Saints’ winning start to the season continued as they held off the increasingly awkward Leigh Leopards on Friday night (March 1).
Saints now sit alone at the top of the inceptive Super League table with three wins out of three. Meanwhile Adrian Lam’s Leigh outfit are yet to win although they have only played two matches so far in 2024. This defeat came after a 16-8 reverse to Huddersfield on opening night while the Leopards had a week of inactivity as Wigan ref Liam Moore conquered the world with victory over Penrith.
Saints boss Paul Wellens made two changes from the 17 that had won 28-0 at Huddersfield a week previously. Waqa Blake was ruled out through illness so Konrad Hurrell returned having overcome the bug that seems to have been working its way around the Saints camp and which forced the Tongan to miss the trip to Huddersfield.
That bug didn’t help Matty Lees when he took a bang to the chest at the John Smith’s Stadium and ended up being checked out at the hospital. Not sufficiently recovered, the prop forward’s place in the starting line-up went to Sione Mata’utia with Moses Mbye stepping up to fill the former Newcastle man’s bench spot and make his first appearance of 2024.
Lam also made two enforced changes. Dream Team pair Tom Amone and Edwin Ipape were both unavailable for different reasons. Amone was serving a one game ban for reasons best known to the Match Review Panel while Ipape faces weeks on the sidelines with medial ligament damage. Like Mata’utia at Saints Jack Hughes stepped off the bench to start at prop while new arrivals Brad Dwyer and Owen Trout made debuts.
It’s perhaps understandable that a meeting between these two throws up memories of last season’s Challenge Cup semi-final, but few would have thought we’d get such a stark reminder so early on. The semi-final was an epic but controversial tussle. At the centre of the controversy was one Atalani ‘John’ Asiata as not once but twice he inflicted long term knee injuries on Saints players with a head first tackling ‘technique’ for which arms are not a requirement. Happily Alex Walmsley has resumed his Saints career but Agnatius Paasi remains sidelined with no firm date set for his return.
It was against that backdrop that 41 seconds in to this one Asiata very nearly made Mata’utia his next victim. There was little or no attempt to wrap the arms again as the Leigh man went head first towards Mata’utia’s knee. Fortunately the contact made was not as clean - and I use that word advisedly because in actuality it was positively filthy - and a little higher up the leg than that which had done for Walmsley and Paasi last July. That was probably due to Mata’utia’s shrewd decision to jump in anticipation of the arrival of the human bowling ball careering towards him.
After consultation with video referee Chris Kendall on-field whistler Liam Moore explained to Asiata that the tackle had endangered an opponent and was worthy of a yellow card. Asiata chose not to accept this fairly lenient verdict and walk off, instead standing his ground to make the case to Moore that the contact had been above the knee.
Maybe it was. Yet it’s hard to accept that the man singularly responsible for an actual law change to eliminate this type of tackle would choose this moment - 41 seconds into his next meeting with the same opponent (he’d missed the Leopards’ last visit in September) - to unfurl his party piece once again. It’s monumentally stupid and whatever the rules say about ‘force’ and ‘mitigation’ he should have been red carded for the sheer shithousery of it. He wasn’t, but the karma police weren’t far from the scene.
This was a night on which both sides - but particularly Saints - lacked the ability to execute consistently in attack. Even with an extra man in that early period they couldn’t quite get it right. Daryl Clark has stood out in Saints’ opening two league games but endured his first off night in the red vee.
Perhaps it was his haste to capitalise on the numerical advantage but first he lost possession 20 metres from the Leopards line in the tackle of Kai O’Donnell and Lachlan Lam and then he coughed it up 30 metres out under pressure from Robbie Mulhern. In all he was responsible for three of Saints’ nine handling errors and only managed a fairly modest 68 metres on eight carries. He did chip in with 34 tackles. He just couldn’t seem to make it click in attack. Yet he wasn’t alone on this night and will have much better days to come.
Disciplinary matters have dominated the rugby league conversation in the early weeks and will continue to do so in the wake of the MRP’s decision to impose no sanction on Asiata. It was interesting also that not so much as a penalty was awarded when Lachlan Lam wafted a hand straight into the bemused mush of Tommy Makinson. Clear and direct contact to the head - albeit with not so much force. Although I challenge Robert Hicks and co to eat a Lachlan Lam knuckle sandwich and taste how significant it is. The point is we have been shown that lack of force won’t save players from the sin bin yet this one was oddly overlooked.
Two minutes later and almost unnoticed Asiata went down off the ball. He was eventually helped off to a reception from a St Helens crowd utterly devoid of sympathy. In a turn of events like those which must have crossed John Lennon’s mind when he wrote Instant Karma, Asiata had tore a calf muscle following a tackle from his earlier victim Mata’utia. Ban or no ban, we’re unlikely to see Asiata for a few weeks. Life comes at you fast, John.
