We have to start with Rob Burrow.
On Sunday (June 2) it was announced that the former Leeds Rhinos star had passed away after a five-year battle with motor neurone disease. He was just 41 years old and leaves a wife and three young children.
Motor neurone disease is something which has impacted my life. I lost my dad to MND in November 2020. It was different. Quicker. There was no gradual decline into severe disability. He never needed to use a wheelchair or a machine to help him hold conversations. He could still look after himself physically. At the end, although we were all devastated to lose him, my family and I all reflected that he would probably have preferred it that way. He was a proud, active man who - like Burrow - only retired two years before his death.
At the end of Burrow's trophy-laden career and following his cruel diagnosis, he embarked on something even more important. Together with former team mates like Kevin Sinfield he established a foundation to raise funds and awareness of MND. It's badly needed. At present nobody knows how to even treat the disease to slow it down let alone cure it.
My dad's experience when compared with Burrow's or with the 50-odd years that Stephen Hawking lived with it seem to suggest that there must be different variants of it. Why does one person like my dad die within two weeks of diagnosis without losing all of of his functions while others like Burrow and Doddie Weir live for only a few years? How did Hawking live for so long with it? We know so little about it so it is vital that the great work started by Burrow continues.
I never met Burrow but I can say that of all those in that Rhinos team of superstars during the 2010s he seemed to be the one who other fans always respected without a grudge. Maybe that stemmed from the fact that he was of diminutive stature but was still able to physically mix it in one of the world's toughest, most physical sports.
Allied to that courage he had many gifts. Pace, both off the mark and in full flow. Elusiveness. Skill in abundance. His try against Saints in the 2011 Grand Final hurt at the time but looking back on it now it clearly encapsulates all of those qualities. It is perhaps the greatest of all Grand Final tries.
Burrow gave the sport many such moments. But it is the dignity and courage in those final five years of his life which is most impressive. Not only did he face it with extraordinary bravery, but he also managed to turn it into a positive with the establishment of the foundation. I look forward to the day when that work comes to fruition so that one day others may not have to endure what he did, and their families won't have to suffer with them.
Take a moment then, perhaps a deep breath, as we come back to the relatively humdrum business of Saints' win over Catalans Dragons on Friday night (May 31).
It was a win which preserved Paul Wellens’ side’s position at the top of the Super League tree going into another Challenge Cup recess. The lead is slender. Only points difference separates Saints from old foes Wigan Warriors. Matty Peat’s side could reclaim top spot with a win over Leigh Leopards in their game in hand whenever that takes place. But for now they have cup matters very much on their minds as they get set to face Warrington in this weekend’s Wembley showpiece.
Meanwhile the Dragons have slipped quietly out of the top four for now. This result coupled with Hull KR’s 12-0 success over the Leopards sees the Robins sneak into fourth spot. More worryingly for Dragons coach Steve McNamara is the fact that his side have now lost four of their last five league games. Their only win during that spell was a 26-0 home triumph over a Leeds Rhinos side which is currently in a state of disrepair under Rohan Smith.
Coming into this one the big question on selection was what Wellens was going to do about the absence of Jonny Lomax. The skipper suffered a fractured hand in the win over Leeds a week previously and is likely to be out for a month.
Jack Welsby replaced Lomax in the armband wearing duties but not - as it turned out - in the halves. Instead Moses Mbye was given the nod to start alongside halfback Lewis Dodd. This meant sacrificing the inventiveness and explosiveness that Welsby could potentially offer in favour of the chance to control proceedings more tightly with the Mbye kicking game. It was a selection completely in keeping with the Head Coach’s current methods and the limitations of the squad currently available to him.
Up front Saints were already without long term absentees Alex Walmsley, Matt Whitley and Jake Wingfield while Morgan Knowles’ groin injury continues to keep him out. Not ideal then that Joe Batchelor picked up an ankle injury against the Rhinos which will probably see him miss the next two months also.
In response Wellens moved Sione Mata’utia back to his familiar second row slot and introduced prop George Delaney from the start. The bench was therefore a relatively inexperienced one featuring all of Ben Davies, Sam Royle and Noah Stephens.
They were joined by Agnatius Paasi, taking part in his first game for the first team since his knee was assaulted by Leigh grub John Asiata in a Challenge Cup semi-final all the way back in July of last year. It’s been a long road back for Paasi who seems to have had the misfortune of regaining fitness at a time when senior props are at a premium at Saints. Reliance on the ex-New Zealand Warrior threatens to climb unfairly high.
The Dragons were without Mike McMeeken and hooker Alrix Da Costa. Also out were centre Arthur Romano and back rower Paul Seguier. McNamara switched fullback Arthur Mourgue to hooker and brought in Cesar Rouge as the last line of defence. Julian Bousquet started in the back row with Jordan Dezaria at prop alongside ex-Wiganer Romain Navarrete.
