It was hard not to cringe as Saints suffered a humiliating, reality-checking 52-10 shellacking at Hull KR on Friday night (March 27).
Despite an injury list longer than Joey Barton's charge sheet, Paul Rowley's side had been on a good run of form. They'd won five games in a row in all competitions since losing their opening Super League game at Warrington in mid-February. But that all came crashing down as the champions clicked into top gear following a sluggish start to their league campaign. Saints had no answers. It was ugly.
George Delaney's handling error on the first play of the game undeniably set the tone. It shouldn't have. There were only seconds on the clock. But things seemed to get worse from there. Like a rot had already set in. Saints - admittedly depleted through injuries and the suspension of Kyle Feldt - never really recovered.
Joe Shorrocks and Daryl Clark returned but boss Paul Rowley was still without several key men. Shorrocks was available again after a two-game suspension while Clark had sat out last week's 30-16 win at Toulouse due to concussion protocols. But joining Feldt on the absentee list were Jack Welsby, Nene McDonald, Jonny Lomax, Alex Walmsley, Matty Lees, Curtis Sironen, Jacob Host, George Whitby and Jake Burns.
Still, there was enough quality in the Saints 17 to be competitive. It feels naive now but many of us were further encouraged by Rovers' Super League form in the early part of 2026. The champions had won only one league game out of four prior to this - a 32-6 win at bottom of the table Huddersfield Giants. This should have been a contest.
Although Clark was available, Rowley took the decision to keep Jake Wingfield in the starting nine role. Hindsight genius alert - but we're in the midst of an injury crisis. If you get your international hooker back you should probably get him on the field sooner rather than later. Wingfield covers most pack positions - in a fashion - and is therefore a bench option more than he is a starter. It could just have been a case of trying to manage Clark's minutes. But if there was any doubt around the ex-Warrington man's health or fitness he shouldn't have been there at all.
The manner in which Saints were dominated is what is truly alarming. Consider some of these stats. David Klemmer - two carries for seven metres; Shorrocks - seven carries for 14 metres; Delaney - six carries for 24 metres; Agnatius Paasi - five carries for 30 metres.
There are more of these abject tales of woe. On the face of it they look like pathetic, unacceptable efforts. And they are. But they are also partly explained by the fact that Saints had very little possession throughout. And that's defensive. It stems from an almost total inability to get the ball back from the opponent.
Rowley lamented his side's defensive problems in his post match interview. He acknowledged that Saints were beaten in the contact more often than not. That allows opponents - particularly those good enough to currently hold all three domestic trophies and the World Club Challenge - to roll down the field too easily.
But it may have helped if - during the rare occasions when Saints held possession - they had stood a little deeper to counter the Robins' line speed. The attack always looked flat even if there are those who will insist that this was down to Rovers standing offside at the play-the-ball. Without getting the tape measure out the referee wasn't calling it even if it was offside. In that situation you need to make an adjustment. With all this it is no surprise that Saints had to wait 14 minutes for their first play-the-ball in Rovers territory.
The pressure on the defence led to some bewildering decision making. Deon Cross and Tristan Sailor gave up tries through trying to stop what they thought might happen rather than what was actually happening. Sailor's decision to stand off Joe Burgess as the winger tore down the sideline was particularly perplexing.
It was possible - likely even - that he would have passed to Owen Gildart on his inside if Sailor had confronted him. But surely you make him make that pass? The man with the ball is the biggest threat. Particularly if he's the fastest player on the field. Cross took a similar decision which allowed Tyrone May to slice through and create a score for Jez Litten.
Saints' inability to stop runners was a theme all night. Wearing their retro 1996 blue and white striped shirts they looked like Tesco carrier bags and defended with a similar resilience. Yet they didn't need to be defending to take a firearm to their own hooves. The game was over by the time Matt Whitley's wild pass from dummy half could only be parried by Jackson Hastings.
But as James Batchelor picked up the scraps and ambled in for another try it summed up the entire slapstick farce. As did the reaction of one Saints fan, captured by the Sky Sports cameras looking very glum. His only nod to acknowledging his screen time was lewd gestures. It wasn't a good moment to be on TV.
Not wishing to go overboard and declare a full blown crisis but the performance does raise questions about squad depth. Any pack would be weakened by the absence of Walmsley and Lees while any side would also miss Welsby. Recent revisionist assessments of the fullback on social media don't change the fact that he's one of the best players in the competition.
Feldt splits opinion in terms of his work rate but is a prolific try scorer. He has 30 in 24 Saints appearances. His prowess under the high ball suggests he may have prevented Burgess' first try from a cross-field kick. Which if nothing else might have calmed the troops after the fraught start provided by Delaney's error.
Jacob Host and Curtis Sironen have great experience and are reliable if not always spectacular. Saints also lost Mark Percival who was spared having to re-emerge for the second half with the game already gone. I haven't even considered the impact of the absences of Lomax, McDonald or Lees. There were a lot of very useful performers unavailable to Rowley.
But are the back-ups good enough? In Cross, McDonald, Hastings, Shorrocks and Wright we have recruited a lot of players with Salford Red Devils on their CV. Hastings probably gets a pass because he moved on to prove himself elsewhere, and his time at the AJ Bell was under the leadership of Ian Watson rather than Rowley. But there's an air of Rowley having got the band back together with the others. On this night the band was absolutely honking. I'm not sure we have as much depth as we thought if this evidence is anything to go by.
If we're looking at positives to take it's what General Melchett would have called a barren, featureless desert. Perhaps the only one is the brief impact made by Noah Stephens. He showed his promise when he crashed through Mikey Lewis before aiming a perfect pass for Dagnall to score one of Saints' two tries on the night. The other was scored by Wright, who like Feldt doesn't look like a world beater but has an impressive early try scoring record. He has managed five tries in just 11 appearances, three of those this term.
Beyond any of this, what is there? Well, we didn't concede 60. On a serious note there's a good case that this kind of defensive meltdown wouldn't have happened under Wellens. They were a hard watch but defence kept them in most contests. And it's not as if Rowley's more open style led to the breaking of the dam.
It was that lack of physicality and poor defensive decision making which helped Rovers past the half century. And it hasn't done Saints any favours in the points difference column. We have seen before how playoff places can rest on such things.
And it wouldn't kill us to give KR some credit for their performance. They have won all the trophies available to them in the last 12 months for a reason. This was a return to form for them. They played fast, smart open rugby league but also dominated defensively. If head coach Willie Peters' impending departure at the end of the year doesn't prove too much of a distraction they will challenge for all the major honours again in 2026.
There's no let up as we enter the Easter weekend. Our traditional Good Friday meeting with Wigan is the next assignment. They were unbeaten until they somehow managed to lose at home to previously unbeaten Huddersfield Giants last time out. That result offers us a modicum of hope but we thought that about Rovers' form coming into this week. The reality is that a repeat of the flaws which infested this performance will translate to another defeat.
Feldt will not be back as he serves the final game of his ban, but Whitby and Burns have a chance to be available again following concussion protocols. Saints may sweat on the availability of Percival but the other absentees aren't coming back in time. A similar 17 will be relied upon to get the job done.
Sitting fifth after the most recent fixtures. Both Leeds and Wakefield leapfrogged Saints thanks to wins over York and Warrington respectively. But it is hardly time to panic. There are 21 regular season games left. That starts with the local rivals. A tough matchup on the back of a thrashing. But that may prove to be an aberration by the end of the campaign.
A little less cringe is the first request...
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