Saints v Warrington - How Long Is The Rowley Honeymoon Period?

If you had told me before the start of the season that Saints would sit fourth in the table after 13 rounds I would have taken it. It's about what I would expect given the arrival of new Head Coach Paul Rowley and the squad he inherited from Paul Wellens.

Yet it feels a long way from satisfactory.  That’s not because of league position or even results but because of how we have got there.  Performances have been inconsistent, as have team selections.  There have been periods when you think Saints can mix it with anyone and others when you think they might never score another point.  The harsh reality might be that we do not have a squad that is among the top two or three in the league.  But this is Saints, so that doesn’t mean there won’t be scrutiny.

Rowley inherited much of this squad.  It is not yet entirely his.  There is an argument that 13 league games and a few cup outings is not enough of a sample size to judge him.  The truth is that he has a tough job.  But it is reasonable to ask whether we are moving in the right direction.  Is Rowley improving us in terms of style if not results?  Has the modest amount of recruitment he has been able to get involved in improved the squad or are we stagnating?

Pulling on that thread first, there has been a lot of scepticism about some of the new arrivals.  Ex-Salford boss Rowley has leaned heavily on players who once represented his former side.  Deon Cross, Nene MacDonald, Joe Shorrocks and Shane Wright all played for him in the red of Salford.  Wright was signed before Wellens left and Jackson Hastings’ time there pre-dates Rowley’s, but the association with a club that is now a byword for collapse is inescapable.

If fans were underwhelmed by this job lot of players arriving – and they were – that sense was heightened when Shorrocks received a new three-year deal barely 10 games into his first season with the club.  I remember being fairly outraged at his arrival.  To my mind he is an average player who – when employed as the starting loose forward – could be seen as a sticking plaster to cover the gaping wound left by the departure of Morgan Knowles to the Dolphins in the NRL.  

His Wigan connections didn’t help.  But to be fair you have to give a player time to surprise you.  Early on he did.  Which is to say that he played fairly well.  But not well enough to be handed such a deal so early in his time with the club.  It felt like cost cutting.

None of which is Shorrocks’ fault.  He never came here proclaiming himself to be an adequate replacement for Knowles and he is not going to turn down a three-year deal with what we think is still one of the biggest clubs in the rugby league world.  He is a symptom of a wider malaise.  

Apart from one indelible moment at Leeds last year Wright has not shown himself to be the elite back rower that say…Sione Mata’utia was.  Rowley’s preference for selecting him regardless is becoming a bug bear among fans.  Especially with Jake Davies showing great promise in the opportunities he has been afforded.  Meanwhile Macdonald – a player who has been known to be absent at previous clubs – has barely been seen in the red vee.  Which leaves Cross and Hastings, relative successes but again not quite enough to elevate the side back among the elite.

Like many Super League coaches Rowley has also had to grapple with absenteeism.  His latest squad for Thursday night’s game against Warrington is shorn of Harry Robertson, Hastings (suspended), Matty Lees, Jacob Host, Noah Stephens and Jake Wingfield.  

Without wingers for the trip to Leeds last week he delighted many observers by restoring Jack Welsby to the fullback role and shunting Tristan Sailor out to fill one of the vacant flank spots.  But Rowley admitted in his pre-game interview that playing Welsby at fullback had not been the plan until Owen Dagnall withdrew late through illness.  With Dagnall in the 21 this week as well as Cross it is going to be fascinating to see how Rowley organises his spine of 1, 6 and 7.  

It would surprise nobody if Sailor was restored to the last line of defence which would mean choosing two of Welsby, Jonny Lomax and George Whitby and leaving the odd man out.  A bench role for Lomax could see Welsby partner Whitby in the halves but there has been deep satisfaction – seemingly also from the player himself – about Welsby’s effectiveness at six.

Since there isn’t an obvious specialised nine to back up Daryl Clark the most obvious selection is to start Lomax on the bench with the aim of filling in for the former Castleford and Warrington man.  That doesn’t solve the problem of whether Welsby can play at six but it does give you options.  

