A top four finish is still theoretically possible for Saints, yet going into this week’s visit to Leigh Leopards it feels more like Paul Wellens’ side are in a state of stasis until the playoffs get under way.
The Red Vee still have a mathematical shot of finishing in the top four and securing the home playoff that comes with it. Yet having secured a top six spot even in defeat to Hull KR a fortnight ago it feels more likely that they will finish in the fifth place that they currently occupy. That could mean another trip to Leigh in the first week of the playoffs or else a visit to Headingley to face Leeds Rhinos.
Moving into the top four would require a win at the Leigh Sports Village this weekend. Given the level of their performances against not only the Leopards but also Rovers and Wigan in recent weeks that seems spectacularly unlikely.
The attack has been repeatedly blunt, scoring just 16 points against those fellow top four contenders across the three recent games against each of them. That’s less than six points a game. Wellens may be foolish enough to think 14-18 points is enough to win any game – it isn’t – but even he would concede that if you are only scoring at a rate of less than a converted try per contest you are going to end up on the wrong side of the scoreline.
The principal reason for the anaemia with the ball is Wellens’ own stubbornness in sticking with the ‘safe’ but slow and predictable halfback pairing of Jonny Lomax and Moses Mbye. Neither has the pace to attack the line and so our sets – if they are completed at all – end with another hopeful Mbye bomb.
This can be quite effective if Kyle Feldt happens to be in the vicinity. Otherwise it is meat, drink and a box of yum yums for the league’s best defences. All of which is made more pitiable by the fact that in Feldt, Mark Percival, Harry Robertson and Deon Cross, not to mention the currently injured Owen Dagnall Saints have a group of three-quarters who would get into most other teams in the league.
Yet they receive little ammunition as set completion remains the mantra. All while Saints are busy making almost 10 errors per game, more than all but four teams in the competition.
If we thought some semblance of relief was on its way with the return of Morgan Knowles we can think again. The soon to be departed loose forward is not named in Wellens’ 21-man squad. He has not recovered sufficiently from the knock he took early in the Rovers defeat which forced him to fail an HIA and miss the derby loss to Wigan last time out.
This is a savage blow to Saints’ already meagre hopes of winning at Leigh, where they haven’t won in Super League since Adrian Lam’s side returned to the top flight in 2023.
Wellens’ attempted to solve the Knowles conundrum last week by shifting Jack Welsby into the loose forward role. However, despite having all the skills to play the role Welsby was burdened by a heavy defensive workload. He made 32 tackles which is a massive contrast to the fewer than six per game he is required to complete when he operates at fullback. That meant he had to be spelled towards the end of the first half. When he came back his effectiveness with the ball was reduced after Saints enjoyed a strong opening 25 minutes.
So perhaps this week Wellens might abandon that idea and go back to the modern way of filling the 13 role. That is with a no frills workhorse who will cart the ball in and be more comfortable making a large number of tackles in defence. Shane Wright has been drafted into the squad having recovered from injury since his loan move from Salford Red Devils.
He is an option, as is James Bell or any one of the back rowers such as Joe Batchelor, Matt Whitley or Curtis Sironen. The latter was employed as a bench prop last week in the absence of George Delaney through suspension. Delaney returns this week to give Wellens the option of restoring Sironen to the second row.
Remember Jon Bennison? You know? Fairly slight, played on the wing before Dagnall’s emergence. Mostly reliable but nobody’s idea of a world beater. He has been on loan at Widnes recently but is recalled for inclusion into this week’s squad amid rumours of a permanent switch to Warrington.
It’s extremely difficult to see Bennison forcing his way into the team ahead of Cross or Feldt on the wings. Come to think of it, it’s extremely difficult to see him forcing his way into the Warrington team even with the recent retirement through injury of Connor Wrench and the impending wind down of Stef Ratchford’s career.
Wellens appeared to have moved on from Bennison from the moment he hauled him off to accommodate Lomax half an hour into the Magic Weekend debacle against Leeds Rhinos in May. Yet here he is again. In the unlikely event that he is called upon he won’t let anyone down. But nor will he inspire in the way in which Saints are desperate for someone to do.
We all know who will play in the halves but just for a bit of fun let’s speculate on what Wellens could do were he to ditch his dogmatic inertia over Lomax and Mbye.
