Warrington Wolves 16 Saints 2 - Review

When we look back at the shock results of the 2024 Super League season Saints’ 16-2 defeat at Warrington on Saturday afternoon (September 7) is unlikely to be among them. 

Paul Wellens’ side produced an attacking performance for which the word insipid is barely adequate. It was their 11th loss in 25 league outings so far. With just two games remaining their proud record of having never missed a playoff series in the summer era is in real danger. 

Meanwhile Warrington’s win keeps their hopes of a top two finish alive. They now sit third, two points behind second placed Hull KR with matches against two whipping boys in Huddersfield and London to finish the campaign. Rovers face a tricky test against form horse Leigh this weekend before meeting Leeds Rhinos at home on the final weekend. The Robins may just let the Wolves in the door.

Wellens did not see his debilitating injury list improve much ahead of this one but was able to make one fairly surprising and exciting change to his 17. Still without the injured Konrad Hurrell, Mark Percival, Lewis Dodd, Daryl Clark, Curtis Sironen and James Bell as well as the suspended Tommy Makinson Wellens brought Jack Welsby back into the action. Saints’ star man began the game on the bench with the plan being to manage his minutes and utilise him at stand-off rather than at fullback. Otherwise it was as you were for the win at Huddersfield last week. Noah Stephens was the unfortunate one to miss out to accommodate Welsby.

Warrington were still without their own fullback star in Matt Dufty. The emerging talent of Cai Taylor-Wray deputised while prop Paul Vaughan started a three game ban for his contentious red card in the loss to Leigh a week previously. Former Wigan youngster Matty Nicholson - soon to be of Canberra Raiders - replaced Vaughan in the only change to Head Coach Sam Burgess’ 17.

So, significance and team news out of the way we’re changing tack. I know, who changes tack in the third to last game of the season? Not Wellens if tactics employed in this game are anything to go by. In this case I’m referring to the structure of this article. Many of this year’s efforts have run to over 3,000 words. There isn’t an editor of a publication in the known world who would entertain publishing something of that length. So we’re going to try to stick to the main points with less excruciating detail. After all, we’ve all suffered enough.

On that note let’s start with the subject of the team’s effort level. Any time a professional sports team suffers a damaging defeat it’s fans go straight to accusations of a lack of effort. Social media becomes awash with posts which start with the phrase ‘I don’t mind losing but…’. But the thing is they do mind losing. They mind it very much. So much in fact that they use the go to explanation of a lack of effort to protect themselves from the idea that their team might just be shit. At the moment - whether you put it down to injuries or coaching or both - this Saints team is just a bit shit. 

Wellens was at the other end of the spectrum on the subject of effort. In his post match presser he declared that he ‘loved’ some of the things his side did and added that he could not fault their commitment. He cited Welsby’s late try saver on Matty Ashton as an example. And not unreasonably. It was a tremendous effort from Welsby at a time when the game was as good as gone. 

But if Saints are putting in so much effort how does he explain Waqa Blake passing the ball forward straight from a tapped penalty? When Saints had some rare field position too. There were other moments we’ll get to later. I’m not suggesting they weren’t trying but nor was I delighted by their application. The truth is surely somewhere in the middle. But I’d venture that claiming that you ‘love’ what your team did in a 16-2 loss to a major rival is poor messaging from the man at the wheel.

One man who appears to be trying but getting worse the more he does so is Alex Walmsley. He was very recently the best prop in Super League by some distance. Yet currently the ex-Batley man appears to be struggling to cope with a mixture of some serious injuries added to the fact that he turned 34 in April. I’m not the only fan who has questioned the wisdom of brandishing a two-year contract under his nose. Even the greats don’t last forever. 

Walmsley has built his reputation on his incredible ability to make metres and get the team down the field. Yet in this one he only managed 49 metres on 10 carries. He is still averaging over 100 metres per game but only 86 in his last four. Defensively he’s at around 17 tackles per game and didn’t miss one in this clash. 

He has only made 11 errors though it may feel like more when they occur in Saints territory. That’s just one per game but the one he made in this one led to Matty Ashton picking up possession and running through a disorganised Saints team to score. By the way, it was exactly the sort of try that Saints could never score in 2024 because they simply lack the explosive pace required to pull it off.

Of course it’s a team game so this is by no means all on Walmsley. Saints next biggest flaw - after their slow and predictable attack and their sentimentality to ageing stars - is their discipline. Matty Lees was yellow carded at a time when Saints had just been given a numerical advantage of their own with the sin-binning of Wire forward Lachlan Fitzgibbon. Lees’ late hit on Josh Drinkwater wasn’t the most violent challenge you’ve ever seen but it was an egregious waste of Saints’ opportunity against 12 men. Not that they were particularly adept at taking advantage of that when they last played Warrington in July. 

We didn’t know it then but Lees was already in trouble. He made contact with referee Chris Kendall while running in to remonstrate with Zane Musgrove after he had hit Morgan Knowles high. The incident led to Saints’ only points of the day from the boot of Jon Bennison. Lees was subsequently handed a one match ban which has since been overturned on appeal. Mike Rush and his legal team showing that they’ve still got it. 