Sailor has just been given a new two-year deal so does not seem to be going anywhere out of Welsby’s way any time soon.  Which raises the question of how long Welsby – for so long a hero of the Saints faithful but who has recently become the victim of some rather rampant revisionism – will stick it out at the BrewDog.  His contract ends at the end of 2027 and the only thing comforting me about Saints’ ability to keep hold of him is that the NRL doesn’t really tend to bother with English spine players.  It’s more about the forwards we produce.  

Even so, if he is unsettled and misused there would be nothing to stop him from joining a Super League rival at the end of his Saints contract.  Like that based in his home town.  That would be considerably more difficult to stomach.  Solving the Welsby conundrum is one of the most important and challenging tasks in Rowley’s in-tray.

Partly because of the injuries to Lees, Stephens, Host and Wingfield the Saints pack hasn’t been making life easy for the spine and the three-quarters to function.  This week they are boosted by the arrival of Daniel Suluka-Fifita from Canterbury Bulldogs.  

I say boosted, but there is more scepticism around his arrival and by extension of Rowley’s recruitment strategy.  If indeed it is his and not that of recently appointed CEO Abi Ekoku.  After all, previous incumbent Mike Rush got most of the credit and the blame in that department.  

Suluka-Fifita has not been good enough to break into the Bulldogs first team this season but that doesn’t automatically mark him down as a bad addition.  There are so many variables when recruiting from the NRL clubs that there is nothing to be done except wait and see.  Some players arrive in England unknown and become gems.  Others – like our very own Josh Perry in 2011 – arrive with big reputations as Origin and Test stars and morph into Championship players.  I would expect Suluka-Fifita to make a debut against Warrington but that is about as much as can be reasonably assumed about him.

Whoever trots out in the red vee on Thursday night has one obvious obligation in light of recent performances.  Don’t just play for half a game.  In no fewer than five recent games Saints have failed to score a try in an entire half of rugby.  They didn’t score in either half of the Challenge Cup semi-final against Wigan.  Saints.  The entertainers.  

That is just not good enough and speaks to a wider problem, be it fitness, motivation, lack of game changing options etc.  That is a problem for Rowley to fix and it has to have been playing on his mind in recent weeks.  When it happens once it feels like an aberration.  Twice, three times, four times, five times, it becomes a real structural barrier to improvement.  

And it is hard to blame it only on available personnel.  Saints have often looked better when they have had a longer injury list.  Almost as if having options complicates things and upsets the balance of the side.  Rowley criticised Wellens during a punditry stint last season for not quite knowing his best team.  On the available evidence so far the new man hasn’t got any closer to figuring it out.

If he isn’t able to do that then not only do we face an uphill task to beat Warrington – who by the way were equally as woeful as Saints last week when they scraped past Hull FC – we also have a fight to stay in the top six.  Every Saints fan is proudly aware of our record of having never missed a playoff series in the Super League era.  Being involved in the end of season knockout games is the absolute minimum requirement.  Even if it is your first season in the job and you haven’t got a top two squad.

Leads, Leeds And Making Do

It's taken nine years, but Saints have finally lost to Leeds Rhinos at Headingley. A hoodoo going all the way back to 2017 ended with another of the kind of waning second halves that have characterised Saints in 2026.

With fans demanding changes from the abject loss at Castleford last time out there were mixed feelings at Paul Rowley's selection. Jack Welsby was restored to fullback and George Whitby to halfback with Jackson Hastings out suspended. Many have been calling for this combination ever since Welsby returned to fitness following his shoulder injury on the opening weekend.

Yet Rowley revealed that this was not the team he was going to select until all of Deon Cross, Lewis Murphy and Owen Dagnall were rendered unavailable. The coach's solution to the sudden winger shortage was to move in-form Tristan Sailor to the flank and fill the stand-off role with veteran Jonny Lomax. 