If we assume that Wright will play at loose forward then Welsby is always a candidate for a halfback role, or there is youngster George Whitby or Aussie import Tristan Sailor. Those two could potentially play together with Welsby at fullback to give Saints far more sparkle in possession.
We are also constantly hearing that Robertson’s best position is stand-off, and that in fact he is one of the most talented to come through in recent years. If that is the case let’s see it. We won’t because the playoff system offers us a modicum of hope. Hope that an uber pragmatic coach like Wellens isn’t prepared to risk on a youngster who is a mostly untried six at this level and has spent the season playing in the centres. Wherever you look for creative options you come back to the bald fact that Lomax and Mbye will play. And we will be impotent as a consequence.
Just as we were the last time these two sides met. The 16-4 home defeat to the Leopards in July is routinely referred to by the rugby league media and some less than self aware fans as a tight contest. A twelve-point deficit backs that up, but in reality there was a chasm between the teams on that night.
Saints’ outstanding defence kept them in it as it does so often, but ultimately their failure to threaten the line regularly enough ensured their downfall. Only a very late handling error as Josh Charnley failed to gather a Saints restart set up the position from where Robertson got over for Saints’ only points.
That is as perilously close to being nilled on their own patch as Saints have come in the Super League era, yet it is billed as a hard luck story. The defeats to Rovers and Wigan had almost identical storylines. What evidence is there that things are going to change this time? Especially with Knowles out, Wellens wedded to a halfback combination which isn’t ever going to work and a consequential shifting of round pegs into square holes to accommodate the pair. Mbye won’t be at Saints next season and there is a compelling argument that Lomax – legend that he is – shouldn’t be either.
Nor should Wellens. At the moment fans are feeling a bit of a disconnect with the club which is eerily similar to the sentiments during the fag end of Keiron Cunningham’s two-year spell in charge. It feels like we are being kept in the dark a little - not only about recruitment with a dozen or more players off contract and Knowles, Bell and Batchelor’s exits already confirmed – but also about the future of Wellens.
It started gloriously for him with that World Club Challenge win in Penrith against the Panthers but much of the very nearly three full seasons since have been underwhelming. He was able to reach a semi-final in his first season with the personnel left to him by multiple Grand Final winner Kristian Woolf but saw his side regress to sixth last year and a probable fifth in 2025.
But more than the results it is the failure to adapt in both style of play and team selection which frustrate fans the most. At best he has a monumental stubborn streak and an unwavering ambition to succeed his way. At worst he is failing to learn. That should cost him his job, sad to say.
The blame is not all his. I don’t think any of us are naïve enough to think that recruitment is all down to the coach. The hierarchy and in particular CEO Mike Rush have a big part to play in that and over the last two seasons it has not been good enough.
Rush has spoken about his desire to see a Saints side competing with up to 80% home grown players in the squad. Which sounds like a pitch for not bothering to recruit domestically with any real enthusiasm or belief. It would be much cheaper that way.
We have a lot of talented youngsters but it is stretching credibility to believe that filling 80% of your team from your academy is a sustainable model for challenging for trophies and titles in the longer term.
So far Rush’s public pronouncements on the subject amount to complaints about ‘outside noise’ from fans. A very clear message that our opinion is deranged and he knows best so can everyone please just shut up now. All the while the unspoken elephant in the room is the possibility that the clubs’ losses – which most Super League clubs have endured this year – are preventing them from recruiting the kind of quality we have become accustomed to.
So you get rumours about Oli Partington and Bayley Sironen. Players who aren’t terrible but who don’t appear to improve a squad that is declining. File Wright in that cabinet too.
We are at a point where we must change or die. We have done it before. Justin Holbrook came in to replace Cunningham part way through the 2017 season and immediately led us to a very narrow semi-final defeat at Castleford. He then gave us the unforgettable spectacle of Ben Barba in the red vee and a League Leaders Shield in 2018 before delivering a Grand Final success in his final season in 2019.
Saints need that kind of figure to come in now and to do so on the proviso that the club will start to take recruitment for 2026 seriously. That is if it isn’t too late. Look at the difference Brad Arthur has made at the Rhinos or John Cartwright at Hull FC. If there is to be a change of coach he doesn’t have to be Australian but he should be a proven strategist and motivator. Not just a hugely likeable guy who was one of the greatest fullbacks to ever run around Super League.
That’s just not enough.