Asiata’s exit meant that Leigh were now without three of their five 2023 Dream Team members. The only survivors were Lachlan Lam and Josh Charnley. Yet it was they who came closest to scoring next. Along with Ricky Leutele Charnley had formed the attacking partnership most likely to trouble Saints in the early going. And it was the former Huddersfield centre who had the next big chance of the game. Eschewing the assistance of Charnley outside him on the left wing Leutele instead made the questionable decision to try to run over Hurrell close to the line.
Now, say what you will about the Saints centre’s defensive capabilities, he is not the man you want to be trying to barrel through when space is limited. Leutele soon discovered this as he was bundled towards the sideline and lost possession. Hurrell’s defensive intervention has come at a price, however. As he launched into Leutele to make the tackle Hurrell could not avoid minimal head-to-head contact for which he will serve a one match ban.
Moore awarded no penalty and it has taken an entire weekend for most people - including me if I’m honest - to spot the problem. Yet this is the world in which we now live. I’m a big advocate of making the game safer given what hangs over it otherwise. Yet I can’t really see how handing out bans for total accidents of this nature makes the game safer. These types of clashes are by definition accidental. Place Hurrell in that situation 100 more times and he will doubtless make the same decision regardless of the threat of any disciplinary sanctions. The challenge he made was the only reasonable way he could be expected to stop Leutele. He’s never going to opt for letting an opponent score in order to avoid a ban. Nor is any professional at any level.
Nearly half an hour had passed when the first points were registered. It was the home side who struck. James Bell’s passing game close to the line was a problem for Leigh all night and it was the source of the opening score. Putting doubt in the minds of defenders the former Leigh man aimed a beautifully timed ball towards Matt Whitley whose almost instant offload left Jack Welsby with a simple task. It was the fullback’s third try in as many games to start the season and a second assist of the season to go with the three tries he has scored in his first two appearances for his hometown club. From my position right behind Mark Percival’s conversion attempt it looked good but was contentiously waved away by the touch judges to limit the Saints advantage to 4-0.
Five minutes later Saints almost extended that lead. Again Bell was at the heart of it, combining with Lewis Dodd and Jonny Lomax to give Hurrell the opportunity to rumble over in the right hand corner. With the help of Leutele and Charnley, Dwyer pulled off a miraculous try saving tackle as he managed to hold up the Saints man then get underneath him to prevent him from grounding the ball. The tackle count continued 10 metres out but when Dodd’s low kick was fielded by Matt Moylan the Saints half and Whitley joined the tackle too late and gifted the Leopards a relieving penalty.
That gave Leigh one more chance to get points on the board in the first half as Gareth O’Brien sliced between Hurrell and Makinson on the right edge of Saints defence. Yet their scrambled recovery was enough to force O’Brien into a rushed, poorly executed attempt to find Charnley which rolled tamely into touch.
Adrian Lam’s side found a way back into the game five minutes into the second half. Drink driving, why always me? liability Zak Hardaker was the try scorer, crashing over from Moylan’s pass. The ex-Cronulla man had set up the position with an expertly timed ball to O’Brien who was only prevented from scoring himself by a strong defensive effort by Welsby. With Saints’ defence in a rare state of disarray it was Dwyer who found Moylan to give ex-Wigan man Hardaker the opportunity.
Moore sent the effort up as a try which was confirmed by video referee Kendall despite the efforts of Jon Bennison. Yet the Leigh veteran, now operating at centre until he eventually passes the signpost marked ‘no longer worth putting up with’ could not add the extras to his own try so the scores remained tied at 4-4.
After a first half in which points had come at a high premium there was now a flurry of scoreboard activity. Only five minutes after Hardaker crossed for the visitors Saints reestablished command of the match with a Makinson try. Dodd - who earned special praise from Wellens for his performance on the night and for the way he has responded to doubts about his abilities since returning from his 2022 torn achilles - was the architect. He broke from inside his own half, brushing off a flapping Lam junior in the process before finding Makinson on his inside with 40 metres between him and the line. Charnley seemed to be gaining on the Saints winger with every step but the 2018 Golden Boot winner had just enough speed to carry him over under the posts. Which was handy as it offered Percival a simple conversion which he gratefully accepted to give his side a six-point lead at 10-4.
After the unfortunate Tom Briscoe followed Asiata off the field to the treatment table Saints caught a break following a forward pass from Lomax to Percival on the first play from a scrum in a threatening position. Moore spotted O’Brien breaking from said scrum a little prematurely. Suddenly, rather than ramping up for another defensive set Saints were presented with an opportunity to extend the lead a little further through the boot of Percival. The centre was around 40 metres out but from a central position made no mistake to push the advantage out to eight points at 12-4.
There were opportunities to build on that lead but things never quite clicked into place. Welsby was guilty of holding on to the ball with two men and a potential overlap to his left, just as Lomax had been on the right hand side of the attack at one point in the first half. Just prior to Welsby’s questionable choice Bell had been held up over the line by the increasingly overworked Moylan. Mbye was on by now and his neat grubber behind the Leigh try-line caused Moore to wonder whether Trout was guilty of a professional foul as Welsby appeared to be blocked off as he went in search of a second try on the night. Kendall saw nothing wrong so all Saints got was a goal-line dropout.
