Far from stopping the bleeding the wounds of the last few weeks have only been opened up wider after Saints’ fourth Super League defeat in a row on Friday night (July 19). Paul Wellens’ side lost 24-10 at home to a Warrington side which played for an hour with only12 men after James Harrison’s first half dismissal.
Saints are still suffering badly from injuries to the extent that perhaps only the most optimistic of fans were expecting them to beat Sam Burgess’ side before kick-off. Tommy Makinson, Konrad Hurrell, Alex Walmsley, Sione Mata’utia, Joe Batchelor, Matt Whitley, Morgan Knowles and Jake Wingfield were all still missing for Saints who then lost George Delaney late in the week.
Meanwhile Wire came in on the back of a three-game winning streak which has seen them take Saints’ place as the nearest challengers to league leaders Wigan.
When Harrison saw red it was reasonable to raise expectations of a Saints win. So often we complain that a red card ruins a game’s competitiveness as the side with the numerical advantage cuts through their opponents at will. Nobody who has seen Saints’ attack in 2024 should have expected that. Yet the prop forward’s early exit should have made Saints overwhelming favourites to at least take the win.
Instead the effect was to do nothing more than give the red vee a fighting chance. A chance they ingloriously squandered. It had been a fraught opening 15 minutes in which Wellens’ men had conceded two converted tries and only looked like shipping more. At least the shellacking that some of us feared was now looking like it was off the table as Harrison departed. So Saints found a different way in which to embarrass themselves.
The omission of Lewis Dodd from last week’s derby visit to Wigan invited a lot of attention. Wellens explained it away by suggesting that there were some things that the halfback needed to work on. He had obviously done that to the extent that he was back involved this week, but only from the bench. That meant that Harry Robertson continued at fullback with Jack Welsby alongside Jonny Lomax in the halves.
This week’s casualty from the starting line-up was Ben Davies, although opinions vary over whether the much maligned centre was injured or merely dropped by Wellens. Though it had been a creditable team performance at Wigan there was a feeling among many that Davies’ error - being forced into touch from the restart after Waqa Blake’s try had got Saints back into the game - was pivotal.
Whether he was paying the price for that or not Davies’ omission gave a first start to Jonny Vaughan at centre. Tee Ritson, Mark Percival and Blake kept their places in the three-quarters.
The gap left in the front row by Delaney was filled by Agnatius Paasi, switching from last week’s loose forward role. Former Warrington man Daryl Clark and Matty Lees completed the front row with James Bell and Curtis Sironen in the second row and Moses Mbye at 13. Mbye had missed the defeat at Wigan through suspension.
Jon Bennison was on the bench. He was making a first appearance in the match day 17 since the loss at Salford on June 23.
With Dodd already named on the bench alarms were raised. It is unusual and many would say inadvisable to name two backs on the bench in the modern game. You need a full compliment of forwards so that you can rotate them to keep them fresh. If you get an injury in the backs then the modern way is to make do and mend. This has been the case since Bradford Bulls were overpowering opponents with their four-pronged prop approach in the late 90s and early 2000s.
It has been suggested to me that Dodd would be used as a relief hooker for Clark with Mbye otherwise engaged at loose forward. I can’t say I have ever seen Dodd play nine but the suggestion does not seem outlandish. Many halfbacks have been able to fill in there over the years, most notably the late Rob Burrow at Leeds Rhinos.
As it turned out I didn’t seem much evidence of this as Dodd was introduced very late in proceedings and at the expense of Robertson. In any case, I would rather have seen Mbye remain as the alternate hooker with Bell moving back to 13 and Sam Royle filling in at second row. The only out and out prop on the Saints bench was Noah Stephens. Bennison remained unused as Wellens again failed to utilise the full 17 at his disposal.
Warrington were without several of their preferred lineup too. Josh Thewlis’ place on the right wing was again taken by Aaron Lindop while centre pairing Toby King and Connor Wrench were deputised for by Rodrick Tai and Stefan Ratchford. Josh Drinkwater has only recently resumed in the halves since youngster Leon Hayes was lost for the season through injury. Of Head Coach Sam Burgess’ selection it is arguable that only Matt Dufty at fullback, Matty Ashton on the left wing and George Williams in the halves would be certain starters in the Warrington back line if everyone was fit.
