Saints’ bid to regain top spot in Super League fell flat as they went down narrowly to the Dragons in Perpignan on Saturday (April 6).
The Significance
Paul Wellens’ side began the Round 7 weekend top of the pile after last week’s derby win over Wigan. Yet by the end of it wins for the Warriors as well as Warrington and Hull KR as well as defeat by the French side saw Saints slump to fifth in the table as we head towards another Challenge Cup break. It is Steve McNamara’s side who now lead the way in Super League, two points clear of the four clubs behind them who are all locked on 10 points.
The Teams
Wellens came into this one without the services of Mark Percival or Matty Lees. Percival missed out due to concussion protocols after being whacked out of the derby by Liam Byrne. The Wigan prop was red carded and then handed a four-game ban at a tribunal. Yet that does nothing to help the victim or his team. Concussed players must now sit out for 11 days minimum which ensured Percival was never in with a chance of making the trip to France.
Meanwhile Lees served the first of a two-game ban for dinging former team-mate Luke Thompson in the incident immediately prior to Tyler Dupree’s sickening forearm assault on Lees. George Delaney - who had been left out of the derby squad - came back into the starting line-up while Wellens chose to deploy Sione Mata’utia at centre once more despite the presence of 18th man and specialist centre Ben Davies.
It was a move which signalled Wellens’ intent - or lack of it. If Davies is not preferable to Mata’utia (or for that matter Matt Whitley who was selected at centre for the league win over Leeds Rhinos in mid March) then he has no business being at the club. His contract runs out at the end of 2024 and it would make no sense to retain him in these circumstances. Maybe then a little bit of cap space will become available to bring in an actual centre. Waqa Blake only has a one year deal and even that doesn’t look guaranteed at present after what I will tactfully refer to as disciplinary issues emerging this week.
For now though - and for as long as Percival is either concussed or similarly injured or suspended we look like having to endure more of Wellens’ ultra conservative penchant for a second row forward in the three-quarter line. Especially if Blake’s downtime habits don’t improve.
James Bell had been banned for the Good Friday game but returned in this one to take a place on the bench alongside Joe Batchelor, Jake Wingfield and Moses Mbye.
McNamara was without his chief grub in former Wigan favourite Micky McIlorum. Alrix Da Costa stood in for him while the Dragons were also without prop Julian Bousquet so Mike McMeeken moved up from the second row where Paul Seguier slotted in. Theo Fages replaced Ugo Tison in the halves alongside Jordan Abdull and there was a boost at fullback where Arthur Mourgue returned. That meant Cesar Rouge started the game as a replacement nine but as it turned out he would spend most of it at halfback after Abdull suffered yet another injury setback.
The Game
The Dragons were first to threaten. Just six minutes had been played when Tom Johnstone produced an acrobatic attempt to dive over and effect the one handed put down in the left hand corner. Referee Liam Moore referred it to video referee James. Vella but it was clear that the ball had come free from Johnstone’s grip before he could get it to the ground.
That owed much to the defensive efforts of Konrad Hurrell who slid across and put a heavy shot on the Dragons winger. There wasn’t much arm-wrapping going on in the Tongan’s effort but neither Moore nor Vella saw anything wrong with it. Hurrell has already been suspended once this season for contact while saving a try.
At the start of March in the win over Leigh Leopards he picked up a one-game ban for head contact on Ricky Leutele while stopping the centre from breaching the Saints line. However on this occasion the Match Review Panel (MRP) have not seen fit to intervene. From which we can infer that the MRP issue bans for accidental head contact while saving a try but not for doing so with the use of a shoulder. Don’t bank on it. It could be different next week.
Just because I could I viewed this one on both the BBC and on Sky. I watched it live on the BBC and then used Sky’s coverage to get a second look for this piece. BBC pair Matt Newsum and Salford Red Devils Head Coach Paul Rowley were a lot more measured in their assessment of the quality. While acknowledging the intensity and the defensive feats on show they weren’t afraid to point out the many error strewn, scrappy periods of the game.
