While the nation furrows its collective brow over where best to play Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham in England’s 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 formation there is still some rugby league going on.
Saints had a rest last weekend as Warrington meekly surrendered to Wigan in the Challenge Cup final. Paul Wellens’ side returned on Sunday (June 16) with a routine 52-6 win over the London Broncos at The Stoop. In so doing they returned to the top of the table and earned another substantial boost in the points difference column with a nine-try performance which at times resembled not much more than a training run.
Regular readers won’t need reminding of my view that IMG are responsible for making it pretty much impossible for the Broncos to compete this year so we need not go over that soggy old ground again. Suffice to say that Mike Eccles’ side are cruelly out of their depth. After this result and Hull FC’s win over Leeds this weekend the capital club are now marooned alone at the bottom of the table with just one solitary win. Though if it is any consolation to the Broncos Leeds were so embarrassed by that result that it cost Head Coach Rohan Smith his job.
Wellens named exactly the same 17 that had played in Saints’ previous game, a 24-12 home win over Catalans Dragons on May 31. That meant Jonny Lomax, Morgan Knowles, Matt Whitley, Alex Walmsley, Joe Batchelor and Jake Wingfield were all still missing. There had been speculation in the week that youngsters Harry Robertson and Jake Burns might get an opportunity but in the end Wellens stuck with the tried and tested.
Eccles brought ex-Dragon Ugo Tison in for Sam Davies at hooker while Ethan Natoli started in the back row ahead of Sadiq Adebiyi who was on the bench. Emmanuel Waine hadn’t featured since the Broncos opening night defeat at Saints back in February but was also among the interchanges.
Saints’ already concerning injury problems worsened almost immediately. Returning his first territorial kick Tommy Makinson got up hobbling after being tackled. The winger is in his final season with Saints after agreeing to join Catalans Dragons for 2025. His remaining appearances in the red vee (or black as on this occasion) are reduced further with the news that he sustained a foot injury which will keep him out for around four to six weeks.
There is another blank weekend coming up for the mid season international against France but the injury still looks likely to keep Makinson out of back to back games against Wigan and Warrington on July 12 and 19 respectively as well as tricky assignments at Salford and Leigh. The only people of a Saints persuasion who might be enthused by this are Jon Bennison and Tee Ritson, one of whom looks likely to fill in during Makinson’s absence.
Limited to the 17 he had selected in the immediate term Wellens had to turn to Ben Davies. He has spent much of 2024 as 18th man for Saints but got his opportunity here. He ended up playing on the left wing with Waqa Blake switching sides to fill the hole left by Makinson on the right. By the six-minute mark Blake had his name on the scoresheet. Moses Mbye - still operating in the halves with Lomax out - lobbed up an accurate kick left to right which Blake snaffled and did well to ground as he landed. The grounding was sent for a check by referee James Vella where it got the nod from video referee Tom Grant. Percival’s first conversion of the afternoon had Saints 6-0 up.
Six minutes later they could and maybe should have added to that advantage. Jack Welsby fought his way over to the right of the posts from Daryl Clark’s pass but was adjudged to have been held up by Grant on review. His view was that there was always a London hand under the ball keeping it off the ground. I’m not sure he was looking at the same replays as I was. Although there was a Broncos player touching the ball at the attempted grounding it looked like at least part of it had found the turf. If any part of the ball touches the ground on or over the goal line then a try should be awarded. That’s the law, isn’t it?
It wasn’t an extended reprieve for Eccles’ men. Three minutes later Mbye found an exquisite cut out ball across the face of Konrad Hurrell to Blake who dived over untouched for his second of the afternoon. After an unconvincing start to his Saints career the former Parramatta Eels man now has nine tries in 13 Saints appearances. That tally puts him second among Saints’ top try scorers for 2024 behind only Welsby and inside the top 10 across Super League. Another Percival two-pointer had Saints 12-0 to the good.
Mbye was having a major influence on proceedings and he did so again for Saints’ third try inside the opening quarter. He stepped past one bewildered defender and made a half break before handing on to Sione Mata’utia in support. The ex-Newcastle Knight - back in the second row to help bolster what is fast becoming a jinxed and injury plagued department - took it all the way to the Broncos 10 before finding Lewis Dodd on his shoulder for an easy walk in. It was Dodd’s fifth try of his final season with Saints before his move to South Sydney next year. Percival was on the mark again and Saints led 18-0.
Having already directly or indirectly created Saints’ first three tries Mbye was next to go over. It was all very simple and rather too easy as he received the ball from the combination of Clark, Dodd and James Bell to dive over and ground the ball under pressure from Jarred Bassett and Oli Leyland. It was Mbye’s third try of the season but just his fifth for Saints since joining from St George-Illawarra to replace Joey Lussick in August of last year. He has played in almost every position throughout his career but is currently looking very comfortable as a midfield playmaker. The level of opposition has to be considered here but so far in 2024 whenever Dodd or Lomax have been unavailable Mbye has stood up extremely well. In particular he adds some variety to the kicking game.
