At what point can you call it a crisis?
There are a good number of Saints fans who haven’t been shy at dusting off the c-word after they saw their side suffer a fifth successive league defeat. That is a run of ineptitude not seen at the club since the early part of 1986.
The only club which has never missed the playoffs in the Super League era is in danger of doing just that having slipped down to sixth in the Super League standings. Head Coach Paul Wellens is under increasing pressure. Despite a worsening injury list it is a lack of discipline not to mention pace and flair which is doing the most damage to his chances of sticking around.
Meanwhile Leigh have had a strangely underwhelming year. They made the playoffs and won the Challenge Cup last year in their first season back in the top flight. That raised expectations both inside and outside the club for 2024. Yet despite this win a playoff push still seems unlikely. Adrian Lam’s side remain eighth, five points behind Saints with only nine league games to play. And yet despite the drop off in their performance this term they were still plenty good enough to inflict humiliation on Saints.
Wellens was able to welcome back two of his senior players for this one. Tommy Makinson returned from a foot injury which has kept him out since the end of June. He replaced Tee Ritson. In the forwards Matt Whitley hadn’t featured since the 40-20 gubbing dished out by Hull KR in early May but was fit enough after shoulder surgery for a place on the bench.
Despite repeatedly citing injuries during this disastrous run Wellens still saw fit to leave Lewis Dodd out of his 17. He made the bench for last week’s defeat to Warrington but with Whitley and George Delaney back there was no room there for either Dodd or Jon Bennison. Sam Royle was another to miss out.
With Dodd left out Harry Robertson kept his place at fullback. Jonny Vaughan was not so fortunate at centre where Ben Davies was preferred. That decision was met with a fair degree of outrage in some quarters but that perhaps overstates Vaughan’s current value to the team. With Konrad Hurrell out for the season the choice between Vaughan and Davies is not a luxurious one.
The reaction is fuelled by the lack of expectation on Vaughan who was playing in only his fourth first team game. There was a time - around four years ago when he first started to break into the first team - when Davies’ modest contributions were seen as promising green shoots. Many fans have lost as much patience with Davies as they have with Wellens. One hopes that Vaughan develops at a rate fast enough to avoid the same fate a few years down the line.
Leigh welcomed back Matt Moylan and Edwin Ipape to their 17. The big surprise was the omission of Zak Hardaker. Umyla Hanley took his regular centre spot. Otherwise all eyes were on Saints transfer target Lachlan Lam at halfback and the villainous John Asiata who has had as much of a hand as anyone in causing disruptive injuries for Saints in the last 12 months.
As it turned out any plans that Wellens had before kick-off were thrown into disarray just two minutes in. Jack Welsby was initially the beneficiary of a superb Daryl Clark scoot from dummy half, going all the way to within 30 metres of the Leigh line before he was hauled down by Matt Moylan. As he hit the ground Welsby immediately reached for his hamstring. He limped off the field and did not return amid suggestions of a likely tear which could keep him out for weeks.
If injuries are a contributing factor to Saints’ recent troubles then so is their lack of discipline. Another two players saw yellow in this one and neither can have any complaints. Mark Percival was first to go after making contact with Moylan’s head with the use of a shoulder. The height of a tackle and the body part which makes the contact are always debated when the yellow card comes out but if the tackled player doesn’t even have the ball you’re asking for trouble.
Percival had shot out of the line to try and shut down Moylan’s options but the ex-Cronulla Shark never received the ball. Apart from the trifling matter of possession it was reminiscent of the red card picked up by Percival in the home defeat by Salford earlier in the season. It was only the fact that there appeared to be less force which saved the Saints centre from an even worse outcome than a 10-minute sit down.
Inevitably that was not the end of the story. He has been handed a one match ban by the Match Review Panel (MRP) and will sit out this weekend’s visit to Hull FC. As will Lomax for his actions later on in proceedings.