Harrison lined up at prop along with Paul Vaughan while Burgess made an interesting call at hooker, preferring to start Sam Powell over Danny Walker who took a place on the bench. Canberra-bound Matty Nicholson was paired with Adam Holroyd in the second row with Lachlan Fitzgibbon ruled out. Ben Currie was at loose forward.
Luke Yates was allowed to make his switch from Huddersfield Giants earlier than planned this week and made a debut off the bench alongside Walker, Zane Musgrove and Tom Whitehead. Joe Philbin, Jordy Crowther and Matty Russell were among those unavailable to Burgess.
We could analyse this game to death and not find a single better reason for Saints to have lost it than the ineptitude of their attack against 12 and then 11 men.
If the insistence on turning everything back inside rather than sending it wide is down to Wellens then you would have to question his tactical acumen. Over and over, like a recurring nightmare, Saints failed to find their extra man. Even the vast experience of Lomax and the brilliance of Welsby couldn’t help them to figure out how to draw the defender and then pass to the open man. Instead they either trundled up the middle with no intention of offloading or passing at the line or they ran aimlessly sideways looking for a gap in the line like an amateur under 9s outfit. Truly it was abysmal.
The red card offence which should have benefitted Saints so much more than it did doesn’t seem all that controversial in the current climate. Stephens – off the bench for a stint in place of Paasi – ran it in towards the Wire defence and was met with a shuddering hit by Harrison. It happened so fast that it was initially difficult to tell whether it had been a head clash on one angle.
That was certainly the view of Sky Sports bring back the biff advocate Barrie McDermott but it should be remembered that he has never seen a red card. Another angle showed that Harrison caught Stephens flush on the jaw with a shoulder, making no attempt to wrap his arms to effect a tackle.
The problem here is that referee Chris Kendall initially did nothing, and it was only the fact that Stephens required attention from the Saints medical team which allowed the video referee Liam Moore time to examine the evidence in more depth. The visiting Warrington fans interpreted Stephens’ reaction as a deliberate ploy to ensure that examination of the evidence and booed his every touch thereafter.
Play-acting for this reason does seem to be creeping in to Super League but this was not it. Stephens had had his metaphorical bell rung loudly by Harrison who to my mind got exactly what he deserved. With the emphasis on head contact that we now have it was a no brainer to dismiss him.
Before that Saints had looked decidedly leaky and were causing many of their own problems. They went behind to a Ratchford penalty after only three minutes, although if anyone can find the last example of a player being penalised for striking too early at the scrum they must have been watching since Tom Van Vollenhoven was a nipper. That was the fate which befell Mbye to gift Ratchford the opportunity.
The second penalty which saw Saints in trouble was more of your common garden variety brain explosion. As Warrington attacked down their right the ball was released by Lindop to nobody in particular. Saints would have taken over around their own 25 metre mark had it not been for Blake inexplicably pushing Lindop into touch several seconds after he had let go of the ball.
I’ve defended Blake in the face of some criticism from others. He has played out of position on the wing and managed 10 tries, which makes him Saints’ second top try scorer behind Welsby.
If his overall contribution hasn’t been awe-inspiring then consider for a moment that he plays on the wing for a team which has some tactical restraints on wide men. It has long since considered wingers as only eligible to receive the ball either inside their own 20 metre zone or that of their opponents. Nor is it an easy gig playing alongside Percival who for all his talents is not one to trust a winger in space when he can try and beat three defenders by himself instead.
Yet for all that I can’t defend Blake’s actions here. They are arguably his most brainless since his last recreational visit to the town centre. A player of that experience - 165 NRL games for Penrith and Parramatta - needs to do better.