Percival made it four out of four with the boot to push the lead out to 24-0.
Welsby may be Saints leading try scorer with 11 so far this term but he couldn’t quite get things to click into place in this one. He was next to be presented with an opportunity when Curtis Sironen broke the line and found the fullback in space. The normally clinical Welsby seemed to have endless options open to him and it was some surprise that he chose the one least likely to come off. Perhaps out of sheer boredom at the mismatch or maybe a desire to get Davies over for a try he opted to kick ahead but could only skew it into touch.
The Broncos survived another assault on their line late in the half when Noah Stephens was denied his maiden Saints try by Grant on review. The big scouse prop - playing in only his fourth first team game - looked to have twisted over from Clark’s pass. However replays showed that he had been tackled short and been unable to resist the temptation to reach out and plonk the ball over the line. He was penalised for a double movement but his first Saints score doesn’t look too far away if he continues to run with the power and positivity that he has shown so far in his young career. His emergence probably owes much to the injury to Walmsley but it has been such a boost for Wellens to see how Stephens has handled the step up from Academy and reserve level.
He’s the present and the future, but now let me take you back 21 years. Stephens wasn’t even born when Saints beat the Broncos 62-16 at dog shit infested, accessibility vacuum Knowsley Road. I mention this otherwise unremarkable game because it was the last time - until this latest meeting with the Broncos - that a Saints hooker had scored a hat-trick of tries. Search all you like and you will somehow not find a triple on the CV of the great James Roby. Not even in a record breaking 551 Saints appearances in which he crossed the try line 117 times.
It won’t surprise you to know that statued legend Keiron Cunningham got over for a hat-trick all those years ago. It’s a good deal more remarkable to consider that his then pre-Roby understudy Mickey Higham also grabbed himself three meat pies that day. Yet I’m willing to wager that neither of these two former nines managed to score their tries as quickly as the eight minutes it took Clark to do it.
The former Warrington man’s first took Saints to the 30-point mark. Dodd put Bell through a hole and although Adebiyi clung on to him as desperately as Rishi Sunak clings to power he was able to find a smart one-handed offload to Clark on his inside. His pace was more than enough to take him over. Percival landed another two points to a growing career tally. More on that later.
For now we still have two thirds of a sensational hat-trick to discuss. It was Bell again who was the creative force as Clark displayed a Shaun Edwards-like desire to support the ball carrier. This time Bell waltzed around a pretty ordinary defensive effort from Lewis Bienek and again offered Clark a pleasant jog over the line. It looked easy but the skill is in knowing when to back up the ball carrier and being willing to make the run. Clark has doubtless made hundreds of similar runs throughout his career which have not seen him receive a pass and not yielded him a four-pointer. But you just keep going I guess. It’s what made Danny McGuire Super League’s all-time try scorer until his mark of 247 was broken by his former Leeds team-mate, 62 year-old Ryan Hall last week. By this point a Percival conversion was becoming a gimme and the table toppers led 36-0.
Yet Clark was not finished. He completed his treble but this time without the involvement of Bell. Mata’utia was the architect as he had been for Dodd earlier. He broke the line and found Welsby on Saints’ right edge. Welsby kept his cool this time, dismissing any notions of needless kicking which might have raced through his mind to instead just turn the ball back inside to Clark to finish the fastest hat-trick I’ve seen since Robbie Fowler shredded Arsenal for three in about four and a half minutes in 1994. Percival’s Fowler-esque unerring accuracy had Saints 42-0 up with almost half an hour to play.
To be brutally honest there was an element of Saints stepping off the gas at this point. Had they displayed the ruthlessness they did at Castleford a few weeks ago the score could have gone beyond ugly. Credit has to be given though to the Broncos who did not completely fold in the way the Tigers did on that occasion. By the way, has anybody checked out why it is that Wigan get to play the weakest Cas side in living memory every week? Seems a bit odd. Perhaps the undisputed kings of rugby league are in a false position.
I digress. With the contest having ended some considerable time ago Wellens was able to give some much needed game time to those who need it. Chief among these is perhaps Sam Royle. The back rower was making only his second appearance of 2024 after featuring in the win over the Dragons last time out. With so many injury problems in the back row Royle - who has slipped well down the pecking order since the arrival of Sironen and Whitley in particular - may be someone we come to rely on at times. In this one he carried the ball only four times for 21 metres but chipped in with nine tackles.
Percival’s main contribution to this performance had to this point been his usual disregard for his own safety on kick returns and other carries early in the tackle count as well as his accuracy with the boot. He thought he had got over for a well deserved try when Clark and Welsby combined to put him in at the left corner. However, the forensic nit-picking which currently plagues all sports again intervened as the play was reviewed. Vella’s initial call was a try but he was unsure enough to send it up to Grant for further examination of a possible obstruction by Mata’utia. He acted as a dummy runner in the build-up and was ultimately found guilty of running into a defender’s outside shoulder and denying him an opportunity to get across to make the tackle.
