The State Of Things

We are trying something new.  I don't know about you but I am bored shitless with the weekly humdrum of a game review.  If you wanted to read a decent match report you could get it pretty much anywhere except the pro-union Tory press and the Saints website.  

So instead we are going to move towards a regular look at the general state of things.  I’m not sure how regular. It will be shorter than those 3,000 word epics we’ve all been used to and will not involve me having to rewatch anything involving Huddersfield Giants. But it will hopefully be punchier and raise more points for debate.  

So what is going on this week?  Well, just minutes after it looked like our injury crisis was abating we are heading into an even worse crisis.  It was announced today (June 3) that Jack Welsby - talismanic best player in the league sometimes a bit too stroppy Jack - will be out of action for pretty much the rest of the regular season.  Welsby injured his knee in Saints' abject 34-4 loss to a Hull KR side with one eye on their impending Wembley appearance. Actually it was more like an eye-bulging hard stare at their meeting with never-their-year try hards Warrington Wolves next week.  Yet it was not distracting enough to give our brave boys the proverbial opportunity enjoyed by cats in Hell. 

Whether you judge players by stats or by the old fashioned eye test, whatever metric is used would suggest that Welsby is several levels above his Saints team mates in terms of his importance to the attack.  Everything goes through him at fullback, which is even more important when your halfback pairing is a green around the gills manchild and an ageing, almost bionic but demonstrably fading veteran star.  So to be without Welsby has to be considered A Bad Thing. Possibly terminal for Saints’ top six ambitions. 

Adding to that predicament is the loss of winger Lewis Murphy for eight weeks. Now that sounds familiar. Didn’t the ex-Wakefield man miss a similar period of time having played just one game for his new club at the start of the season? And that game was the 82-0 stroll against 17 (or was it only 16? Or fewer?) competition winners dressed in Salford Red Devils uniforms. Actually scratch that. However many were on deck for Paul Rowley’s side couldn’t have been competition winners. They were the losers. Drawn to be Tributes in The Hunger Games. 

Saints can probably cover the loss of Murphy although his second serious injury of 2025 does raise questions about whether he is made of biscuit. That’s something we will learn in the longer term. For now number one fan scapegoat Tristan Sailor has been given the opportunity to follow in his famous father’s footsteps on the wing. As a result the bafflingly still present Coach Wello has options there. The acquisition of Deon Cross from the Salford wreckage helps as does the suggestion that Kyle Feldt will return soon. 

Remember him? Signed from NRL outfit North Queensland Cowboys after a million years scoring tries and faultlessly diffusing bombs Feldt suffered a hand injury in just his fifth appearance in the red vee. For my money he’d made a reasonable start to the unenviable task of replacing club legend Tommy Makinson but you won’t have to search social media for very long to find someone expressing the view that the Australian is shit. Personally I think his return will help.

In other saving grace news Harry Robertson was in the 17 at Hull KR after a five-game injury absence. As we sit here today he is probably the preferred option to fill Welsby’s fullback role having already had first team experience there. Also, after the attempts of Sailor in the role and the ostracisation of Jon Bennison the alternatives are as meagre as Tom Burgess’ impact on Huddersfield Giants. 

With the Wembley dust up this weekend Saints don’t have a game for another 12 days. And even then it’s Salford. Lose there and everybody gets the sack and the club folds anyway. But the June 20 visit of Leeds Rhinos seems huge given that Brad Arthur’s side - or is it Steve McNamara’s? - are one of seven sides below KR and Wigan involved in what is becoming an increasingly undignified scrap for playoff spots. Leeds sit third having massively improved under Arthur but I’m still clinging on to the tired old trope that they have a disastrous performance in them. 

Not helping the mood of the fans is the fact that former Head Coach and inventor of the cringefest that was the Rushie Roll gave an interview to a certain podcast hosted by an ex-Saint in which he diverted blame in any direction he could find except towards himself. The CEO explained that everything is fine, recruitment has been good and the only negative is the ‘noise’ from outside. That’s you and me he’s referring to. People who have the temerity to believe that their continued support for the club entitles them to an opinion. Either way, if Rush thinks everything is fine and that recruitment has been good I’ll have what he’s having. 

I’ll be back to sneer some more at the latest Saints-related developments once there are any. I’m sure it won’t be long.