The road to Old Trafford goes through Warrington and Wigan after a seemingly narrow loss to Leigh which flattered Saints.
The defeat meant Paul Wellens side finished sixth - their worst performance in a Super League season since 2017. That season started with club legend Keiron Cunningham at the helm like Ted Striker in Airplane, eventually saved from the toxicity to be replaced by Justin Holbrook. Saints will now have to travel to face Sam Burgess’ Wolves in the first round of the playoffs. That’s grim news considering that Wire have already beaten Saints three times this season by a combined score of 71-20.
In the unlikely event that Saints survive that they’ll likely face League Leaders Shield winners and defending Super League and world champions Wigan at what they’re now calling The Brick. God speed, lads…God speed. Yet for now, worrying about facing Wigan feels a little bit like worrying about whether Joss Stone’s parents will like me when she takes me round to meet them.
Adrian Lam’s Leopards have also made it in to the six. This win enabled them to leapfrog Saints into fifth from where they’ll face Salford Red Devils on the road. Matching last season’s league placing marks Leigh out as a genuine, established contender. Proof positive that promotion can work if you throw a shitload of money at it. It is all the more remarkable for the fact that they started the year with just three wins from their first 10 league games. They have won 10 of their last 12 to seal their spot in the knockout stuff.
Making every attempt to avoid using Super League 2024 buzzword ‘mitigation’ (doh!) it didn’t help Wellens that two of his senior players were ruled out late. Alex Walmsley seems to miss every other game these days and was again ruled out while Moses Mbye made it at least as far as the warm-up before pulling out with a calf injury. Jake Burns had initially been left out of the 17 but earned a reprieve. He started the game with Wellens again choosing to keep Daryl Clark on the bench. The only other change from the side which beat Castleford last week saw Noah Stephens back in on the bench while George Delaney stepped up to fill Walmsley’s regular starting role.
Lam made only one change to his lineup, bringing back hooker Edwin Ipape for Matt Davis.
The controversy arrived early in this one. Ten minutes in Tommy Makinson dived over in the right corner for what he thought was the opener. However, referee Liam Moore wasn’t convinced and ordered a review. His suspicion was that Sione Mata’utia had obstructed Lachlan Lam to create the space for Makinson.
For some time now obstruction by a lead or dummy runner has been judged solely on whether there is contact with the defender’s outside shoulder. Knowing this, defenders who fear that they won’t get across in time to make a tackle can initiate this kind of contact and theatrically hit the deck. It’s almost impossible to prove that Lachlan Lam deliberately stepped into Mata’utia to win a penalty and the Saints man knows that he has to try to avoid that contact.
So according to the modern interpretation the decision to penalise Mata’utia and chalk off the try was the right one. But it’s a bad rule which must have a better alternative. I used to refer to it as the TV rule as it only ever tended to be seen when video reviews were available. Now that they are in use at every match at least everyone is playing to the same rules every week. Even if they are an over simplified nonsense.
Not every decision was going against Saints. Like the tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists on social media Moore missed Jack Welsby’s cheeky flick away from Ipape as the Leigh man got up to play the ball near the Saints goal-line. Then when Darnell McIntosh coughed up possession on his own 25 metre line Moore was similarly blind to the fact that Matt Whitley had got a foot to the ball which knocked it loose. Not that it helped Saints’ attack particularly on that occasion as the set ended with Lewis Dodd tackled standing upright and appealing that the ball had been touched by a Leigh hand.
Saints were about to be on the end of a ropey decision, but not before Welsby made the biggest of several errors in an unusually fraught first half performance. Lachlan Lam boomed a 40-20 attempt down towards Saints territory but was unfortunate to see it hold up rather than cross the sideline. Welsby was in position and got to it first, only to slide a toe on to the sideline. It made contact just for a split second but it was enough for the touch judge who raised his flag.
Even so, Leigh were somewhat fortunate that the try they scored soon after was allowed to stand. It rubbed salt in the wound that the scorer was arch nemesis John Asiata. Even signing for Hull FC doesn’t seem a strong enough punishment for the man responsible for the serious injuries suffered by Walmsley and Agnatius Paasi last year. Here, he shrugged off the tackle of Burns to stretch over the line.
Moore wasn’t convinced about the grounding so sent it upstairs again to Ben Thaler with an initial ruling of no try. This usually means that sufficient evidence has to be found to overturn the original call. I’m not at all sure that Thaler found that evidence. From the angles viewed there was a hint of separation but nothing conclusive. But nor were those angles conclusive in proving that Asiata had applied downward pressure.
It really needed a look from an angle on the other side of the posts to be sure. But that never came. Not to the TV audience at any rate. Nevertheless Thaler had seen all he needed and made his decision as the modern mantra goes. The decision was to overturn Moore’s call and with Matt Moylan’s conversion Leigh led 6-0.
Saints were three minutes away from reaching the interval at that score. Given the woeful nature of the attack under Wellens that wouldn’t have been a disaster. Yet it wasn’t to be as the Leopards grabbed their second through Ricky Leutele. Moylan was the creator, sending Mata’utia out for the proverbial hot dog before finding Leutele who held off Jonny Lomax to score.
The departing Mata’utia has been quite vocal this week about his regret at making a few important mistakes on the night. He hasn’t cited this one in particular, focusing instead on a couple of handling errors made late in the game. Yet he should not carry the load alone. Yes he should have defended better on that play and yes he should be able to catch or keep hold of the ball under pressure. But it’s not his fault he’s having to play centre due to a combination of injuries and the fact that neither of the two specialist centres Wellens could use is good enough. That’s all part of a deeper malaise amid some very iffy recruitment. Moylan could not have cared less, popping over another two points to give his side a 12-0 lead at the break.