Had Mata’utia run at the defender’s outside shoulder and then failed to run through a gap in the defensive line I’d get it. But there were two Broncos defenders virtually on top of each other in the space that should have existed for Mata’utia to run through. There was no gap, so he had nowhere else to go but into the defenders. Defenders who had made that defensive decision to be there. Grant didn’t see it that way and overruled Vella’s original call of a try.
With 10 minutes left Saints registered their eighth try of the night. Mbye was involved again, albeit in quite fortunate circumstances as his 40/20 attempt bounced off Hakim Miloudi before finding its mark. It was the first 40/20 of 2024 by any Saint let alone Mbye. Make your own mind up about whether that means that they haven’t been required or that Saints don’t really have a player who is a consistent threat in this facet of the game. A bit of both, maybe.
In the ensuing set Welsby found Hurrell who had too much strength for Jarred Bassett or Oli Leyland. Like many of Saints tries in the day it was scored out wide and this time Percival couldn’t tack on the extras. He hit the post for his only miss of the night. However his general improvement continues to the extent that only Salford’s Marc Sneyd has more goals than Percival’s 46 in 2024. The two should meet on the same field this week as Saints visit the Red Devils. The race to 50 Super League goals could be a diverting subplot. It’s noticeable that Percival has been working hard on getting his kicks from the right hand touchline - arguably the most difficult spot for a right-footed goalkicker - to curl back in towards the posts having started well outside. There are several exponents of this skill in the NRL and it looks like Percival has been paying keen attention to them.
Of course he’d probably still tell you that his principle role is to score tries. Having already been denied one he made amends when he was first to Dodd’s grubber to the in-goal. Percival now has 121 tries and 339 goals for an overall points tally for Saints of 1162. If only he’d found this goalkicking consistency at the start of his career he could have been challenging Kel Coslett’s club record mark of 3413 points. He was back on target to convert his own try, taking Saints over the half century into the bargain as they led 52-0.
As good as Mbye was and has been this term he’s not infallible. His inability to find touch with a penalty late in the game ultimately led to the loss of Saints’ clean sheet. It would have been a third of the season for the number one defence in Super League having previously shut out Huddersfield Giants and Hull FC. Instead it allowed London a last chance to flip field position which they did through a 45 metre break by the ever willing Bassett. He was only stopped from going all the way by a Clark ankle tap which allowed Dodd to finish the job of getting the Broncos centre to the turf.
With field position established James Meadows executed a perfect kick to the right wing where Lee Kershaw was able to take control and ground the ball to finally get his side off the duck egg. Wellens admitted in his post match interview that the concession of that late score stung. Even as a fan it was strangely annoying. That feeling must be magnified when you spend your working days trying to ensure that things like that don’t happen to your team. Wellens can console himself in the knowledge that Saints have conceded only 142 points in their 14 Super League outings in 2024. That’s an average of only 10 points per game.
You’ll always have a chance of winning any game if you can do that but the fear is that the sides who have racked up points against Saints - namely Hull KR in the league and Warrington in the Challenge Cup - have done it by getting good, quick ball to their edges where they know Saints have a pace problem. The loss of Makinson will do little to ease those fears.
Individually Mata’utia’s performance stands out. He racked up 160 metres on 16 carries and had a crucial hand in two of Saints’ tries. Stephens bagged his first 100 metre+ game, making 129 metres on just 12 carries. Hurrell matched that figure but needed 17 carries to get there.
Other significant metre makers for Saints were Blake with 110, Bell with 106, Delaney with 103 and Sironen with 102. London’s best effort was the 91 managed by Bassett, much of which came on that late break.
Eccles’ side were busy defensively and the stats show that with Jacob Jones making 42 tackles. Natoli had 39 while Kennedy and Marcus Stock each had 33. Saints were not pressed into nearly as much defensive activity. Clark only needed to make 22 tackles to lead his side in that category.
Now you know I said I was concerned about sides who play expansively exploiting our pace issues? Well this weekend Saints go to Salford, perhaps the poster boys for this type of game plan in recent years. They are undergoing some turmoil off the field with Ian Blease having left to become Sporting Director at Leeds Rhinos leading to the inevitable resurfacing of links with Red Devils boss Paul Rowley. Yet if they can keep all of that out of their minds then in the likes of Sneyd, Tim Lafai, Nene McDonald and company they have the weapons to threaten Saints.
They should provide an interesting test to say the least.
London Broncos: Walker, Kershaw, Storey, Bassett, Miloudi, Leyland, Meadows, Bienek, Tison, Kennedy, Lovell, Natoli, Jones. Interchanges: Adebiyi, Williams, Stock, Waine
Saints: Welsby, Makinson, Hurrell, Percival, Blake, Mbye, Dodd, Delaney, Clark, Lees, Sironen, Mata’utia, Bell. Interchanges: Paasi, Royle, Davies, Stephens
Referee: James Vella
Video Referee: Tom Grant
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