We’ll get to all that later. For now Percival’s indiscipline would cost us almost immediately. Hanley went over in the space that had been vacated while McIntosh added the extras for a 6-0 lead. Leigh’s ability to target that temporary weakness was a massive contrast to Saints’ inability to do the same to Warrington when they found themselves shorthanded last week. Moylan and Lachlan Lam showed them how to exploit the extra space, and not for the only time.
While Percival was off the field they scored again through Tom Amone. The Leigh prop had received attention for a head injury around 15 minutes earlier but had strangely not been required to leave the field for a head injury assessment (HIA). I’m no medical man but it does seem odd not to at least take the time to go through the protocols. We either want to protect players and the sport itself in these times of life changing brain injuries and related litigation or we don’t.
Concussed or not it would have been difficult for Amone not to score having received the ball from Ipape just a few metres out before looking up to find a gap to the try line the size of 30p Lee’s gargantuan cake hole. Another McIntosh conversion at that point had Leigh 12-0 up.
Percival was back on the field by the time Saints conceded a third try. This time his left edge partner Waqa Blake was culpable. Another Leigh raid looked like being repelled when Moylan placed a high kick left to right towards the Saints try line. It was monumentally butchered by Blake, who spilled it straight into the arms of McIntosh for one of the easiest tries the former Huddersfield and Hull man will ever score. He added the extras himself for an 18-0 lead.
Blake has received a lot of hate in the aftermath of the game. If I told you that the clanger which led to McIntosh’s try wasn’t even his most eye-popping moment of incompetence you’d get some idea of how his night went. He’s been described by some as the worst player they have ever seen in a Saints shirt.
This of course is knee-jerk hyperbole. He’s not the worst, or anything like it. He’s Saints’ second top try scorer in 2024 with 10. If he’s so bad - and I’m not suggesting he’s great - then it’s the most damning indictment of the club’s failure to recruit in that left wing position since Regan Grace left. We just don’t have anyone better at the moment.
There’ll be shouts that either Ritson or Bennison would do a better job but the evidence doesn’t really support that view. Bennison in particular has been turned into Jason Robinson by sections of the fan base since he has been out of the team. It’s not even about Blake. It’s about the fact that if we are going to have a bloke on the left wing who isn’t good enough those fans would rather it be a local product than an overseas signing who they perceive to be on Saudi Pro League wages. Oh, and he shagged someone behind a pub in town (allegedly) so he must be shit.
By the half hour mark mullet and tache merchants like Robbie Mulhern were running all over us. His break from halfway was halted by Daryl Clark and Robertson but with the defensive line all over the place Curtis Sironen was caught offside. The offence was in a very kickable position so McIntosh opted to take the two points to push his side’s advantage out to 20-0. Saints were now four scores behind but there was an argument that Leigh’s decision to go for goal was a relief.
Sadly we must now return to the world of Waqa. Moylan - who is an infinitely better offensive fullback than he is a defensive one - flapped at an Mbye high ball allowing Lees to pick up possession inside the Leopards 10 metre zone. The prop found Whitley and his flicked pass to Clarke looked like it had finally opened the door.
Clark quickly switched it out to Blake who found himself in the kind of space you only really see in a rugby league ground if you are a regular at Huddersfield. All the ex-Parramatta Eels man had to do was head for the left corner and put the ball down. Try number 11 was surely on the way. And some sort of foothold - albeit a small one - in this fast developing disaster of a game.
But he didn’t do that. Instead he inexplicably cut inside to where the few Leigh defenders who were in the vicinity were coming across from. Between them they halted his progress. The offload he then produced looked like an act of panicked embarrassment. Like when you run on to the road to provide a replacement bike for your rider in the Olympic road race and fall flat on your face.
What could have been only a 14-point halftime deficit became a 24-point hole shortly after. And as bad as Saints had been sometimes you just have to tip your hat. Leigh’s fourth and final try of the first half was another which illustrated the difference between the two sides’ approach to the game. It contained skill, speed and flair. It was everything that Saints are not right now.