The same couldn’t be said of Sky’s Stuart Pyke and Kevin Brown who for the entire 80 minutes were witnessing nothing short of a classic. A great game, said Brown more than once. Yet had it been fought out between say…Castleford and Hull FC there would have been a quite different stance taken. Particularly during the patchy, ugly periods of the type immediately following Johnstone’s flying effort. Attempts to pass out simply from dummy half by both Da Costa and Whitley were laughably bad, while Mata’utia fluffed a presentable opportunity when he put down a Jack Welsby pass 10 metres from the home line. It was a basic error from the prop in the back line which Brown put down to the pass from Welsby having too much heat on it.
Things livened up when Saints took a break from pounding it up the middle and instead shifted it to the right flank. Tommy Makinson found himself in space on his own 40 but not long after crossing halfway the England winger decided to kick ahead. This despite the fact that it was the middle of the tackle count. These aren’t the kind of expansive risks I had in mind during my last lament on Saints’ style of play. Yet as a number of Dragons defenders over-ran the bouncing ball it was cleaned up by Welsby. He exchanged passes with Hurrell until on the next play Dodd shifted it left to Mata’utia who was stopped just short. The set ended with the consolation of a repeat set as Dodd’s low kick was gathered by Tariq Sims who was dragged down by Welsby.
Saints went even closer to scoring a quarter of an hour in. The ball travelled left from Morgan Knowles through the hands of Dodd, Lomax, Welsby and Mata’utia before it reached Jon Bennison on the left wing. He thought he had squeezed in at the corner but Moore was certain - without the need for video referral - that the Saints man had put a foot on the touchline. The touch judge flagged to indicate the same thing.
They were probably right and while I’ve never been in love with the concept of video refereeing it seemed strange that Moore would decline to use it. Confidence in your own decision making is great but ask Robert Hicks what happens if you get a big call wrong without using the technology when Eamonn McManus is around. What was Moore trying to prove? Or does he just no longer trust video referees after they let him down so badly in the recent World Club Challenge?
It was only a brief delay before the scoreboard ticked over for the first time. Three minutes after Bennison’s effort Welsby crossed for the opener. A couple of Johnstone errors paved the way, though the second was a necessary intervention to stop Curtis Sironen finding Makinson in space. Instead Daryl Clark and Lomax moved the ball left from the scrum which allowed Welsby to saunter through the biggest gap found in either defence all night.
It was the fullback’s fifth try in Super League in 2024 but his first since the defeat by Salford on March 8. Overall he now has 59 tries in 125 appearances for Saints. And he’s only just turned 23. Lomax couldn’t add the extras from out wide but Saints led 4-0.
Barely a quarter into the game and having just gone behind the French side were dealt another blow when Abdull was forced off. The halfback - on loan from Hull KR in one of the more eyebrow-raising deals ahead of the 2024 season - picked up a hamstring injury and was replaced by the versatile Rouge. He’d played fullback in last weekend’s win at Warrington and the plan for this one was for him to spell Da Costa at hooker. Yet now he was thrust into the main halfback role alongside Fages with almost an hour still to play.
Whereas earlier the Dragons had tried and failed to go around the Saints defence through Johnstone, it was a more direct route which got them back into the contest. Just after the half hour mark McMeeken took a pass from Da Costa 10 metres out, crashed through the attempted tackle of Jake Wingfield and managed to ground the ball despite the attentions of Welsby, Whitley and Bell. The former London Bronco and Castleford man also happened to be under the posts as he did so which made Mourgue’s conversion an easy one. Suddenly the home side had a narrow lead at 8-6.
In a low scoring game a high percentage of what scoring there was took place in a 10-minute period before the break. No sooner had McMeeken given the Dragons the lead than Makinson swung the game back in Saints’ favour.
Bell started the move which went through Dodd and Lomax and also Hurrell before Makinson got involved. He cut back slightly to wrong foot the sliding defence before burrowing down among the Catalans bodies to somehow ground the ball. It was a surprise when Moore again chose to give the try without consulting Vella (had those two fallen out?) but replays showed that the referee had got it spot on. There appeared to be a clear grounding by Makinson. If you weren’t convinced then consider that had Moore chosen to have Vella take another look he would have done so with a live call of a try. There was certainly no evidence which would have overturned that decision so the outcome would have been the same in any case. Unfortunately the outcome of Lomax’s second attempt at goal of the night was the same as that of his first. Saints still led at halftime but only by two at 8-6.