Hampered by their own indiscipline it was not long before Saints conceded the first try. The ball was worked left by Drinkwater, Williams, Dufty and Ratchford to Ashton. The Wire winger is exactly the kind of flyer that this Saints side is currently crying out for and he was always going to get in at the left corner despite the best efforts of Jonny Vaughan to prevent him from doing so. Ratchford couldn’t convert but the visitors had made the start they needed and led 6-0.
The second Warrington try should probably not have stood. Thirteen minutes had gone by when Dufty took a pass from Williams after he had combined with Currie and Drinkwater and went all the way to score under the posts. However, replays showed that a gap had been created by Holroyd running directly at Lomax and knocking him to the floor.
It didn’t help that Bell scorched out of the defensive line to try to shut down the emergency, but it still befuddles that the play wasn’t even reviewed given how keen Kendall was to involve Moore at other times. .
Yet even before all that Saints were culpable. Warrington only had the field position because Lees and Mbye had taken Dufty in the air before he was able to diffuse a bomb from the Saints loose forward. It all added up to allow Dufty to get outside Vaughan and round Robertson with ridiculous ease. Ratchford’s conversion put Wire 12-0 up.
Following both of Warrington’s early tries Sky tried to outdo even their own cringeworthiness from last week by somehow getting Burgess to agree to wear a mic throughout the game. This is something which is often seen in American sports.
It can occasionally add a bit of insight but not if the wearer is mumbling in a Dewsbury accent. At that point it becomes an educational video for students studying accent and dialect in A-Level English Language.
It also ignited the suspicion that Burgess – no shrinking violet – was playing up to it at times rather than acting entirely naturally. Whether or not this car crash TV tops the exploits of Jon Wells marvelling at Wigan’s computers last week is a matter for debate. I guess the lesson we could all learn is that covering the game might be preferable to ‘innovative’ gimmicks which often end up embarrassing everyone.
And to think they let Phil Clarke go at least in part because there was no longer any room for things like margin meter or distance to target. Do you remember that one? It told you exactly how far it was from the play-the-ball to the try-line of the defending team at random intervals. It died like player cam in football. Ignominiously. Sat at home with his smack barm Clarke is probably entitled to reflect that the gimmickery has got worse in his absence.
Only a minute after Harrison’s untimely exit Saints could have found a way back in to the contest. At the end of an attacking set featuring some high level aimless sideways runs it was left to Welsby to place a lofted kick to the left corner. Blake challenged for it with Lindop before the ball hit the ground and bounced invitingly for Percival to go over. Kendall was sceptical and sent it up for review as a no try.
At which point Moore took the forensic analysis and over-thought which is currently throttling professional sports to death to another level. In a more bearable age of video technology it used to be said that if a video referee could not find the evidence required to overturn the on-field call after a few looks then he should stick with it. Now it seems that officials are so terrified of being proven wrong that they feel the need to watch the same clip at the same speed and from the same angle 46 times before they can make a decision.
Eventually Moore came to the conclusion that Lindop had knocked the ball into Blake who then knocked it forward before Percival got involved. Let’s be kind and call the ball’s direction of travel following Blake’s touch inconclusive.
In which case I have no dramas with the end result of a no try given that Kendall had called it that way initially. It’s also arguable that Blake’s position after his touch prevented Tai from getting across to attempt a tackle. Although he doesn’t have to get out of the way. Whatever the call, can we just do it quicker?
Having already seen the game changing properties of the contents of Kendall’s back pocket Dufty was fortunate not to earn himself a rest. Five minutes after Percival had been denied a try his flicked offload - did I say he never passes? - injected Robertson into the action. Yet he never really backed himself when in space and ended up running rather sideways into the arms of Dufty.
On the next play Lees was caught on the last close to the Warrington line. He was then subjected to a face full of forearm from Dufty while the Saints prop lay on the ground. Players ran in, handbags were swung yet Kendall saw no reason to penalise anyone. Had Moore been given even a fraction of the time to review it as he had taken on Percival’s no try then the Warrington fullback would undoubtedly have been sitting down for the following 10 minutes. Yet Saints showed later how they would fare in trying to score against 11 so it’s almost a moot point.
