With the current Super League round spread over two weeks Saints have no game until they host Castleford Tigers on August 1. That gives us a chance to pause, take a much needed deep breath and delve into not only what’s transpired so far in 2025 but also what lies ahead for the rest of the season and beyond.
Despite a bumpy ride Saints are still in a position which makes qualifying for the playoffs likely. Paul Wellens’ side sit fifth in the table with eight matches remaining. They are three points clear of Hull FC in sixth and four better off than Wakefield Trinity in seventh.
All of which is no disgrace, but it isn’t quite what I had hoped for or even what I expected before the season started. I had Saints pegged for a top four spot. That’s still possible but seems unlikely given the side’s inconsistency. But you only need to be inside that six to give yourself a chance.
A couple of pleasantly surprising victories over Leeds Rhinos and one ugly but massive win at Hull FC have eased fears about missing out on the playoffs for what would be the first time in the Super League era. That was a genuine concern just a few months ago.
When Saints lost to the Rhinos at the Magic Weekend at the start of May there was a significant possibility of missing out on the knockout games. It was a third defeat on the spin after going down to Warrington and Wigan in April. Challenging the top sides - and Warrington - was becoming a task out of reach. You looked at the schedule at that point and couldn’t see where the wins were coming from.
The reasons for our struggles are something which - unusually - most Saints fans would agree with me on. The attack is horrific. Only Alex Walmsley gets us down the field. When he does the players charged with providing creativity look frazzled. Lacking ideas, travelling down blind alleys and some berserk last tackle plays have made us easy to defend against.
Injuries have played a part. At one point during a game earlier in the season we were running with a three-quarter line of Jon Bennison, Dayon Sambou, Matt Whitley and Curtis Sironen. You wouldn’t overly worry a Championship defence with that combination.
Kyle Feldt, Mark Percival and Lewis Murphy have all faced spells out while a sensible explanation of the decision to award Konrad Hurrell a one-year deal at the start of 2025 has not been forthcoming. He’s made as many first team appearances this year as I have.
Jack Welsby is the main creative force in the side and in the league. He’s skilful, strong, surprisingly quick and plays with the kind of swagger normally reserved for stage performers. Yet he’s also out with a long term injury, blunting Saints’ attack even further.
In the forwards both specialist hookers - Daryl Clark and Jake Burns - missed last week’s 16-4 defeat at home to Leigh Leopards with concussions. Noah Stephens is out long term after having thumb surgery.
Hull bound pair Joe Batchelor and James Bell have been absent for most of the season through injury also. Bell was named in the initial 21-man squad for Leigh but didn’t feature. Yet he and Batchelor were fit enough to play in the reserve fixture between these two clubs. Either their decision to move east has put Wellens’ nose out of joint or he really does rate Jake Wingfield higher than either. Which baffles me more than a particularly fiendish episode of Only Connect.
That Saints are still in line for a playoff spot owes much to their defensive solidity. They have Super League’s second best defence having conceded an average of only just over 11 points per game. Only league leaders Hull KR can top that.
Does it mean that Wellens’ earlier assertion that 18 points should be enough to win any game is right? Maybe, but on the one hand Saints have regularly failed to reach 18 points and on the other it’s not an attitude I want verbalised by the Head Coach of a team which I was drawn to by flair and excitement as much as local pride.
So where does that team go from here? The home defeat by Leigh was a painful reminder of the limitations of the red vee. They’re just not managing to compete with the other top 6 sides. Bar Leeds whom they seem to have some kind of weird spell on. Thankfully there are enough of the league’s dead wood on the schedule to offer Saints a route to the post season.
After this week’s break Castleford Tigers will paying the first of two visits. They have improved recently despite the bonkers dismissal of Danny McGuire. They should have beaten Wigan - though everyone is beating Wigan with Bevvy out injured - and they did beat Warrington. Yet despite these signs of life you would still back Saints against the Tigers at home.
After that there’s a trip to a Wakefield side which Saints have beaten twice already this year, before struggling Huddersfield come to St Helens on August 17. This run of games has the potential to get Saints to 30 points. By happy coincidence that figure was enough to get Wellens’ men into the six last year.
Which is good news because it gets a little trickier after that. Schizophrenic Hull FC arrive on August 22 while Saints go to Rovers a week later. September brings a visit from Wigan and a journey to Leigh before the regular season wraps up with another home game against the Tigers.
It may be a tad too early to speculate but if results go as I envisage Saints could face an away date at Leeds or Leigh in the first playoff round. Saints’ recent record at Headingley could make them a slight favourite but I would be less optimistic about marching into the LSV and emerging unscathed.
But the beauty of it all, and why you can never write off the season, is that the playoff system will reward the teams with form and fitness at the right time. This will always give Saints a punchers’ chance regardless of whether performances in 2025 merit it. But yeah, to tweak the famous Mike Tyson quote just a little, everyone thinks they have a chance until they get punched in the mouth.
Whatever happens for the remainder of this year there is plenty to mull over for 2026. The club often trots out the mantra that they don’t like to comment on comings and goings until deals are done. That’s fair enough but it leaves us all wondering about a number of key issues which have to be addressed.
Perhaps most important is the question of whether Wellens will be in charge beyond the end of this season. It’s fair to say his tenure hasn’t been spectacular. Some of the performances - like the most recent one against Leigh - have been apologetic. The team selection was barmy, muddled thinking which led to having to juggle an inadequate 15-man rotation.
And it isn’t the first time. If Wellens does go he might reflect that naming Jonny Lomax on the bench and hauling Bennison off half an hour into that Magic defeat against Leeds was a key moment where he started to show his limitations as a coach.
He hasn’t been helped by recruitment and retention. At the time of writing the likes of Sironen, Whitley, Bennison, Hurrell and Moses Mbye are all off contract while it has been confirmed that along with Bell and Batchelor Morgan Knowles will leave the club at the end of the season.
There are more players off contract and Lomax and Walmsley will be 35 and 36 respectively when next season comes around. And how long can injury prone Percival go on as he also enters his 30s? Deon Cross provides more than decent cover but he has also picked up an injury barely half a dozen outings with his hometown team.
On the face of it major surgery is required. Home grown youngsters like Owen Dagnall, George Whitby, Stephens, George Delaney and Harry Robertson offer hope that they will be able to step up regularly and limit the amount of tinkering required. Dagnall’s match winning moment at Leeds showed that he is comfortable at the level required.
But can we rely on these inexperienced guys consistently? If not there is a very real danger that too many new faces will be required and the side will need time to gel. It would be reassuring for fans to get some idea of what the plan is in terms of the coaching position and the makeup of next year’s squad sooner rather than later.
At certain points this season we have been mercilessly reminded that the famed four in a row hasn’t made Saints eternally bulletproof. Other sides - in particular Leeds and Warrington - have gone through periods of mediocrity after enjoying spells of relative success. We are not immune.
I think we’ll be fine this year but the future is somewhat cloudier.
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