Wellens Out - Club Legend Completes His Final Set

With an air of inevitability it has finally been announced that Paul Wellens is to leave his role as Saints Head Coach. 

Even the man himself will have experienced little or no surprise at a decision which was arguably long overdue. And while the majority of fans have been calling for his departure it is one which is still tinged with sadness. For all his coaching shortcomings - which we’ll get to - Wellens remains a club legend. Just like his former teammate Keiron Cunningham before him a stellar playing career cannot be erased by an uninspiring spell in charge. 

If Wellens had lost every single game he had in charge it would not change the fact that he is a true great of the game. In nearly 500 appearances for Saints he won five Super League Grand Finals, five Challenge Cups and two World Club Challenges. Throw in the 2006 Man of Steel Award and two Lance Todd Trophies for Man Of The Match performances in the Challenge Cup finals of 2007 and 2008 and that’s quite a roll of honour. On top of that only four men have scored more than his 199 tries in Super League. His playing legacy is untouchable.

His playing days came to an end in 2015 after 17 years as a one club man. A persistent hip injury cut his final season short and ultimately led to his retirement. Since then he has been a fixture of the Saints coaching team. First as player performance coach under Cunningham before graduating to assistant coach under Kristian Woolf as Saints won an unprecedented four Super League Grand Finals in a row between 2019-22. 

When Woolf left for the new Dolphins franchise in the NRL at the end of 2022 many - including Saints CEO Mike Rush and Chairman and owner Eamonn McManus - saw Wellens as a natural successor. He already knew the club, its players and the system. Perfect, right? Well, you could have said the same about Cunningham and look how that turned out.

Wellens’ best moment as Saints boss came early. In his first competitive game in charge he oversaw an epic 13-12 victory over Penrith Panthers in their own stadium. It sealed a third world championship for Saints and gave us every reason to believe that the success enjoyed under Woolf could continue.

Yet in many ways it was Wellens’ dogged determination to stick with Woolf’s tactics which eventually brought about his undoing. That and - if we’re honest - a failure by those above him to understand that Woolf’s squad needed new blood. Recruitment since Woolf’s departure has been positively ghastly, while loyalty to fading stars has slowly eroded efficiency.

At times it has felt like the club has been asleep at the wheel during Wellens’ tenure. Resting on their collective laurels after those four dominant seasons under first Holbrook and then Woolf. The likes of Sione Mata’utia, Tommy Makinson, Regan Grace and even James Roby have not been replaced with anything close to the same quality. 

Meanwhile Konrad Hurrell has been allowed to hang around collecting his not insignificant salary despite playing on loan at other clubs and having represented Saints only once since June of last year. And that was against part timers West Hull in the Challenge Cup in February.

In some cases the replacements have been good but not great. And you can’t be expected to hit the mark with every signing you make. Matt Whitley is a totally different beast to Mata’utia while Kyle Feldt - initially viewed as a like for like replacement for Makinson right down to his age - has not offered the strong carries out of his own end that were a trademark of both the Makinson and the Woolf approach.

It wasn’t until the end of May that Saints signed a replacement for Hurrell. Deon Cross was brought in from crisis hit Salford. Cross is a good player and may have been a target previously. But his eventual arrival felt like opportunism born out of desperation rather than a well thought out plan. Dire need seemed to provoke it as Saints had previously had to use the likes of Dayon Sambou and Johnny Vaughan in badly patched up three-quarter lines. 

Even by season’s end Cross was largely utilised as a winger as Harry Robertson continued at centre. As well as the youngster has played there it doesn’t feel like his best position. A key weakness of Wellens was arguably his reluctance to trust youth in the halves. He preferred the creaking Jonny Lomax and the vanilla Moses Mbye to the prospect of Robertson alongside the emerging talent of George Whitby.

Whatever the personnel if you can’t deliver dominance and trophies as Saints coach then you’d better bring entertainment. Wellens demonstrably failed to do that through three joyless seasons. Dynamism in the attack was taboo as he persisted with the idea that set completion was all important. His post game blatherings were littered with accusations that his team had been impatient or had ‘tried to score on every play’ whenever a ball hit the ground.

Yet this is an illusion. Saints played five drives and a kick, conservative rugby as Woolf’s team had. The difference is that this team did it more slowly and still made as many mistakes as they might have done had they adopted a more expansive, offload happy style. 