A player leaving the field but for altogether different reasons was Ratchford. He was unfortunate to be on the painful end of a swinging Bell arm as the Saints forward tried to twist out of a tackle. He accidentally caught Ratchford flush on a nose that has already taken a fearful battering down the years.
The Wire centre was escorted from the field with an ever more crooked hooter and a right eye like that of a panda. He did not return following his head injury assessment. The reshuffle saw Currie fill in at centre and - according to McDermott on commentary - ‘Daryl Clark at nine and Danny Williams coming off the bench’.
Would that be the Daryl Clarke who currently plays for Saints at nine? And who is Danny Williams? In the event Burgess brought Walker off the bench and Clark continued to play for the home side. Administrative nightmare averted.
Two minutes before the half ended Saints again were thwarted having initially believed that they had got on to the scoreboard. Lomax found Welsby for what would have been his 15th try assist of the season had the pass not been forward. There was little argument and so Saints - so expert at holding their opponents scoreless for 40 minute periods earlier in the season - had drawn a blank of their own as halftime arrived with Wire still 12-0 up.
That had to change quickly if Saints were going to have any chance of mounting a comeback. Just five minutes into the second half they did. Paasi rumbled on to Lomax’s pass and made it the short distance to the line. It was finally approved by Moore on review after his valiant attempt to find a reason to chalk it off hit the skids. The conversion was easy for Percival and so - despite their pantomime haplessness in attack - Saints had hope.
That hope increased when Nicholson saw yellow with 25 minutes to go. Welsby’s dab to the in-goal was clearly grounded in his own in-goal by Walker but Kendall called for a review sensing chicanery afoot. A mercifully smaller amount of replays convinced Moore that Nicholson had pulled Stephens back as the young front rower chased the loose ball. Moore ruled that Stephens would not have been a certainty to score without the pull back but nevertheless deemed it a professional foul by the Wire man.
If anything Saints’ efforts with ball in hand against the remaining 11 Wolves were slightly more pathetic than some of those against 12. Refusing to make that extra pass lest Wellens accuse them of impatience and ‘wanting to score on every play’ they instead continued - somewhat laughably - to grind down the Warrington defence as if it were still 13 strong.
Yes the game has changed tactically. You’re not going to see even a side with more players on the field throw it around like it’s the Olympic rugby 7s. But an inside drop off to a prop forward is exactly what you would ask of your opponent if you’re defending shorthanded. If Saints were an NHL team they would be dead last in powerplays.
As we got inside the last 20 minutes Wellens played his scapegoated, NRL halfback card and introduced Dodd. Yet it was not Clark or Mbye who left the field but a slightly wounded Robertson. He had not shone as brightly as he had on his debut but he should not be castigated for that.
He is still a work in progress who has been somewhat thrown in due to the circumstances. Wellens has admitted on more than one occasion that he is asking a lot of his young players and Robertson is in that category. The traditional axis of Welsby, Dodd and Lomax didn’t have a massive amount of success on the night, so it’s a stretch to be over critical of a teenager playing in his second Super League game.
Royle had scored his first try for Saints in that now infamous Castleford debacle a fortnight ago. He added his second in this one after coming off the bench. Dodd and Lomax were involved in shifting it right but it was Stephens who came up with the final pass which allowed Royle to step inside the sliding defence to score. Percival couldn’t find the mark from wide on the right but Saints were now right in it at only 12-10 down with a quarter of an hour left.
In truth the closest Saints came to scoring after that was a break from Welsby a few minutes later. He broke through the defensive line on his own 35 metre line, making it all the way to within 30 metres of the Warrington line. As quick as he was to get away from Warrington defenders he was also seemingly too quick for most of his teammates. Devoid of support he was eventually forced to the ground and the opportunity fizzled out.
Discipline had been a problem for Saints all night and never more so than when Sironen hit Paul Vaughan high to concede one of seven penalties awarded against Saints on the night. It allowed Burgess’ men to plot a route upfield from where a Currie offload found Drinkwater. He handed on to Holroyd who forced his way over.