Saints hadn’t been sparkling in the first 40 minutes but it was a golden age compared to the performance in the second, particularly in attack. Before all that would unfold there was more bad news for Catalans when Johnstone was literally knocked out of the game by his own teammate. Welsby was threatening down the Saints right and in his haste to help Johnstone nullify the threat Sims leapt in to the tackle and clashed heads with his winger.
Johnstone did not move for several seconds, a fact which was all the more worrying given the ex-Wakefield man’s history of head injuries. Johnstone has spent a significant amount of time out of the game due to concussion protocols. You wince every time you see him take a bang on the head. Even more so when he doesn’t move at all as in this instance.
Finally he got to his feet and was able to walk off pretty much unaided but he would not return. With Abdull also gone McNamara was down to a bench of two with only 15 players fit. The 18th man now routinely included in a squad as part of new concussion regulations can only enter the fray if a team loses two players specifically due to concussions. Abdull’s tender hamstrings weren’t enough at this point.
When things settled down again the game provided its pivotal moment. Bell was looking among the most likely creators for Saints and it was his pass to Wingfield which put the forward almost through the defensive line close to the Dragons goal-line. He was grabbed in time but he had the presence of mind to produce a one-handed offload to the supporting Dodd. All the young half had to do was stay low and get the ball to the ground.
Inexplicably he instead decided to wait until he was two metres over the goal-line before attempting to ground the ball. By then Mourgue had made enough ground to make a tackle. Dodd was still odds on to score but was somehow held up by Mourgue in his initial attempts and then again as the pair rolled over to continue their struggle.
Moore decided he would take Vella’s help on this one and the replays showed that at no point since it came into Dodd’s possession had the ball touched what Stevo used to call terra firma in the Dragon’s in-goal area. Dodd’s continued attempts to ground the ball after he had rolled over gave him away even if the footage hadn’t. A try there would have potentially opened a two-score lead at 14-6. Though Lomax had missed his first two attempts at goal they were from difficult positions. This would have been a far more straightforward task.
Mistakes happen, of course. Dodd probably never dreamt that Mourgue would be able to prevent him from notching what would have been his fourth try of the season and a 27th in Saints colours. But in a game as close as this one - with points at an absolute premium as defences dominated - the halfback just had to take that opportunity. In that context it’s a bit of a howler from the 22 year-old and one which you just hope he learns from. Full credit must go to Mourgue however for a truly sensational defensive play of the kind that can only be made by those players who don’t know what it is to give up.
Dodd’s calamity wasn’t the only thing going against Saints at that point in proceedings. A rare promising attacking raid was cut short when Moore pulled Wingfield for a forward pass to Batchelor as the back rower looked like breaking downfield. Not only that but before the game could restart Clark had to receive treatment for a rib injury. That brought Mbye into the game with arguably mixed results, but also left Wellens with a problem not just for the remainder of this game but also in planning for the forthcoming Challenge Cup visit of Warrington.
Clark had been hit legally by Benjamin Garcia but the same description could not be given to the shot on Lomax which caused the Saints skipper to need checking over by the medical staff. He had been hit high by Navarrete, a man schooled in that kind of nefariousness at his former club. Not only was the contact high but it was directly to the head, yet no card nor even so much as a penalty was forthcoming. Lomax was spared from undergoing an HIA which was slightly surprising given that his head injury issues go back even further than Johnstone’s.
Hurrell spurned Saints’ next chance, losing the ball into touch 10 metres out after being hit by Matt Ikuvalu. The former Sydney Rooster’s challenge looked to have about as much arm involvement as Hurrell’s earlier effort. Which if nothing else proves that there is consistency sometimes. Usually when the official is getting it wrong, but every 1,000 mile journey starts with a single step.
More errors followed in the next 10 minutes, including a rare one from Bennison. Between them Rouge and Fages kicked to Bennison’s wing every single time. Clearly McNamara had no desire to see how his team would deal with Makinson’s kick returning abilities. Countless bombs rained down on Bennison and he snaffled all but one. Even that one wasn’t immediately costly as in the next set Mourgue’s attempt to find Tom Davies in space on the right rolled harmlessly into touch.
Mbye has been fairly reliable since he was brought in to replace the suddenly departed Joey Lussick towards the end of 2023. But it was his error which set up the position from which the Dragons regained the lead. He produced a filthy, rotten pass out of dummy half to Lomax who was unable to control it. From the next set Da Costa, Fages and Rouge worked the ball left to Ikuvalu who did the rest. He cut inside Hurrell and went over to the left of the posts.
