It wasn’t particularly convincing, but Saints claimed a third consecutive Super League win as they held off Huddersfield Giants in the early evening of Sunday (August 13).
It’s a result which takes the champions above fucking serendipity’s Leigh Leopards into third in the Super League table. And perhaps more importantly above fucking smash ‘um and cause havoc’s Wigan Warriors. With six regular season games to go Paul Wellens’ side have all but secured a top four berth.
There are now six points between them and both Warrington and Hull KR in fifth and sixth respectively. Wire have only won one of their last nine in the league. It would be some achievement for them to even claim another six points in the run-in, let alone bag six more than whatever Saints manage. Meanwhile Rovers face the challenge of dragging their tired and emotional behinds off the canvas for a playoff push after the dejection of their golden point loss at Wembley. And that starts with a trip to St Helens this Friday night (August 18). More on that later.
Meanwhile the Giants missed an opportunity to thrust themselves back into the playoff race. As it is they remain 10th, four points off the top six with the games running out. They are not quite out of contention but with three teams - all with their own playoff ambitions - sitting between them and the top six it’s hard to imagine that Ian Watson’s side can afford too many slip-ups from here on in.
Wellens made three changes to his 17 from the win at Salford last week. James Bell was suspended and Curtis Sironen injured but back came second rowers Sione Mata’utia and - for the first time since June - Joe Batchelor. Also returning was Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook. He had not featured since the Challenge Cup semi-final defeat to Leigh. His inclusion here was welcome given that Alex Walmsley and Agnatius Paasi were lost for the season during that game. Along with Bell and Sironen Lewis Baxter was the other player making way this week.
The Giants had won their last four in Super League prior to this one. Little wonder that Watson chose not to alter the line-up too much. The one change for the visitors saw former Saint and triple Grand Final winner Kevin Naiqama coming back into the centres in place of Esan Marsters. The Giants were still without the influential loose forward Luke Yates and former Saint and soon to be Catalans Dragon Theo Fafes at halfback.
Another thing that hasn’t changed much in 2023 is the success that Tommy Makinson has had against Huddersfield. The England winger has scored 14 tries in Super League this term. Eight of those have now come in the three meetings between the sides this year. Makinson scored in the 14-12 win in West Yorkshire in March, grabbed four in the 48-6 Magic Weekend drubbing Saints handed out in June and added a first half hat-trick here.
His first was a rare glimpse of Saints at their fluent best in attack. A slick, quick, sweeping move out to the right involving James Roby, Lewis Dodd, Jonny Lomax, Batchelor and Mark Percival. Batchelor was on from the bench earlier than expected after a high shot from Chris Hill saw Tee Ritson forced off for an early HIA. He would return but for now it was Makinson grabbing the headlines as he easily held off Jake Connor to open his account.
Makinson had his second inside 10 minutes. A period of Saints pressure was capped when Jack Welsby found a glorious looping pass straight on to the chest of Makinson who walked in for one of the easiest of those 14 tries in 2023. After the rude interruption of Matty English’s try for the Giants Makinson was in again. This time Welsby floated in between two defenders, broke free of their desperate attempts to bring him to ground and put Makinson in space with the line open. Two of Makinson’s three scores were converted by Percival to give Saints an 18-6 half-time advantage.
Yet that isn’t the whole story as far as the opening half goes. Prior to his try English had spent 10 minutes in the sin-bin for a cannonball tackle on Percival. The Saints centre was already being held upright by two Giants defenders when English dived in at his knee from the side. English could not have executed a more textbook cannonball tackle if he had spent the previous week at Shaun Wane and Michael Maguire’s Summer School Of Shithouse Tackle Technique.
Referee Ben Thaler saw fit to issue only a yellow card while the Match Review Panel (MRP) have deemed it worthy only of a caution. Which begs the question what does a cannonball tackle need to look like before the offender sees red? It doesn’t feel outrageous to suggest that English should not have been on the field to score his try.
We weren’t that far away from a red card as it turned out. Just as English was about to return from his stint in the bin the Giants were made permanently short-handed. Former Saint Joe Greenwood carried the ball in to the line where he was met with a high shot from Matty Lees. Greenwood took exception to the challenge and retaliated. As players ran in from both sides - including haymaker throwing MRP regular Morgan Knowles - it became less clear who was doing what to whom. Yet Thaler and his assistants had seen enough to afford Greenwood the ignominy of an early exit on his former home ground.
Lees was not penalised at the time. In fact it was Saints who were awarded the penalty. Yet by Monday the MRP had taken the decision to ban Lees for two matches. The challenge was high and reckless. Not much to see here in terms of the severity of the punishment. But this is Saints. Increasingly, Saints are growing incapable of accepting the decisions of the MRP. And so they declined to accept the ban and opted for a hearing. At which the ban was upheld. So Saints decided to appeal the decision of the hearing. It was all becoming a bit Knowles in Grand Final week for my tastes. Except the outcome was different. Where Knowles was eventually let off for twisting Chris Atkin’s arm up his back in last season’s semi-final, the second set of panellists to hear Lees’ case declined to change the decision.
Which is fair enough unless you are one of those Saints fans who faithfully believes firstly that Saints players don’t engage in foul play or secondly that if they do, the fact that others do too should exonerate them. Whataboutery is becoming as common among this fan base as a rousing rendition of Oh When The Saints Go Marching In late in a game which hangs in the balance. Yes, English should have been sent off for his tackle and yes the MRP should have sat him down for a few weeks. But the fact that they failed in this duty doesn’t give Lees no case to answer.