It took 10 minutes but it was the Dragons who struck first. Jordan Abdull’s form has been widely panned since his loan move from Hull KR but he showed his qualities in creating Tom Johnstone’s opener. The halfback placed a wonderfully weighted low kick into the Saints in-goal area where Johnstone had read the situation and was waiting to win the race to touch down. His position may have been unfamiliar but Mourgue kept hold of the goal-kicking role and duly put the Dragons 6-0 up from out wide.
Now I promised some of you that I wouldn’t moan about kits. Yet by contrast I also promised one of you that if everything went well in the game and there wasn’t a great deal to moan about then the kit situation might get a few inches in the column. Saints had decided - for reasons of naked economic bottom line-ery - to wear their black away kit for this one. Great news for anyone who has forked out whatever unreasonable price is charged for it (you can tell I don’t buy replica shirts any more). If you’re going to stump up for it you want to see the side playing in it occasionally.
However - and this is only a theory - it may not have been such great news for the players. Starting with a Mark Percival offloadwhich was intercepted by Bousquet in the first few minutes Saints made a number of inadvertent passes to opposition players on the night. The next was gratefully received by Bousquet again as this time Curtis Sironen attempted an offload deep in Dragons territory.
There were a few others as the game progressed which I may have thought nothing of had the Dragons not been wearing their customary white with a yellow and red vee. They looked more like Saints than Saints did and it would be no surprise to learn that the players were troubled by this at times.
There is precedent. Remember Manchester United getting thrashed at Southampton many years ago after which crack morale protector Sir Alex Ferguson blamed the eventual 6-3 defeat on the rather dull gray shirts his side were rocking. Now, to blame it all on that alone would be the kind of theory favoured by one of the Southampton players involved that day. But it’s not beyond the realms to believe it had an influence on some level.
Ten minutes before halftime Saints started making their way back into the game. They got on the scoreboard through Konrad Hurrell who went over on the right edge. Daryl Clark combined with Dodd and Mbye to find Welsby who dummied the last defender out of the equation. The time needed for that manoeuvre was such that his eventual pass to Hurrell might have looked a tad on the forward side.
However forward passes are one area as yet unsullied by the scourge of video review technology and so it mattered not. Percival has clearly been working hard on the goal-kicking and started another accurate night by nailing this conversion from the south touchline to square the game at 6-6.
There were a couple of flashpoints throughout the evening but perhaps none more so than the one three minutes after Hurrell’s try which saw the visitors temporarily reduced to 12 men. Delaney was carrying the ball hard towards the defensive line when he was met with a hard, suspiciously high shot by Franck Maria. There followed a check on Delaney’s wellbeing and the tell tale delay before referee Aaron Moore invited Maria to take a 10-minute rest. He explained that it was yellow and not red because the first contact had been with the top of Delaney’s back before sliding up to the head.
You can make that argument, although the logistics of hitting someone on the back before accidentally sliding up to the head are a difficult thing to conceive of. What we do know is that if Maria’s challenge was not a red card then there has been some shift in policy from the early weeks of the season.
This was an automatic red in February or March but only a sin-bin now. Some would welcome that arguing not unreasonably that the game was too sanitised at the start of the year. And yet others would be forgiven for wondering what has changed. If there had to be a crackdown to protect the sport from lawsuits from ex-players then how do we have leniency now? It’s little wonder there is still a sense of confusion on the issue.
Naturally the challenge from Maria had provoked the bog standard rugby league reaction. Players on both sides running in, offering each other a variety of verbals and the odd shirt grab without ever really threatening to develop into anything resembling a fight. As the dust was settling Paasi distracted the home crowd by making his long awaited entrance to proceedings.
The Tongan could be crucial for Saints further down the line with all the injury problems Wellens faces but for now it was just wonderful to see the big man get back on to the field. In his absence there have been many who have been quick to doubt whether his return would ever happen. That it has is a testament to his hard work and determination and that of the medical people behind the scenes at Saints.
Before Maria could get back on the field Saints had taken the lead. Mata’utia was the beneficiary when Dodd followed his own lob to tip the ball back ahead of Rouge. It fell kindly to Mata’utia who had the relatively simple task of controlling the ball and falling over the line. Percival’s second goal of the night made it 12-6 in Saints favour.
Five minutes later a spot of indiscipline from Tariq Sims set up Saints’ next score. The former St George-Illawarra man was high on Mbye to set up the field position. A week previously Tommy Makinson celebrated his 200th try for Saints. After recently announcing that he will leave the club at the end of the season he won’t be getting to 300. Yet he still was able to start that third century when he took Welsby’s pass to walk over in the right corner.
