstone. This caught all of Saints’ potential defenders still facing the Dragons goal-line as the ex-Wakefield winger streaked away down the North touchline. Dodd gave chase but was never seriously in the race. Like everyone in the Tour De France except Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegard. Johnstone now has 22 tries in Super League in his first season as a Dragon. Only Leigh’s Josh Charnley has as many as that.
Keighran added the extras but worse news was to come. James Roby was being looked at by the medical staff having got his head in the wrong place trying to bring down Paul Seguier. He was whisked away for a head injury assessment. Which he subsequently failed and so did not return to the game. That also rules him out of the forthcoming Challenge Cup semi-final against Leigh at Warrington next week.
It’s tough to lose any player in this way. It severely limits your interchange options. It left Lussick - a man Wellens has considered surplus to requirements in one or two games of late - having to put in an unbroken shift of almost an hour at hooker. If the club really were considering letting him return to Parramatta Eels as has been suggested this week then they need to have a serious rethink. It was already pretty barmy to think we could leave the 37 year-old Roby as the only option at nine for the rest of the season. This was a reminder of the fact that even legends are fallible. Lussick is arguably one of the most important pieces of the Saints puzzle. His importance swells immeasurably for as long as Roby remains out.
The human resource issues doubled when Percival picked up a similar injury early in the second half. He had got Saints back into it with his sixth try of the season and his third in as many games just seven minutes before the break. Dodd took a much needed breather from launching the last tackle kick into the clouds, instead placing an intelligent dab behind the Dragons line where Percival was able to gather and touch down. It was smart play from Dodd who had recognised that the Dragons had been extremely keen to get off their defensive line and into the faces of the Saints playmakers. They had done it very effectively too, even if many of their efforts flirted shamelessly with the offside rule. Percival converted his own try to pull Saints to within two points at 8-6 as the teams turned around.
Yet within a few minutes of the start of the second half Percival followed Roby away from this one and out of the semi-final. He collided with May in the build up to the Matt Ikuvalu try which restored the French outfit’s eight point lead. Pearce and May combined with Ikuvalu on the Dragons right before the former Roosters man held off the attentions of Welsby, Bennison and Morgan Knowles to touch down. He ended up reversing over the line. It was sent up for review as a try by referee Liam Moore and rightly confirmed despite Ikuvalu landing close to the whitewash. Keighran landed a difficult conversion and the visitors led 14-6.
Yet it was the loss of Percival, following on from that of Roby which threatened to do the most damage. It reduced Saints to just 15 fit players in what is now indisputably a 17 man game and has been for some time. You can name an 18th player as a so-called concussion substitute but that player can only be activated after a team suffers it’s third head injury casualty. It’s obviously far too convenient for me to call for this rule to be looked at in the wake of my team suffering from its effects. But I’m going to do it anyway. Let those named in the initial 21 but who are left out of the match day 17 act as emergency concussion subs only to be used in the event of a failed HIA. The fact that failing an HIA rules a player out of his side’s next game should allay any fears about clubs conjuring up bogus head knocks.
Despite these losses this was a game that Saints could and should have won. Both in terms of territory and possession in the second half and in terms of the tangible currency of scoring chances. They got back into it seven minutes from the end when Dodd capitalised on good work from Lomax and Welsby and a neat inside pass from Hopoate to score for a second consecutive week. Lussick added the goal and at 14-12 thoughts of kickable penalty opportunities spurned started to loom large.
Dominant by that stage, Saints created one more golden chance on the very last play of the night. Again Lomax, Welsby and Hopoate combined but this time the Tongan could not find the killer pass. There was some irony in the fact that having subjected us to endless predictable inside balls Saints chose not to produce one when it was required. As Hurrell cut back on Hopoate’s inside with not much between him and the game winner Hopoate went outside with the pass and only found touch as the hooter sounded. And that was that.
If you’re looking for evidence of Saints’ domination it can be seen in the stats. Only Johnstone, Keighran and Tom Davies made more than 100 metres for the visitors. Admittedly the two wingers made more than 200 (Johnstone’s 215 and Davies’ 201) but after you add in Keighran’s contribution of 140 metres there is little else to write back to France about.
Meanwhile Saints had no fewer than six players over the century mark. Led again by Hopoate on 183 Saints also had contributions from Walmsley (174), Mata’utia (133), Hurrell (126), Welsby (116) and Agnatius Paasi (103).
Knowles was the hardest working Saints defender with 44 tackles while Matty Lees weighed in with 33. It’s a good thing too as with ball in hand this much trumpeted pair managed to make only 88 metres between them. Lees only had four carries. Surely a front line prop for a champion team has to be producing more in attack. It is not the NFL. You can’t just play defence and go home.
Benjamin Garcia made 43 stops for the Dragons while one-time (and current?) Saints target Matt Whitley came up with 40. The 38 managed by Mickey McIlorum had the Usual Suspects in the Sky commentary box feeling all tingly.
What is perhaps more interesting than the tackle count is the incredible number of missed tackles by both sides. Saints botched 40 attempts while the Dragons fared even worse in this department with 46. These mind blowing figures look terrible but they are - in a funny sort of way - testament to the powers of recovery of both defences. For only 26 points to be scored in a game with that many defensive mishaps is remarkable. It’s not even as if errors got defences off the hook. Saints only came up with seven handling mistakes despite the Walmsley offload-athon, while the Dragons were only guilty of an average looking 10.
And so - inevitably - to next week. When the draw for the semi-finals was made there was an argument that a pairing with Leigh was the best possible outcome. Yet the Leopards have lost only one of their last 10 league games and that was a narrow reverse to the Dragons in Perpignan. Adrian Lam’s team are currently the closest threat to Catalans’ League Leaders Shield ambitions. And they’ve already beaten Saints once this season.
So it was never going to be easy. It has been made harder by the loss of two key figures in Roby and Percival. If Lussick can’t go for the full 80 then the spectre of another stint in the hooking role for Knowles is already giving me shivers. If Makinson and Ritson are still unavailable then Ben Davies is likely to be promoted from that never to be used 18th man role which he fulfilled in this one. It would take more boldness than I believe Wellens is capable of to hand a debut to Wesley Bruines in a Challenge Cup semi-final. It is more likely that Mata’utia could feature in the backs especially if one of Sironen or Batchelor can be involved.
Saints are bidding to reach a third Challenge Cup final in five seasons. Leigh haven’t visited Wembley in the famous competition since they beat Leeds in the 1971 final. They might never have a better chance than they have next week.
Saints;
Welsby, Hopoate, Hurrell, Percival, Bennison, Lomax, Dodd, Walmsley, Roby, Lees, Mata’utia, Bell, Knowles. Interchanges: Paasi, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Lussick, Delaney.
Catalans Dragons;
Tomkins, Davies, Ikuvalu, Keighran, Johnstone, May, Pearce, McMeeken, McIlorum, Navarrete, Whitley, Seguier, Garcia. Interchanges: Ma’u, Bousquet, Chan, Dezaria
Referee: Liam Moore
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