Table toppers going into the weekend of Round 7, Saints face a tough assignment to guarantee ending the weekend top of the pile when they visit Catalans Dragons on Saturday night (April 6, kick-off 8.05pm).
Paul Wellens’ side climbed to the Super League summit with a 12-4 win over Wigan on Good Friday. That ended the Warriors 15-match unbeaten run in the league and showed that actually - despite their hubristic and incessant barfing on about their recruitment - they haven’t pulled away from the most successful side in the Super League era. Both sides now have one league defeat on their record in 2024, with Saints having gone down to Salford following Mark Percival’s red card a month ago,
The centre served a two-match suspension for that and is out again for the trip to France. This time his absence is due to concussion protocols. Percival failed a head injury assessment (HIA) after being clobbered high by the shoulder of Liam Byrne. The Wigan man was handed a four-game ban at a tribunal hearing this week.
He’s not the only one involved in the Good Friday Disagreement who faces a suspension as a result. Saints will be without Matty Lees for two matches - this one against the other 2023 Grand Finalists and next week’s Challenge Cup quarter-final visit by Warrington - after the Match Review Panel (MRP) took a dim view of a shot on duplicitous, traitorous two-time Grand Final winner with Saints Luke Thompson.
Lees clearly wanted to make an impression on his former colleague but in doing so could not avoid the kind of head contact that gets you sat down these days. There’s maybe an argument that a one-match ban would have sufficed but this is far from Lees’ first citing by the MRP, a fact which tends to go against him.
Lees is one of three from last week’s 21-man selection who is not involved this week. The most intriguing of these is probably Waqa Blake. There are some fairly unsavoury rumours circulating on the usual platforms about alleged breaches of discipline from Blake last weekend. These may or may not involve some rather low brow local watering holes and/or individuals among the female population of St Helens. We can’t really speculate too much but what we do know is that he is not playing in France.
It was some surprise and frankly a disappointment that he didn’t play against Wigan either, but it means that only Percival will need to be replaced from the Good Friday three-quarter line. Ahead of fullback Jack Welsby Tommy Makinson made a glorious return from missing the double header with Leeds while Konrad Hurrell’s try put the seal on the win over Matty Peet’s ‘Invincibles’ at the end. Jon Bennison was the man preferred to Blake on the left wing and looks in line to make his 46th appearance for the club this week.
Which just leaves Percival’s centre spot to fill. Wellens has talked this week about how keen Ben Davies is to be the man for the job but that enthusiasm won’t necessarily get him into the side. If he wasn’t the man when Percival was suspended and he wasn’t the man to come in even when he was named as 18th man specifically to cover for players lost to head injuries then he is unlikely to be the man this week.
Which means that Wellens - a man who scored almost 200 tries in Super League and made almost 500 appearances for Saints in some of the most flamboyant sides in history will be taking the conservative option of relying on a back rower to fill the void. Don’t expect either Matt Whitley or Sione Mata’utia to go the length of the field to score but what you can expect as ever is for the Saints defence to be formidable.
Another question Wellens has been forced to contemplate this week is the one about Lewis Dodd’s future. There was some talk last year about the halfback trying his luck in the NRL when his Saints contract runs out at the end of this season. That idea seems to be back on the agenda but Wellens has declared himself relaxed about the situation. That’s either because he knows Dodd wants to stay, because he has a brilliant replacement in mind or…because like me he’s not really convinced that Dodd will get a halfback gig in the NRL. His kicking game still lacks variety while his decision to take on Jai Field following an early break in the derby was a mind-blowingly naive one. If Dodd is NRL material I’d still venture the opinion that he isn’t ready yet. For now he continues to learn and improve alongside the captain and quite often the dominant half Jonny Lomax.
The hole left by Lees has a couple of obvious candidates competing to fill it. George Delaney should be delirious with hunger to play after being left out of the 17 on derby day. Prior to that he had featured in the last seven matches dating back to the home playoff win over Warrington in September. He may get the nod to start in a front row also boasting Alex Walmsley and ex-Wolf Daryl Clark.
The alternative could be Morgan Knowles whose switches between prop and loose forward vary so little in style that they are barely visible. James Bell is back from a one-game ban picked up for an alleged hip drop in the cup win at Leeds so Wellens has the option to switch Knowles without losing anything at loose forward. Based on what Wellens has opted for so far this term expect Knowles to start at 13 and Delaney at prop with alterations on hold until the introduction of Bell from the bench. The rest of the back row should feature Curtis Sironen alongside whichever of Mata’utia and Whitley is not pressed into the centre role.
That bench will probably feature Joe Batchelor after he passed an HIA despite not returning to the fray on Good Friday. Jake Wingfield is another fixture there since his return after missing the final four months of the 2023 campaign. Add Bell and that leaves one more spot, likely to be filled by the versatile Moses Mbye.
The Dragons are another team with only one league loss on the slate in 2024. That came at Headingley in Round Three as the ropey Rhinos found one of their better performances of the season so far. They are also the team who ended Saints’ quest for five Grand Final wins in a row when THAT late Sam Tomkins try took the French side past Saints and into their second Grand Final in three seasons. They lost both, but remain a serious contender to reach Old Trafford again come October 12.
Sironen will be disappointed to note that one of the three Dragons to miss out from the 21 on duty from their last fixture - a 32-24 win at Warrington - will be his brother Bayley. The others are impactful forward Jordan Dezaria and prolific tank on the flank Fouad Yaha. He has scored 67 tries in 110 Dragons appearances but is now finding appearances harder to come by with Toms Davies and Johnstone also at the club. Rumours that our own Tommy on the wing will be joining them for 2025 and a little beyond don’t seem to be going away.
Fullback Arthur Mourge is one of the returning trio which should give McNamara’s side a running threat from kick returns. In the centres Adam Keighran has moved on to Wigan so perhaps Arthur Romano and Mathieu Laguerre will battle it out to partner former Sydney Rooster Matt Ikuvalu.
The French side made an eye-catching loan move for Hull KR halfback Jordan Abdull in the off season, and also took former Saint Theo Fages from Huddersfield Giants. In the absence of explosive stand-off and former Roosters and Melbourne Storm man Jayden Nikorima we may see Abdull and Fages link up in the halves.
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