The former Cronulla Shark had an opportunity to wrap this one up without too many dramas 10 minutes into the second half. Leutele put Josh Charnley free down the left but when he found a wide open Moylan on his inside the Australian couldn’t reel the pass in. It looked simple. A one in a thousand error for a player of that calibre. Yet it arguably kept Saints alive. Had they gone 16-0 or 18-0 down at that point it would surely have been all over. Unlike many of the teams he graced as a player, Wellens’ class of 2024 is hardly built for a comeback. There’s more chance of Ringo and Sir Paul reuniting to play Shea Stadium than there is of this Saints side coming back from two scores down against decent opposition. And since Shea Stadium was demolished in 2009 it seems more than a long shot.
Things looked rosier when Leutele earned himself a spell in the sin bin. The ex-Huddersfield man attempted to put a shot on Welsby but when you do that you are invariably incapable of preventing head contact. It’s a familiar story. Nobody would have minded the challenge too much in days gone by but everyone knows the rules now. Even if nobody seems to have yet worked out how to abide by them. Regardless, it’s a yellow minimum.
It has been suggested by more than one Saints fan - and I’m sure fans of many other clubs - that had Leutele not transgressed then the red vee might not have scored any points at all in this one. As it was they scored two tries - both converted by Jon Bennison - while Leutele was off the field. The first came from Makinson who dived in at the corner from Lomax’s pass. This time Thaler was right to overrule Moore’s initial hunch of no try. Replays clearly showed that the Saints winger stayed in the field of play. And he grounded the ball with a good deal more downward pressure than Asiata had mustered earlier.
Just moments later Makinson was involved again. He was first to Lomax’s hopeful bomb, batting it back to Dodd who had Morgan Knowles on his shoulder with a clear run to the line. Suddenly - and having showed few signs of attacking life in the previous hour - Saints were level going into the last quarter. They couldn’t, could they?
No.
Four minutes after Leutele returned to the action Adrian Lam’s side were in for their third try of the night. One of those Mata’utia handling errors set up the field position from where Ipape, Asiata, Lachlan Lam and Moylan all combined to put Charnley in on the left flank. In crossing the ex-Wigan and Warrington man equalled Danny McGuire’s tally of 247 Super League tries. Now only Ryan Hall has more. You have to feel for McGuire. You hold a record for five years and then two people reel you in the space of a few short weeks. Alright, you don’t have to feel for him.
Moylan couldn’t add the extras to that score but he did manage two more points when Leigh were awarded a penalty in his range. Makinson was penalised for passing the ball off the ground in a rare show of attacking urgency from Saints. If you’re Wellens you were probably thinking that displays of attacking urgency are nothing but trouble as it edged the home side out to an 18-12 advantage.
Even at that stage there was still a chance that Saints could claw their way back. All of Mata’utia, Mark Percival and James Bell dropped their proverbial lolles inside the last five minutes. Bell’s was the last chance, putting down a Clark pass inside the last 30 seconds. While it looked like Saints had come up agonisingly short on the face of it, the truth is they never really had any semblance of control all night.
When you look at the injuries Saints have suffered this year and also the apparent decline among the ageing senior pros it’s not that surprising to see them edged out by a side like Leigh. Until last week’s 24-0 drilling by Hull KR the Leopards were the league’s form horse. What’s harder to stomach for Saints fans is the repetitive nonsense that comes out of Wellens’ mouth post-match.
This week he surpassed himself by suggesting that although his side had lost it was actually a win given the adversity they have faced. I’m paraphrasing but that was about the size of it. Fans, bloggers and podcasters like me can say that. But if you are the Head Coach of the club you can’t have that mentality. Regardless of circumstance this is a club with a rich tradition of winning trophies and doing so with a bit of swagger. It’s the most successful club in the Super League era. If I was advising Wellens I’d always be telling him to emphasise the disappointment and the need to improve after every loss.
There have been 12 of those this term in 27 regular season assignments. So the truth is - putting aside the mitigation - Saints are currently an average team who need to improve dramatically. They have maintained their record of appearing in every Super League playoff series because the competition rewards mediocrity. The media will bang on about how you never write off the Saints as long as they are still involved in a playoff scenario but that’s just to stop people turning their televisions off. It would frankly be amazing if Saints got close to beating Warrington at the Halliwell Jones this weekend.
Wellens probably knows this and is trying to put a positive spin on things. As much for himself as for the players and fans. Yet he’s starting to look a little stressed by the job. Visibly ageing before us like his squad, but at a rate that’s closer to that of the bloke who drinks the wrong chalice at the end of that Indiana Jones movie. At this point whether we believe in him or not seems a moot point. It just seems incredibly unlikely that he’ll be in the job by the middle of next season.
Leigh:
Moylan, McIntosh, Hanley, Leutele, Charnley, Lam, O’Brien, Amone, Ipape, Mulhern, O’Donnell, Halton, Asiata. Interchanges: Dwyer, Hughes, Pene, Trout
Saints: Welsby, Makinson, Mata’utia, Percival, Bennison, Lomax, Dodd, Delaney, Burns, Lees, Whitley, Batchelor, Knowles. Interchanges: Bell, Paasi, Clark, Stephens
Referee: Liam Moore
Video Referee: Ben Thaler
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