It started well enough. Saints were well in the game and led 16-8 after a first half that swung several times. Alex Walmsley scored early following great work by Daryl Clark out of dummy half. The returning Kyle Feldt scored the 33rd try of his 29-game Saints career to date, and there was a quality link up between Welsby and Sailor as the former's kick to the corner was hunted down for the 27th try of Sailor's time in the red vee. Time which incidentally will be extended by a further two years after he scribbled his name on a new contract this week.

But the way Chris Hankinson scythed straight through the middle of a scattered Saints defence wasn't the only point of concern in that opening 40 minutes. Saints discipline was atrocious, while their ability to save their handling errors for when they were in their own half was uncanny. They led by eight at the break but that was as good as it was going to get. 

David Klemmer's late sin binning didn't affect the outcome. By then Saints had already resigned themselves to a 24-16 defeat following second half tries from Maika Sivo and Harry Newman. But the early exit of the Australian prop seemed to sum up the disciplinary problems Saints had. He was already going for a late hit on a passer but Klemmer hastened his departure by arguing with referee Jack Smith before the explanation for the decision had even been given. 

Saints haven't been great in the second half of games recently. They have failed to score a try after re-emergence from the dressing room in games against Toulouse, Wakefield, Wigan, Huddersfield and now Leeds. They didn't score in either half against Wigan or in the first half of the 30-10 debacle at Castleford. It's not that Saints can't play at all, they just can't sustain it for more than the 20 minutes that was the average life expectancy of pilots in Commander Lord Flashheart's flying Squadron. It's not going to get it done. 

When Saints did get opportunities to register after the break they were guilty of taking wrong options. Feldt was sent free down the right channel but inexplicably cut back inside instead of going for the corner. Finishing tries is one of the things the much criticised winger usually gets right. But this effort was a distant cousin of the infamous failure of Waqa Blake to score at Leigh with half the field to himself in 2024. 

Welsby too was culpable. He found himself in space just to the left of centre within striking distance of the Leeds line but his failure to pass was terminal. For reasons best known to himself he chose instead to try to fend off everyone who crossed his path in a Leeds shirt instead of letting the ball do the work. 

It was perhaps symptomatic of the muddle that his game has been in of late as Rowley struggles to work out how best to integrate both he and Sailor. It smacked of a man desperate to do something spectacular instead of just making the right play.

When Rowley arrived to replaced Paul Wellens the talk among many fans was of style of play more than results. We wanted to be more competitive but we wanted to enjoy the journey towards triumph or disaster. The first half of this one showed that there are glimpses of that stylistic improvement but they're all too fleeting. And the lulls arguably go beyond any level of hopeless tedium seen under Wellens. 

Whether that's all Rowley's fault depends on how much say he's had in the underwhelming recruitment since he was appointed. The new players are probably not good enough for the level we need without being objectively terrible. If you're hitting an attacking wall in a big game against an opponent like the Rhinos you need the kind of inspiration that cannot be provided by your Joe Shorrockses and your Shane Wrights. 

Meanwhile Nene McDonald is constantly missing through injury and Jacob Host unfortunately suffered a broken leg in early March, just four games into his Saints career. Daniel Suluka-Fifita has arrived this week but few know what to expect from a player who was out of favour at Canterbury. It all just feels like we're making do, which inevitably affects performance whoever your coach is and whatever his preferred style might look like.

The end of a nine-year unbeaten stretch at Headingley isn't all that surprising. The surprise is that the Saints class of 2026 came so close to extending it.

As Lees Leaves Can We Trust The Saints Response?

Leeds away. Often one of the marquee and defining fixtures of a Super League season. Yet it comes around now with serious questions about whether this current Saints side can still live up to their billing.

Exacerbating the doubt is the optics around some of the club's recruitment and retention of late. In particular the news this week that Matty Lees - only appointed captain at the start of 2026 - will leave for the NRL at the end of 2027. The prop forward will join new venture PNG Chiefs for their debut season in 2028.