Saints were dominant as we entered the final 15 minutes but failed to ice it when Morgan Knowles couldn’t hang on to a Walmsley pass with the line seemingly wide open. Knowles was named player of the match inside the stadium and he certainly put in a decent stint. He ran for 123 metres on 19 carries, more than any Saints forward and any other Saint bar the back trio of Makinson, Welsby and Percival. The former Wales man also had the time and energy for 26 tackles. Yet the feeling remains - especially with Lees out - that Knowles would be better utilised at prop these days to allow Bell to continue to beguile us with his play making skills from loose forward.
A good 30 metres of Knowles’ overall tally came courtesy of a great late break which led to the second yellow card of the night for the Laminators Leopards. Knowles managed to find Dodd who made it all the way to within 10 metres of the Leigh line before Dwyer decided to cynically obliterate any hopes of a quick play-the-ball. He opted to lie on the Saints half for long enough to halt the momentum of the attack and earn the wrath of Moore who eventually waved the yellow card at the former Warrington man.
Apropos of nothing, with all these cards being bandied about in 2024 has anyone yet seen a referee manage to get one to emerge from his back pocket smoothly? There always seems to be an interminable period of awkwardness while he fiddles about trying to make sure that he doesn’t produce the wrong colour and inadvertently instigate a Twitter meltdown. If we’re going to have a crackdown on the rules for the good of the game someone also needs to look into making some much needed improvements to the officials’ lower half apparel.
Another shot at goal from the Dwyer sin-binning would have wasted another precious minute of the five that remained. And would very probably have extended the lead to 14-4 given the proximity of the offence to the posts. Instead Saints buckled their swash with reckless abandon - by modern standards anyway- as they spurned the opportunity and very nearly added four to their tally. Alas, Makinson put a foot on the North side whitewash before spectacularly grounding the ball from Hurrell’s pass.
There was a late Leigh flurry as time began to expire but when Lachlan Lam’s crossfield bomb was pushed dead in-goal by Bennison it was another example of the Leopards’ lack of a cutting edge, albeit against a fearsome defensive unit. This is a Saints side that has so far only conceded two tries and eight points in its first three Super League outings. That’s 0.66 tries conceded per game and 2.66 points conceded per game. When you defend that well you almost don’t need an attack for anything other than to please entertainment seekers like this writer.
Individually Saints’ best ground gainer was Makinson with 169 metres. Along with he and Knowles all of Welsby (157) Percival (124), Bell (116) and Walmsley (115) topped the century mark for the red vee. With the danger he posed particularly early in the contest it’s no surprise to see that Leutele rattled off 162 metres in the Leigh cause but he wasn’t joined in that effort by his team-mates. The only other Leopard over 100 metres on the night was O’Brien with 101.
Apart from Clark, George Delaney was the only Saint required to make more than 30 tackles as he came up with 33. Frankie Halton made 42 for Leigh, with Mulhern and O’Donnell both managing 40 and Dwyer 37 in a promising first showing for his new club. Matt Davis contributed 36 while ex-Wigan and Wire man Jack Hughes had 30 as an emergency prop. Ben Nakubuwai matched that tally also.
Both coaches will want to reduce the error count next week as Leigh came up with 10 to Saints’ 9. Not that Lam senior focused on that. Instead he used his post match jaw flap to defend the indefensible in Asiata and to bemoan the state of the pitch at the stadium that dare not speak its name. He called the Asiata sin-bin ‘outrageous’, and not because it wasn’t a red but because well…you know…if you can’t attack the knees of players from a team you’ve already damaged twice before then the game’s gone, hasn’t it?
To round off the bitch fest Lam also suggested that decisions went against his side without being willing to elaborate on what they might have been. Well, why bring it up then? Pity poor Adrian anyway. He’s still hearing Makinson’s 2020 Grand Final drop-goal attempt clang off the Hull post in his sleep. It’s little wonder he holds Saints in such contempt.
Next up for Saints is another home assignment this Friday night against Salford (March 8). The Red Devils are as close to a surprise package as we have had in the early weeks. They ran Leeds close in their opener and have since beaten Castleford and Hull KR. That last win over the Robins is something of a statement, though you sense they will need to step it up another gear or two to trouble Saints on their own patch.
Whatever Adrian Lam thinks of it.
Saints: Welsby, Makinson, Hurrell, Percival, Bennison, Lomax, Dodd, Walmsley, Clark, Mata’utia, Whitley, Sironen, Knowles. Interchanges: Bell, Wingfield, Delaney, Mbye.
Leopards: O’Brien, Briscoe, Hardaker, Leutele, Charnley, Moylan, Lam, Hughes, Dwyer, Mulhern, O’Donnell, Halton, Asiata. Interchanges: Davis, Nakubuwai, Trout, Norman
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