Again Clark, Dodd and Mbye were involved before Welsby delivered the final blow. The fullback spotted that Matthieu Laguerre had pre-emptively jumped out of the defensive line and so filled the space left by the centre before offering Makinson one of the easiest of his 201 finishes. Percival was finding it easy too, landing another touchline monster for an 18-6 advantage.
The reintroduction of Paasi rather stole some of the thunder which teenage prop Noah Stephens had been enjoying since his debut at Castleford in early May. He reminded us not to forget about him with a couple of barnstorming runs. One of those could and should have provided Saints’ next try. Defenders trailed in Stephens’ wake when he got his arms free on halfway to find the supporting James Bell. The pass was possibly that of a slightly over excited player who could still use a lesson or two on poise, but it should have been taken by Bell. As it was it bounced off his shoulder and the chance disappeared.
Anything Stephens could do Welsby can do. That includes big yardage breaks. Collecting the ball in the dangerous world that is the shadow of his own post the stand-in skipper shredded the defensive line and began motoring down the field. Only none of his teammates had gone with him. Not one had anticipated that he would get that far from the position Saints were in. But this is Jack Welsby we’re talking about. Expect the unexpected.
Saints were arguably cut a sizeable break for the try which sealed the win. Just over a quarter of an hour remained when Matty Lees put the result beyond doubt. Magic boots from Clark saw the hooker dab the ball behind the Dragons try-line where Lees was wide awake to it to touch down. Moore took the opportunity to make sure the ball hadn’t gone over the dead ball line before Lees’ put down and to check that there had been sufficient downward pressure from the England front rower. Neither were a problem and with Percival’s fourth goal of the night Saints led 24-6.
Yet on the play before that Saints had been given head and feed in a scrum close to the Dragons line when perhaps the call might have gone the other way. Matt Ikuvalu was adjudged to have knocked on from another Dodd high ball yet replays suggested that Waqa Blake might have got the touch.
The Dragons once came from 18 points down with five minutes to go to beat Saints. That was at Magic Weekend in the open spaces of Newcastle United’s St James’ Park. This one never felt like a repeat of that miracle could be on the cards but the French side did get the final score of the night through Bousquet. It was former Saint Theo Fages who fed Bousquet close to the line where he went over through a couple of ordinary tackle attempts from Lees and Sironen. Mourgue’s second goal reduced the arrears to 12 at 24-12 but there were few serious alarms thereafter.
If I told you that Saints’ back three were the chief metre eaters it probably wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. That’s the way we’ve played for a number of years and it’s exacerbated by Walmsley’s continued absence. Top man was Percival who as well as kicking goals managed to take the Dragons defence for 149 metres. Makinson is always asked to work far harder than is good for him and his 138 metres illustrate that this night was no different. Welsby added 127 and Blake 117 on a big night for the backs.
Saints’ top forward was Sironen with 105. No other pack man reached the century mark but the 10 metres per carry managed by Paasi and the 47 metres on just five attempts from Stephens show that there are ethers who are highly capable of stepping up when required. Which they almost certainly will be in the coming weeks.
The big metres were also in the backs for the visitors. Makinson will likely replace Tom Davies at the Dragons after the latter announced his departure at the end of the year. Yet the former Wigan man showed his worth with a team leading 135 metres. Ikuvalu managed 106 and Johnstone 100.
It was another hard working defensive effort from Lees who managed 40 tackles to go with his first try of the campaign. Clark had 38, Sironen 36. Delaney and Bell also topped 30 with 33 and 30 respectively. On the Dragons side Benjamin Garcia matched Lees’ effort of 40 stops but none of his teammates could muster even 30.
As alluded to earlier there is no Saints action this coming weekend as our favourite pair of enemies clash under the Arch at Wembley. It’s an opportunity for those who Wellens feels might need a rest to get it, but it doesn’t really offer a realistic chance to get bodies back on the field for the trip to London on Father’s Day (June 16) such is the long term nature of most of the injuries. Yet together with the international break on the weekend of June 29-30 it is at least a week of healing time that will go by without those players missing a game.
London away is as close to a gimme as there is in professional sport thanks to their IMG debacle. Yet Saints will have to be really on it in both attack and defence to get any change out of Salford on their patch a week later.
It’s a testing time but for now we can be satisfied that in terms of results at least the red vee are travelling better than some of us had feared.
Saints: Welsby, Makinson, Hurrell, Percival, Blake, Mbye, Dodd, Delaney, Clark, Lees, Sironen, Mata’utia, Bell. Interchanges: Royle, Davies, Stephens, Paasi
Dragons: Rouge, Davies, Ikuvalu, Laguerre, Johnstone, Fages, Abdull, Navarrete, Mourgue, Dezaria, Sims, Bousquet, Garcia. Interchanges: Nikorima, Satae, Maria, Castano.
Referee: Aaron Moore
Video Referee: Jack Smith
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