McIntosh broke away down the Leigh right edge from Hanley’s pass. He didn’t have the pace to beat Robertson with so little room close to the touchline so instead he turned back inside and kept it alive to Moylan. He found Ipape who shuttled it on to Asiata. The only consolation was that the latter didn’t finish it himself, instead handing on to Kai O’Donnell to do the honours. McIntosh couldn’t connect with the extras but a 24-0 lead at the break left little doubt about the outcome.
That was still the case when - six minutes into the second half - Saints briefly showed up. The Leopards were threatening again when McIntosh put down what might otherwise have been a scoring pass from Lachlan Lam. The loose ball was picked up by Blake who handed it on to Robertson. A shimmy or two later the Saints fullback was clear down the left touchline.
He was about to be cut off by the fullback but showed great composure in looking up and executing a perfectly weighted kick across the field to Davies who had managed to catch up in support. He collected it after judging the bounce and grounded it before Josh Charnley’s suspiciously late challenge. Referee Aaron Moore wasn’t convinced though, handing it up to Chris Kendall for a review. The try itself was never in doubt but the contact from Charnley was head scratchingly ignored. Percival missed his only attempt at goal of the night so Saints still trailed by 20 at 24-4.
As we moved into the last half hour Lomax picked up his yellow. The action had moved on as Brad Dwyer forced Robertson to knock the ball dead for a goal line drop out but replays showed exactly why Gareth O’Brien was down receiving treatment.
As he had passed at the Saints defensive line he was met by Lomax. The skipper had hit the former Saints loanee in the head with a shoulder. Lomax was arguably fortunate not to see red. His suspension is as inevitable as Percival’s had been, but we won’t know the length of it yet after it was decided to take the case to tribunal later in the week. Don’t expect him to feature at Hull. Or at home to Salford on August 8 or when Saints meet Wigan again the following weekend at Magic in Leeds. Not unless King’s Counsel Rush can pull off another legal miracle.
Former Wigan and Warrrington trundler Jack Hughes was next to have some fun at Saints’ expense. Moylan had allowed an Mbye bomb to bounce but was able to regather it and set another attack in motion. Hughes went 30 metres before the move continued through Ricky Leutele and Charnley. The winger was brought down but managed to get over in the next set from Lachlan Lam’s pass. He would have done so earlier had Moylan not dummied to him on the previous play. Moylan is a bit unpredictable but at this point it felt a little bit like Saints were being toyed with. Another McIntosh conversion made it 30-4.
Lachlan Lam scored next, taking Moylan’s pass and breaking out of a surprisingly weak Sironen tackle before easily rounding Robertson as Matt Dufty had done a week ago. Sironen’s effort showed that even Saints’ best defenders were letting them down. In all Wellens’ troops missed a whopping 66 tackles in this one. Some reports have the figure at 72.
Either way it’s a pretty lamentable statistic for a team which until this recent bad run had the best defence in the competition. They are now only the fourth best, conceding at a rate of 13.47 points per game. If that doesn’t sound too shabby then the truth is that it’s not. But that average was in single figures for much of the first half of the campaign. It’s rapidly heading in the wrong direction.
The home side hit 40 with just over 10 minutes left. Moylan’s methods may cause coach Adrian Lam to have palpitations but he had been heavily influential in this one and deserved the try that came his way. It owed much to the skill of Hughes who provided a killer offload around the corner of Makinson’s attempt at tackling to create the space. There was no McIntosh conversion on this one but at 40-4 the final hooter would be a mercy for all of us of a red vee persuasion.
There was one more painful blow to endure. Clark made a very uncharacteristic error at dummy half within the shadow of his own posts. That was all the encouragement needed for Ipape to combine with Lachlan Lam who found a perfect looped ball for Charnley to claim his second. He now has 242 Super League tries, just five behind the 247 managed by Danny McGuire whose long standing record was only recently surpassed by Ryan Hall. McIntosh notched his 7th goal of the night to end Saints’ misery at 46-4.