Losing Lees when he approaches his 30th birthday in 18 months time need not be a disaster. His leadership is important and with Morgan Knowles gone he is probably our best defensive player. He's very consistent at what he does well. It's a fair assumption that we might have put up a better fight in recent defeats to Wigan and Castleford were Lees not ruled out through injury. We got too many things wrong to win those games but with Lees setting the tone defensively we could have avoided total capitulation.

But he has limitations. He's not an elite metre maker like Alex Walmsley. And by the time he leaves we will have benefited from his best years. Smart recruitment in replacing him could see Saints improve their go forward as a result. But given Lees' standing in the game his departure looks more concerning when placed into the context of some other squad building decisions. You can't prevent Lees' or Knowles' exits because of simple economics. The problem lies in the way you go about replacing them.

Ten games into an unconvincing first season in the red vee Joe Shorrocks was given a new three-year deal. Winger Lewis Murphy - prone to injury and error in equal measure - was afforded the same. Murphy has only featured 21 times for Saints since joining at the start of 2025. In eight appearances this term he has come up with 13 errors and only four tries. 

If it was ever the intention to replace Knowles like for like then it is demonstrably failing in Shorrocks' hands. It was always a lofty goal. If it was not the intention then plan B isn't looking too clever either. But it's these sorts of questionable moves which push the loss of Lees further into the spotlight. It's bad optics to be seen to lose a key member of your now ailing pack while gifting long term deals to average performers.

This week Saints have released Agnatius Paasi to make room on the cap for Daniel Suluka-Fifita from Canterbury Bulldogs. More specifically their reserves. There's no issue with letting Paasi go. His form has fallen off a cliff due to injuries. There was little prospect of the return of the explosive, offloading prop of days gone by. 

But Suluka-Fifita is inarguably a gamble. To an extent all recruits from the southern hemisphere are. We all remember how dead cert Josh Perry wilted in the red vee. But the chances of scoring a hit with Suluka-Fifita are lowered by the fact that he has not broken into the Bulldogs first team this year. That doesn't make him doomed to fail but still it feels like bet-hedging and belt-tightening. That isn't going to consistently keep Saints in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed over the longer term.

The man they're calling DSF (didn't they sell sofas?) arrived too late to be involved in the Rhinos matchup. With Noah Stephens out too the pack still looks threadbare. Surely Jake Davies will be restored after missing out recently. Yet you wouldn't be totally shocked if he is left out in favour of the not terrible but not much better than average Matt Whitley or Shane Wright.

Some - including me - thought Jackson Hastings was brought in to hold the halfback seat warm for George Whitby. With the Aussie suspended for the next two it seems the right time to reintegrate the youngster. Yet with rumours of a return for Lewis Dodd in 2027 has Paul Rowley already abandoned that succession plan? Instinctively it feels like going back to Dodd would be a regression in keeping with the theme of troubling recruitment for the level we are supposedly at. 

Rowley needs to also work out what his best spine combination is. He was critical of Paul Wellens' indecision on this during a punditry stint last year but hasn't really convinced that he knows how to fix it. Jack Welsby is a sulky, ineffective presence at six so it seems logical to restore him to fullback. Even if that looks like rewarding petulance. It would also spare Tristan Sailor from further exposure of his weakness as a last line of defence. Regardless, whoever plays six for Saints is a passenger if the pack can't make any ground as at Castleford.

The challenge for Rowley isn't preventing the loss of his key assets. That's basically pushing soup uphill with the proverbial fork. The challenge is replacing them adequately. A certain amount of work towards this can be done in house with youth development. Davies, Harry Robertson, Owen Dagnall and hopefully Welsby are going to crucial over the medium term. 

There's just a sense that with the likes of Shorrocks, Murphy, Shane Wright and maybe Suluka-Fifita we're maybe not getting it quite right at the moment. Earlier in the season we cursed our luck with injuries but if anything the return of the absent players like Welsby, Mark Percival and Curtis Sironen while still suffering catastrophic defeats indicates that we are miles off the pace. 

Leeds away won't be any easier for that.