The early signs are that there is an air of relief among the fans now that the decision has been made.  Previously there had been increasing hysteria on social media with every disappointing result. One of the biggest and not unfair complaints was about Saints’ inability to beat top three teams under Wellens’ tutelage. 

This season’s top three after the regular season were Hull KR, Wigan and Leigh. Saints have not beaten Rovers or Wigan since Easter 2024 and have yet to win at Leigh since the rebranded Leopards returned to the top flight in 2023. That kind of form is a source of embarrassment to over-emotional fans in the immediate aftermath of another loss. In cold light of day analysis it’s way short of what’s required to stay in the Head Coach role.

Of course the one thing that fans - myself amongst them - don’t always think through is what comes next if you remove the man in charge. At the time of writing there has been no announcement about a successor. If that is yet to be determined then perhaps the club were wise to stick with Wellens until the end of the season. 

The Super League format ensures opportunity remains even in a bad year. As long as you’re not bad enough to slip out of the top six. Would removing Wellens without an instant replacement - while still in with a chance of reaching the Grand Final however unlikely - have been the right thing to do? 

Breaking ties now gives the club time to make the right appointment and - if they do so promptly - gives the new boss time to consult on recruitment, implement their ideas and work on transmitting them to the players. The obvious problem is that it might be too late to act on recruitment with other clubs with more stable coaching situations having already made moves. Saints’ acquisitions of Shane Wright - more opportunism in place of genuine desire - and South Sydney Rabbitohs Jacob Host are not seen as massive improvements. Especially when you’re losing Morgan Knowles to Woolf’s Dolphins.

If recruitment of players is problematic there isn’t a massive list of possible coaching replacements being bandied about in the immediate aftermath of Wellens’ departure. So far only Salford Red Devils’ ex-Leigh coach Paul Rowley and former Saints prop and current North Queensland Cowboys assistant David Fairleigh stand out. His 2001 stint with Saints was a memorable one. His name comes up in any discussion of the best Saints front rowers of the Super League era. 

As a coach he has also assisted at NRL heavyweights Penrith Panthers and at New Zealand Warriors and Newcastle Knights. But his only Head Coaching experience is a five-year stint in charge of Cook Islands whom he led to their first ever victory in a World Cup game against Wales in 2013. It maybe sounds trite but expectations are somewhat higher in St Helens.

Meanwhile Rowley has worked relative miracles at Salford in recent years. Before this year’s financial meltdown made his job impossible he twice led the previously unfancied Red Devils to the playoffs. That came after twice winning the Championship with Leigh and also a stint with Toronto Wolfpack at the beginning of their rise through the lower leagues to Super League. 

My own preference would be for Rowley. That despite the fact that Fairlegh would get the drinks in if I bumped into him in town. My logic here is that this is probably not going to be a quick fix. Because of the age profile of the squad - a mix of talented youngsters on the up and decorated stars in obvious decline - it may take a few years to get the team back to where we would like it to be. An Australian NRL guy like Fairleigh might not stick around long enough to see the job through. Whereas Rowley - who hails from Leigh and has never played or coached in the NRL - might be someone who can offer real stability. Longevity even.

Despite the problems the new man will still have plenty to work with. In the likes of Robertson, Whitby, Jack Welsby and Owen Dagnall Saints have some serious home grown talent. Nurturing that and adding to it with smart outside acquisitions is the key. You need that blend. Rush’s assertion that 75-80% of the team should be homegrown feels overly ambitious at best. Penny pinching at worst. Not every academy product will be good enough to stick around. See Jon Bennison, Ben Davies, Sam Royle. 

Wellens leaves with our thanks for his efforts and - to my mind - his legacy very much intact. I would hate to see a repeat of we saw with Cunningham. The vitriol he received was one thing but the amnesia regarding his playing career and his overall contribution to the club was unforgivably tone deaf. 

Attitudes towards him are only just mellowing. This cannot happen again especially since so many fans ignored the Cunningham experience in calling for Wellens to be appointed in the first place. The lessons learned there will probably rule Lee Briers out of contention for the role. One day perhaps, when he has proven his Head Coaching chops.

For Wellens maybe a period of reflection before returning to the game elsewhere. Don’t forget he has never been a part of any other professional club. 

For Saints the hard work - and the rebuild - must start now.