Fitzgibbon’s card rekindled the hardly doused debate on play acting and the role of the video referee in non-try scoring incidents. Ritson stayed down after the head contact and was subsequently examined on the field for a possible concussion. He did not have to leave the field for an HIA. That has led some to suggest that there was no need for him to stay down and that he did so purely to give the video referee time to examine the incident and find a reason to issue a yellow card. 

There’s no way to know whether Ritson was employing cynical tactics but it’s a safe bet that many players have been this season. This is rightly frowned upon by fans but what is less in focus in this debate is whether or not we need the video referee to get involved. Are we not re-refereeing the game according to the reaction of a fouled player? If an injury is genuine it doesn’t necessarily follow that the challenge deserves a yellow or even a red card.

Conversely, plenty of card-worthy acts get glossed over if the fouled player gets straight up and plays the ball. There was one in this game when Knowles caught Roderick Tai in the face with a forearm. He probably didn’t mean to do it but as we have learned lack of intent doesn’t get you a reprieve from 10-minute sit down. Or something worse. He wasn’t carded simply and only because Tai did not stay down so there wasn’t time for a review. The referee missed it and we all accepted it. Remember those days?

Confusing us all further is the decision to ban Moses Mbye for one match for late contact on Taylor-Wray. It was a very similar offence to the one by Lees on Drinkwater which earned the Saints man a yellow card but not a ban. Remember Lees was initially suspended for the contact with Kendall and not the late hit. Meanwhile Mbye’s late hit comes with a ban even though Kendall didn’t produce a card for it. Can anyone make that work logically?

Still, as random and scattergun as the disciplinary verdicts can be there is responsibility on the players. Whether you think the offences committed by Lees and Mbye are worthy of yellow cards and bans or not, the players know that these sanctions are ubiquitous in this era of fear of litigation. They need to be much better and they are not alone. Joe Batchelor and Waqa Blake gave away crazy penalties for obstruction. If you can’t display better discipline than Saints have in 2024 then you don’t really give yourself a chance.

Most of you won’t be surprised to know that Blake’s tribute to 2017’s Ryan Morgan wasn’t the Fijian’s only brain fart. With Saints given some much needed second half field position in the shape of a penalty on the Warrington 40 metre line the ex-Parramatta man managed to tap the ball alright but then couldn’t avoid passing it forward to Mbye. It was unforgivable to be quite honest. There is only what Wilf Self once described as an anorexic cigarette paper between this and Blake’s bonkers failure to score with the line open at Leigh. It’s fair to say he hasn’t been a roaring success since his arrival.

Throw in Batchelor’s obstruction, Matt Whitley’s outrageously early pass to Sione Mata’utia when he could have drawn the last defender (Mata’utia dropped the pass anyway) and Walmsley allowing himself to get tackled standing upright on the last play on an early attacking foray and it becomes clear that the red vee are playing with empty heads at crucial times. Nous is as important as effort. 

To add to the downbeat mood Saints today announced losses for the past year that are three times what they were 12 months ago. Chairman Eamonn McManus has made a statement which points towards covid loans and the reduction in the TV deal as key reasons. However he maintained that Saints will still spend up to the salary cap - including marquee players - while looking for other ways to cut costs. 

I’m sure that on the face of it there’ll be relief that the boss man has reiterated that staying competitive is the priority.  But I don’t know how comfortable I am with celebrating another Grand Final win - if and when the time comes again - if it means that staff in the club shop, the ticket office or the hospitality are asked to go and find themselves another job. 

Of course, we live in an era in which fans will turn a blind eye to the activity of nation states with abysmal human rights records if it means another trophy appears on the mantle piece. I don’t expect too many to share my concerns if our NRL signings for next year are running around Old Trafford with the Super League trophy at some point before they head back home. 

There is still a stats bit. Just to tell you that Saints’ top metre maker was Knowles with 137 and that young hooker Jake Burns their top tackler with 51. For Wire Ashton racked up 165 metres while Luke Yates made 40 tackles. 

Despite this loss Saints still have a realistic shot of making the playoffs. Their points difference advantage over Catalans Dragons should mean that one more win from their final two games is enough. The next opportunity is this weekend at home to a Castleford Tigers side forced by IMG to care more about attendances and building a new ground than actual rugby league results. But that didn’t stop them from winning 8-6 at Saints in July. It’s not a gimme.

The more encouraging news is that Makinson will be free from suspension and there is a chance that Clark and Dodd will be available. And after playing 46 minutes in this one perhaps Welsby can increase his workload at the most vital time. Unfortunately Harry Robertson was withdrawn with a knee injury and must be a doubt while Wellens has admitted that Sironen will not be available until the first week of the playoffs.

You get the feeling that Saints will have to beat Castleford to be involved. If they don’t then they will be left needing to beat an in-form Leigh side who thrashed them 46-4 on their last visit to the Sports Village. 

It looks like knockout football has come early for Saints.

Warrington Wolves: Taylor-Wray, Thewlis, King, Tai, Ashton, Williams, Drinkwater, Yates, Powell, Musgrove, Bateman, Fitzgibbon, Currie. Interchanges: Walker, Philbin, Nicholson, Crowther

Saints: Robertson, Ritson, Blake, Mata’utia, Bennison, Lomax, Mbye, Walmsley, Burns, Lees, Whitley, Batchelor, Knowles. Interchanges: Welsby, Paasi, Delaney, Vaughan