Again Kendall sought the advice of Moore and again it felt like an overly long, pointless process. Holroyd was shown to have clearly grounded the ball on the first play so quite what Moore expected to find in any of the other 7 showings is unclear. Drinkwater had taken over the goalkicking from the stricken Ratchford but was not able to improve Warrington’s 16-10 lead.
Twenty minutes after the ignomy of his sin bin Nicholson took on the responsibility for improvements. Williams shredded the Saints defence with a break deep in his own half before finding Walker in support. He was brought down by Vaughan only for the quick thinking Williams to get in at dummy half and put in a perfectly weighted kick for Nicholson to ground. After the obligatory half dozen replays Drinkwater nailed this conversion for a game-clinching 22-10 lead.
There was just the one more nail to hammer home. Desperate to regain possession as the clock ticked down Paasi stole it from Paul Vaughan to allow Drinkwater to land his second goal and seal a 14-point success at 24-10.
Eleven errors tells tales on Saints who came in with an average of only 9.7 per game. That a side so lacking in flair and attacking imagination can come up with 11 - almost two more than their season’s average - shows just how poor Saints were. When they weren’t making bad choices with the ball they were wandering around unsure of the plan. If they weren’t doing either of those things then they were serving up possession back to the Wolves through the simplest of errors.
The error count doesn’t help when it comes to the individual stats. Top go forward man in a red vee shirt was Percival with 128 followed by opposite centre Jonny Vaughan with 109. Where is the forward line? The best of them was Lees with 99. All of which backs up the common perception that Saints played too laterally and were too willing to die with the ball.
Dufty is a much criticised performer and it’s true that he can be an error machine with a short fuse which is damaging to his team’s overall discipline. Yet in this one he torched Saints for 197 metres, scoring from his clean break and making eight tackle busts.
Williams followed with 126 metres while Walker’s position on the bench from the start didn’t stop him making a further 102.
Lees was Saints’ top tackler with 35, Mbye had 34 and Clark 30. Yet it was another night on which defence wasn’t anything like the problem. Saints have a rich history of beating many a team while shipping in 24 points but they currently have a coach who believes that 18 points are enough to win any game. Repeatedly now it has proven not to be.
Currie and Holroyd were Warrington’s busiest defenders with 31 tackles apiece.
You will still find me in the camp where the belief is that it is too soon to judge Wellens as a coach long term. Yet the penny has to drop soon that tactically you cannot be this conservative with a pace-deficient squad and expect to live up to the standards that the club expects.
It’s painful and often embarrassing at the moment but I still would like to see how he goes once the much needed surgey to the back line had been completed. If Saints don’t back him with a centre, a couple of wingers, a halfback replacement for Dodd and perhaps a prop forward in the next season or two then nothing much will change. He will be a sitting duck for when the atmosphere turns really toxic.
That may not take that long. Even now you will find plenty of longtime supporters who would like to see a change sooner rather than later. It is heading rapidly towards Keiron Cunningham all over again territory. Quite what the reaction will be if Saints fall to a fifth successive loss at Leigh on Friday night (July 26) is almost something you daren’t think about.
And it is not as if that is a far fetched idea. Wellens has already stated that Makinson is the only one of the injured group likely to return for the trip to the LSV. That’s probably not going to be enough to turn around the entire team performance even if it is a massive upgrade on Ritson.
Saints have enough trouble winning at Leigh with a full deck. You wouldn’t be desperate to back them with the absences they are currently having to deal with coupled with a positively anaemic attacking philosophy.
In the week that Saints achieved an unwanted four in a row they showed that even the biggest and best clubs go through peaks and troughs. But how deep is this trough?
Saints; Robertson, Ritson, Vaughan, Percival, Blake, Welsby, Lomax, Paasi, Clark, Lees, Sironen, Bell, Mbye. Interchanges: Dodd, Bennison, Royle, Stephens.
Warrington: Dufty, Lindop, Tai, Ratchford, Ashton, Williams, Drinkwater, Harrison, Powell, Vaughan, Nicholson, Holroyd, Currie. Interchanges: Whitehead, Musgrove, Walker, Yates
Referee: Chris Kendall
Video Referee: Liam Moore
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