Having refused to have anything to do with video refereeing for most of the night Moore wanted this one checked for a possible obstruction. His on field call was a try and there didn’t seem too much wrong with it. Pyke and Brown were having real trouble identifying the incident being reviewed. Four or five plays later - and with a bit of a squint - it was possible to see Romano make a little contact with Wingfield as he moved over to try and make a tackle he was never going to be in time for. Vella didn’t feel it was enough and I’d have to agree. If we’re disallowing tries for this we may never see a legal try scored again. Which on reflection might suit some of the grind fans out there for whom tennis scores are anathema. Mourgue booted the extra two with the aid of a post and the home side led by four at 12-8.
That lead became six just seven minutes from time. Again Mbye was involved in the loss of possession but this time he might have been entitled to expect Walmsley to hang on to it. As it was he spilled it straight into the hands of Matthieu Laguerre. There followed an altercation between Delaney and McMeeken, after the Dragons man had taken exception to the young prop’s ruck etiquette. The majority of players on both sides ran in to involve themselves without any real violence breaking out.
Moore kept his cards in his pocket but penalised Delaney for the first offence. You couldn’t help but think the Saints man had been royally stitched up by the wiser veteran. Or maybe McMeeken was just lucky the call went his way. Either way it earned his side two more points as Mourgue notched his third goal of the night for a 14-8 lead.
Saints did have one more flicker before their light went out. Hurrell tried to combine with Makinson on the right edge but his pass gave the winger an almost impossible task. All he could do was try to flick the ball back in play but even this proved beyond him as his momentum took him over the sideline.
The Stats
As you might expect from a low scoring defensive battle there weren’t too many standouts in the field of ground gaining in this one. Not a single Saints forward made it into triple figures which were is a tribute to the quality of the Dragons’ defence on the night. Saints’ top man was Welsby with 137 though I would guess the figure would be three times that if it factored in the distance he ran sideways looking for a gap in the defensive line. After that only centres Mata’utia and Hurrell came to the party. Hurrell managed 128 while Mata’utia came up with 117.
The home side struggled similarly in the pack. Davies’ 140 was there top mark while Romano contributed 109 and Mourgue 103.
Considering the defensive nature of this one it’s surprising that Saints’ only 30+ tackler was Whitley with 31, although nine others had tallies in the 20s. Da Costa was the game’s busiest defender with 43 tackles while there were 38 for Garcia and 33 for Seguier.
The stat which may be most worrying of all for Wellens - given that the game plan relies on good ball control - is that Saints came up with 14 errors, way above their 2024 average coming into this one of just under nine per game.
Matters Arising
There’s no getting away from it. Our attack is terrible. Six of the other 11 Super League teams have scored more points than Saints this season so far, including Wigan who have played a game fewer. Wellens’ side currently averages less than 20 points per game. A large slice of that is down the 40 points racked up against London Broncos on opening night. Five teams have scored more tries at this point which at least indicates that Saints might be higher in points scored had they not missed 12 attempts at goal. That’s the second worst in the league behind the 18 fluffed by Hull KR.
But why? Largely because we have no pace in the backs. Style is certainly an issue. You are not going to dazzle on the scoreboard if the height of your ambition is to get through the set. To build pressure as if that in itself will make scoring tries inevitable. Yet Kristian Woolf proved that you can still score points playing conservatively. But whereas he had Regan Grace and Kevin Naiqama in his backline and younger versions of both Makinson and Percival the current side has none of that in its favour. Hurrell can go through you but not around you while Bennison is only holding down a spot on the wing because he isn’t Tee Ritson. Rumours about Makinson’s departure at the end of the year together with the uncertainty around Blake probably make the recruitment of two wingers a must for 2025. And for God’s sake put Davies out of his misery.
So the style of play is nothing new. Saints haven’t had what you could reasonably call an expansive style since the days of Justin Holbrook. And to be quite honest it’s pretty hard to be boring when you have Ben Barba in your side. Barba was a lot of things - many of them negative - but boring was not one of them. This current Saints side is quite boring. But it’s not suddenly boring because it has lost a close game at one of the most difficult away grounds in the game. It was boring last week when it won an intense, defensive but hardly thrilling derby. The attack toiled until Byrne did it a favour and did what Wigan forwards do.
