Bang average Saints will attempt to conjure up some trickery at rugby league’s annual central venue jamboree when they face equally underwhelming Leeds Rhinos at Newcastle’s Magic Weekend on Saturday night (May 3, kick-off 7.30pm
The pressure is on Head Coach Paul Wellens after back to back losses at Wigan and Warrington over the last fortnight. That leaves Saints in fifth place in the Super League table with five wins and four losses from the first nine rounds. Suffice to say that there hasn’t been a lot of magic at hand during 2025 so far.
Defeat in this one would see the red vee fall to at least sixth, and maybe even lower if either Catalans Dragons or Warrington Wolves can pick up winning money this weekend. We’re a long way from contemplating missing out on the playoffs but another loss will only increase fears that it could happen this year. If it does it is likely to be at the cost of Wellens’ job.
The Rhinos are improving under Head Coach Brad Arthur, despite suggestions that he will return to Australia at the end of the season. They ran leaders Hull KR close last time out – losing 20-14 – and earned victories over Salford and Huddersfield before that. This isn’t quite the vintage of Sinfield, Peacock, Burrow, McGuire et al but nor are they the mugs that we might have assumed them to be when the season began. With the likes of Cam Smith and Brodie Croft to come back in later in the season after injury they have to be considered a direct rival for one of those top six spots.
Wellens had made two changes to his 21-man squad from last week’s 32-18 loss at Warrington. Ben Davies has been unable to get a game at centre despite the unavailability of literally every other specialist in the position. He drops out and has been put out of his Saints misery after joining our old friend Sean Long’s Oldham project. Also dropping out is hooker Jake Burns. He has failed to make the 17 so far in Super League in 2025 despite the struggles of Daryl Clark with a persistent hip injury.
Jake Wingfield comes back in after concussion protocols have seen him miss out since the Challenge Cup quarter-final defeat to Warrington in March while there is a new face included also. Deon Cross looks set for a Saints debut. The centre came through the academy ranks at Saints before establishing himself at Super League level in an excellent Salford Red Devils side in recent years. With that club’s off field problems persisting he is one of many stars to leave in recent weeks and will provide a good option at centre for Saints as Harry Robertson remains out injured.
Perhaps the most interesting selection dilemma for Wellens concerns the halfback position. George Whitby has been preferred to Jonny Lomax since the 26-14 win over Wakefield on April 11 but with back to back losses since then there are those who feel it is time for the skipper to come back into the fold. Yet there are also those who wouldn’t necessarily have Whitby be the one to make way should Lomax return.
There is a theory that the two could form (another) all new halfback partnership. That would see Jack Welsby return to the fullback role and leave Tristan Sailor as the one to miss out. This wouldn’t be my preference just because of the sheer pace that Sailor possesses. Out and out speed is something which Saints have lacked during the years since Kristian Woolf’s departure and Sailor at least provides that whatever other shortcomings he is perceived to suffer from. He has bagged six tries this season and remains a potent weapon in an attack that would surely regress even further without him.
The other factor to consider though is that Lomax would probably help improve the defence which – having been solid enough even through the recent struggles – reached a new depth of flimsiness in the defeat at Warrington. It was the first time Saints had conceded more than 30 points this year and the first since last August when Hull KR racked up 42 on Whitby’s competitive debut.
There are options here for Wellens and decisions to be made, which is more than can be said for the make up of the rest of the side where a lack of quality ensures that it basically picks itself.
Alex Walmsley is still great at eating up the metres but his handling is becoming ever more erratic as he reaches the twilight of his career. If he can cut out the errors both he and the team will be that bit more reliable. Matty Lees has begun to shoulder more responsibility for getting the team down the field recently and will start alongside the giant ex-Batley man. Clark should start at hooker, backed up by the still versatile but hardly awe inspiring Moses Mbye.
Joe Batchelor is still missing from the back row so Matt Whitley will likely slot in having been freed from centre duties by the arrival of Cross. That’s assuming Wellens doesn’t play Cross on the wing ahead of either Lewis Murphy or Jon Bennison. Curtis Sironen occupies the other second row berth with stand-in captain Morgan Knowles behind them.
Agnatius Paasi, George Delaney and Noah Stephens will hope for game time in the front row. Surely Wellens has to utilise Stephens more than he has been so far in 2025 if only to offer opponents a different problem. Delaney is game and should develop into a front line prop or second row but still gets stopped in his tracks too often at this level for the moment. Wingfield will also come into Wellens’ thinking but this writer hasn’t quite figured out what he brings that we don’t already have in the others. Other than perhaps persistent injury.
Arthur names an unchanged squad, the only surprise from which is that both Jack Sinfield and Ash Handley are available after disciplinary issues during last week’s loss to Rovers. Sinfield should have been red carded without debate for a shoulder to the head of a Robins player but was somehow deemed to have benefitted from some as yet unidentified mitigation. Handley’s yellow for some slightly less obvious head contact was about right.
Sinfield is therefore free to continue his halfback partnership with that lovable eccentric and Man Of Steel pace setter Jake Connor, while Handley will likely play at centre alongside lovable eccentric and Man…oh…Harry Newman. Blast from the past Ryan Hall faces a late check on his ankle injury to determine whether he will occupy his favoured wing spot opposite youngster Riley Lumb. Lachie Miller runs blind alleys better than anyone at fullback.
England prop Mikolaj Oledzki leads the pack with Connor Jenkins the other starting prop and Son Of Tez Jarred O’Connor at hooker. The departing Morgan Gannon, former Saint and behavioural therapist case study James Bentley, James McDonnell and another of Leeds’ 2015 treble-winning vintage Kallum Watkins vie for second row berths with Keenan Palasia standing in for Smith at 13. Sam Lisone adds impact and sometimes chaos off the bench alongside Tom Holroyd.
This is the first league meeting between the two in 2025 but they did cross paths in the Challenge Cup earlier in the season. On that occasion Saints came out on top 22-14, hanging on a little having at one point opened up a 22-2 lead. Leeds’ last win over Saints came at the beginning of Wellens’ reign when - in March 2023 - a Blake Austin drop goal snatched the spoils in a game Saints appeared to be in full control of until that moment. Since then Saints have won five in a row against the Rhinos including cup wins in both 2023 and 2024.
Saints have a marginally better record at Magic than Leeds. Both have nine wins from the 17 previous versions of the event but while the Rhinos have suffered eight defeats Saints have only lost seven with one draw.
Sharing the spoils has been blasted all but out of existence with the introduction of periods of golden point extra time but in any case anything less than a win and the pressure on Wellens will intensify.
Squads;
Leeds Rhinos;
Lachie Miller, Harry Newman, Ash Handley, Ryan Hall, Matt Frawley, Mikolaj Oledzki, Keenan Palasia, James Bentley, James McDonnell, Jarrod O'Connor, Sam Lisone, Morgan Gannon, Cooper Jenkins, Jake Connor, Tom Holroyd, Jack Sinfield, Alfie Edgell, Tom Nicholson-Watton, Riley Lumb, Kallum Watkins, Presley Cassell.
St Helens;
1. Jack Welsby, 4. Mark Percival, 5. Jon Bennison, 6. Tristan Sailor, 7. Jonny Lomax, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. Daryl Clark, 10. Matty Lees, 11. Curtis Sironen, 13. Morgan Knowles, 14. Moses Mbye, 16. Matt Whitley, 17. Agnatius Paasi, 18. Jake Wingfield, 19. George Delaney, 20. Lewis Murphy, 21. Noah Stephens, 27. George Whitby, 29. Dayon Sambou, 30. Owen Dagnall, 36. Deon Cross.
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