Four consecutive Grand Final wins later both our hierarchy and our fan base seem to actually believe that there is a conspiracy within the game to treat us unfairly when it comes to discipline. There is never a thought for these people that our players just need to be better. That Lees doesn’t need to go in high on Greenwood. That Knowles doesn’t need to swing his arm in the direction of the nearest Giant he can find. That he didn’t need to apply any dark arts nonsense to Atkin’s arm back in September. It’s never our fault. And then we complain that the rest of the league hates us.
Just stop appealing obvious foul play. I’m not saying it will make us popular. You can never be that when you win as often as we do. But it will at least reduce the amount of bitching about us with the added bonus of making us appear to have a bit more humility. Try it, you might enjoy the ride more.
For large parts of the remainder of the game following Greenwood’s dismissal you wouldn’t have known Saints had a numerical advantage. In contrast to his stellar first half Makinson hardly got a look in during the second. Inexplicably, this world champion team gave up on the idea of moving the ball around the Giants’ outnumbered defence. Almost as if at some point we had decided that power rugby is in our DNA so we’d better go back to it irrespective of basic maths.
The nearest Makinson got to adding to his tally after the break was when Percival threw him a pass which was both forward and which ended up over the sideline. It seemed a strange deviation from what had been working and it almost came at a heavy cost.
Though Saints had pushed the lead out to 20-6 with an early second half penalty they were not secure. As the attack stuttered the defence began to get a little sleepy too. First Super League Show pundit and occasional winger Ash Golding squeezed in at the right hand corner after a move involving Oliver Russell, Tui Lolohea and Connor. The latter landed the conversion from the touchline to reduce the arrears to eight at 20-12.
Five minutes later he was lining up an easier attempt as Naiqama made his most telling contribution of proceedings. Receiving it from Connor 20 metres out he stepped inside an over committing Dodd before waltzing around Welsby for a try which the Fijian appeared too tired, injured or respectful to his old club to celebrate. It still counted for four points on the scoreboard and when Connor turned it into six this was suddenly a two-point game at 20-18.
The lack of focus from his side irked Wellens. In his post game comments he accused them of expecting things to come easily after the Greenwood red card and of finding ways to keep the 12-man Giants side in the game. He said that Greenwood’s dismissal was possibly the worst thing that could have happened to Saints, certainly in terms of their intensity, application and performance.
It’s hard to argue with that assessment although credit should go to Saints for finding an extra gear late in the game after the Giants got within two. Dodd got his name on the scoresheet when his hopeful bomb was hauled in by Mata’utia who expertly grubbered it ahead for Dodd to win the chase. That saw off the Giants’ fightback realistically but the boot of Dodd would have another say. Just before the final hooter the halfback slid a neat low kick in behind the defensive line where Welsby had read the script to touch down in acres of space. Percival goaled both of these tries, the second one immediately followed by the handshakes at the end of what was ultimately a 14-point win.
With Walmsley still leaving a yawning gap in the pack there were no forwards in the Saints ranks who managed to gain more than 100 metres. Hat-trick man Makinson was Saints’ best with 143 while Percival had arguably his most effective game with ball in hand for a while with 126.
It was a similar story for the away side for whom winger Sam Halsall led the way with 156 metres. Naiqama came up with 134 on his old stomping ground while Golding managed 105 on the opposite wing to Halsall.
Moses Mbye made his first significant statistical contribution since replacing Joey Lussick, managing 34 tackles. That tally was matched by Sam Royle, still doggedly making his case to hang on to his starting spot despite the presence of Batchelor and Mata’utia and the likely inclusion of Bell next week.
Normally a try machine - Chris McQueen failed to get over the stripe but he was the only Giant to amass more than 30 defensive efforts with 35 to his name. Both sides made a fraction more than their average of 10 errors per game coming in, with Saints guilty of 12 handling mishaps and the Giants 11.
Saints must start heavy favourites at home to Rovers this week. The loss of Lees is significant. We are likely to see a starting prop duo at extreme opposite ends of the age spectrum in McCarthy-Scarsbrook and George Delaney. The only genuine prop in relief of those two might be Dan Norman but since he has escaped any disciplinary action it might be a good week to give Knowles a run at prop. He’s more than capable there. A strong runner with the ability to pass at the line and still one of the league’s best defenders. Bell can fill in at the loose forward spot and we will still have Mata’utia, Batchelor and Royle as further options in the second row.
Meanwhile you have to believe that Rovers’ collective chin will still be somewhere near the floor after the agony of Lachlan Lam’s drop-goal and Derek Beaumont’s persistent, badly dressed crowing. It’s a big job for Willie Peters to get his side up to compete at the home of the champions. Especially when avoiding complacency will now be high on Wellens’ list of priorities.
Saints;
Welsby, Makinson, Percival, Davies, Ritson, Lomax, Dodd, Delaney, Roby, Lees, Mata’utia, Royle, Knowles. Interchanges: Batchelor, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Norman, Mbye
Giants;
Connor, Golding, Naiqama, Bibby, Halsall, Russell, Lolohea, Hill, Milner, Wilson, Cudjoe, McQueen, English. Interchanges: Peats, Ikahihifo, Hewitt, Greenwood
Referee: Ben Thaler
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