Not that any of this should make us panic. Not in the context of assessing our chances of winning trophies this year and beyond under Wellens. There’s no fire. Unless like me you want your team to entertain as well as win. If that’s your bag then I’m afraid everything is ablaze and it’s time for you to jump out of the window. But if all you want to see is Lomax lifting the Super League trophy and/or the Challenge Cup this year then your hopes should still be high.
Saints’ defence is so good that it will keep them in any game irrespective of what kind of mess the attack is in. We could bring back Travis Burns and have him repeatedly serve up drop offs to Lama Tasi like in the good old days and this defence would still keep things close. In seven games it has yielded double figures in the points column only twice. And one of those was with 12 men in the loss to Salford. It has kept opponents scoreless in eight out of 16 completed halves in league and cup. That translates to 58 points conceded in Super League so far at an average of just over eight points per game. Even Saints’ attack will score more than eight points more often than not.
The standard of this league just isn’t good enough to exclude Saints from among the favourites to take the title despite its problems with ball in hand.
Things will get easier. Warrington in the cup is a big test but the next month does not present the sort of challenge faced by the red vee in the last. Before a run of games that featured back to back clashes with Leeds before the derby and the trip to France most of us would have considered three wins from those four a decent return. Provided the one loss was not going to be the cup tie at Leeds. The fact that the one loss during that run came in the most recent fixture might have been affecting the mood, particularly at the weekend in the immediate aftermath of the loss in Perpignan.
Similarly the cup fixture is by far the most important game in the next block of four. Defeat at home to Warrington is so unusual that it has become unthinkable. Especially so in knockout football. Wellens must find a way to win that otherwise pressure on him may intensify. If he gets through that then Hull at home is currently as close to a gimme as there is in the top flight of any professional sport. It’s arguably an easier game than the one at home to London which started the campaign. The biggest questions Wellens is likely to face after that one are about how many points his side will run up. Everyone else seems to be hitting 50 against the black and whites. Even the hardly gung ho Huddersfield Giants have managed it twice.
Ian Watson’s side provide the next opponent after that in a Thursday night game on April 25. Saints have already nilled the Giants once this season in what is also widely regarded as their best attacking performance of the season also. It’s hard to argue, though that might be because the other displays have been so underwhelming. Saints scored two wonderful tries at the end of that 28-0 win which may have lingered in the memory and distorted the view of what had gone before.
Following that Hull KR away from is a huge test even when the Robins are struggling. Now that they have established themselves as a major threat it will be even more taxing. Like Salford before them Rovers are perhaps one of the teams better suited to playing against Saints’ monstrous defence. Willie Peters side will likely try to go around Saints than through them. They are unlikely to be under the misapprehension that they can win a grind against the team that is - despite the latest setback - the benchmark if you want to see how real grinding goes down.
We probably shouldn’t pay any mind to the over reactors on social media who see one admittedly colourless defeat and want a coaching change. But if I may just defend Wellens for the record I’m not convinced the problems with the team are entirely his doing. He could do with coming up with a bit more variety in the attacking game plan not to mention in the kicking game, but he has inherited an ageing squad who have had a conservative style of rugby drummed into them since Barba and Holbrook made their exits. We are a third of the way into Wellens’ second season which for my money is way too soon to be questioning his position.
Especially since he’s won a world title, made two semi-finals and started this season with five wins out of seven and presides over one of the best defensive teams the league has ever seen. Perhaps you’d reasonably argue that semi-finals aren’t quite good enough but that probably indicates that you weren’t around in the 80s when winning trophies was an occasional dream we had. The success Saints have had during the Super League era has given birth to a rampant sense of entitlement. But even in that context Keiron Cunningham made it into a third season. Wellens should at least be afforded that luxury whether I enjoy watching his team play or not.
Catalans Dragons: Mourgue, Davies, Romano, Ikuvalu, Johnstone, Fages, Abdull, McMeeken, Da Costa, Navarrete, Sims, Seguier, Garcia. Interchanges: Laguerre, Rouge, Satae, Maria
Saints: Welsby, Makinson, Hurrell, Mata’utia , Bennison, Lomax, Dodd, Walmsley, Clark, Delaney, Whitley, Sironen, Knowles. Interchanges: Bell, Wingfield, Mbye, Batchelor.
Referee: Liam Moore
Video Referee: James Vella
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