The individual stats make for reading as sorry as the result itself. Not a single Saints player managed to gain 100 metres. The best effort was from Percival with 80. We can talk all we like about injuries, team selections and who is the worst player to ever wear the red vee but if your pack is that badly dominated you’re going to be cannon fodder. Basically we were turned into pate.
By contrast Leigh had seven players over 100 metres including Charnley who savaged Saints for 219. After him Leutele (159), Mulhern (154), McIntosh (139), Frankie Halton (111), Moylan (110) and Hanley (105) all had a night out.
Despite those 66 (or 72) missed tackles Saints still put up some big tackle numbers. Clark led the way with 43 while Lees managed 39. Bell and Delaney had 37 each and Sironen 33. As is so often the case in blowouts of this nature only Halton was required to reach 30 for the dominant Leopards.
Wellens was always going to be in a difficult position - even a no win situation - at the post match presser. Yet still he managed to cause more concern for fans with some of his observations. An opening gambit of everything that could go wrong did go wrong was always going to be a hard sell. This capitulation had little to do with luck. Saints are slow, lacking in ideas and increasingly poorly coached. They haven’t bought the wrong lottery ticket.
Even the things he was more positive about set off alarms. The enthusiasm with which he pointed out that we had been going ‘set for set’ with Leigh before Percival’s yellow card was slightly pitiful. Going set for set with Leigh or anyone else isn’t an achievement. It may be a necessity at times but the logical conclusion to both teams going ‘set for set’ is a 0-0 draw. If it’s the best you have then life is going to be difficult. We’ve been through this before with Keiron Cunningham. Coaching this team requires a different level of ambition than just completing the sets of six. Who are the men in this side who can open up a defence? If we have them, are they being allowed to shine?
There were other hits as the great ex-fullback continued. Players like Dwyer ‘make it difficult for you’ and Percival was ‘outstanding’ for continually carting the ball off his own line despite offering almost zero threat in attack. He was not outstanding. He was - as he has been for many years now - criminally misused.
Wellens also revealed that Mbye has a knee injury. If that rules him out of this weekend’s trip to Hull then the currently ostracised Dodd will be the only fit halfback. Which is somehow still not a guarantee of his selection. Welsby is likely to miss a few weeks as is Lomax following his tribunal. Robertson is a halfback at lower levels but then who plays fullback? Bennison? Might we see the much talked about George Whitby at first team level for the first time or would that do more harm than good?
Oliver Dagnall has been named in the 21-man squad before and could also come into contention. Yet at the moment a centre partnership of Vaughan and Davies seems most likely. Even in Hull they won’t exactly be bricking it at the prospect.
Saints are not going to be facing the Hull FC side which won only one of its first 13 league games and were hammered 58-0 in St Helens in April. FC have won two of their last six, one of which was against Wigan and the other at the expense of Leeds Rhinos. Given Hull’s improvement anyone who has watched Saints closely throughout this horror story of a July might actually make the black and whites favourites.
Would defeat at the MKM be the crisis point? Or have we already reached it?
Leigh Leopards: Matt Moylan, Darnell McIntosh, Umyla Hanley, Ricky Leutele, Josh Charnley, Gareth O’Brien, Lachlan Lam, Tom Amone, Edwin Ipape, Robbie Mulhern, Kai O’Donnell, Frankie Halton, John Asiata. Interchanges: Brad Dwyer, Aaron Pene, Jack Hughes, Owen Trout
Saints: Harry Robertson, Tommy Makinson, Ben Davies, Mark Percival, Waqa Blake, Jack Welsby, Jonny Lomax, George Delaney, Daryl Clark, Matty Lees, Curtis Sironen, James Bell, Agnatius Paasi. Interchanges: Moses Mbye, Jonny Vaughan, Matt Whitley, Noah Stephens
Referee: Aaron Moore
Video Referee: Chris Kendall