Horrible. Embarrassing. Dismal. Shambolic. These probably aren’t quite the right words to describe Saints' 46-0 home loss to Toulouse on Sunday but they are as close as the English language gets. It represents the first time Saints have failed to score any points in a home league game since 1980.
On that occasion a side containing the likes of Clive Griffiths, Roy Haggerty and Roy Matthias went down 19-0 to a pre-Viking Widnes. Saints finished eighth that year, a blow softened somewhat by the fact that Wigan were relegated.
There was nothing to temper the humiliation
this time. The defeat saw Saints drop to seventh in the Super League table. A
place in the top six is a must if Paul Rowley's side are to make the playoffs.
If they don't it will be the first time that has happened in the Super League
era. And it will be on Rowley's watch.
Before we dissect the Toulouse debacle let's
give the French side some credit. Toulouse were superb on the day. They ran in
eight tries. Three of those went to back rower Matthieu Jussaume. He, Rob
Butler and Tiaki Chan did the hard yards that the Saints pack didn't seem
capable of or interested in. Olly Ashall-Bott was a constant threat at fullback
while Benjamin Laguerre, Paul Ulberg and Romeo Trobis ran riot. The visitors
worked harder, outthought and outfought Saints and were far more clinical. They handed out a warning by thrashing
Catalans Dragons 60-18 in Castres last week.
We probably won’t see them threatening the playoff places this season,
but Sylvan Houles’ side are an improving outfit.
Saints
were not without their problems coming into this one. Rowley was without 12 of his first team
squad. Yet the lineup he was able to
select was full of Super League experience and should have been good enough to
at least compete with Toulouse. It was a
lineup I certainly believed was capable of getting the win, even if there were
reasons to doubt it. Jack Welsby, Nene
Macdonald, Tristan Sailor, Jackson Hastings, Jacob Host, Joe Shorrocks and new
arrival Jed Cartwright all featured, with Curtis Sironen entering from the
bench. Add those names to a crop of exciting
youngsters like Harry Robertson, Owen Dagnall, Jacob Douglas and Jake Davies
and it was fair to expect so much better.
Sadly
the injury list got even worse, though it did so long after the game was
lost. Late in the second half Dagnall
was tackled into touch and did not get up.
He lay prone just over the touchline right in front of where I sit in
the north stand. I am at the top of the
first tier so I wasn’t particularly close to it. But I could hear his screams of pain loud and
clear. It is not often you can hear a
rugby league player react like that to an injury. It was horrific. The stretcher arrived but somewhere along the
line the decision was taken to let him hobble off with the aid of two medical
people to support him. It has since been
confirmed that he has suffered an ACL injury, which puts paid to any hopes of
seeing him again this season. Let’s hope
his rehab goes well and he comes back strongly.
But
injuries were not the problem here .
From the first whistle Saints seemed to lack sufficient energy. There was an error in the very first set
which set the tone. By the end we had
coughed up possession 15 times. Coming
into the game we averaged 11 errors per game.
That’s not all that flash, but it
is not 15. And it was the manner of the
mistakes which was most alarming. Saints
didn’t drop the ball so often because they were trying to play a kind of
dazzling, expansive rugby league that we may have all hoped for when Rowley was
appointed. There isn't enough pace in the side for that to work. They dropped them because of what
at best can be described as a lack of concentration. At worst they could be accused of apathy
about the outcome of the game. It was a
performance which ran out of steam way before it reached anything resembling
acceptable. It was an abomination.
Still,
one defeat does not define a team or a coach.
This one took place just a week after Saints came within a missed
penalty goal at the hooter of taking Wigan to extra time in the Magic Weekend
derby. Mighty, exalted Wigan. Wigan who are crowned champions by the media
(and one or two of their fans) even when they don’t win. Competing with the likes of them as well as
Leeds, Hull KR , Leigh and Warrington is what we expect. Last week we showed that we could. It is still very early in Rowley’s tenure,
but there have been those on social media and others muttering on the bridge
back into town after the game that their patience with the ex-Salford boss has
expired. Some are already calling for
change.
That
is a little extreme for my tastes.
Rowley came to Saints with a good enough pedigree. He had led Salford to two playoff seasons and
one semi-final. That’s Salford. Perennial strugglers who for a period –
albeit one also greatly contributed to by Ian Watson as head coach – challenged
the very biggest names in Super League. They
did so by playing an exciting brand of rugby that was fun to watch, except when
you were on the wrong end of it. Rowley just
hasn’t brought that to Saints as yet. The
attack is even worse than it was under Paul Wellens. Regardless of the personnel it goes side to
side until we eventually run out of room.
Nobody seems capable of straightening it up and grabbing the attention
of a defender to create space for someone else.
We must be the most predictable attacking side in the league. And we are slow with it. Although he has Lee Briers there to assist
him, that is ultimately on Rowley. He
has to find a way to make us more of a threat, especially if the defence is
going to break down as it did in this one.
We cannot afford to fritter away possession cheaply and give teams more opportunities
to come at us. Frankly, our players aren’t
good enough to compensate for that kind of profligacy.
With Wigan,
Hull KR, Leigh and in-form, real deal Wakefield still to play in the final nine
games the task of making the six looks pretty daunting. Many of the injuries are not of the type
which will allow players to come back quickly.
We may have to continue with more or less what we have. So Rowley must get a tune out of them. Missing the playoffs in itself isn’t a sacking
offence from my point of view, but there will be plenty who disagree. And if you are Rowley, whether you are going
to get dismissed or not, you just wouldn’t want to be the one who helped make
that particular piece of music stop. The sun comes up in the morning, the birds
sing, and Saints make the playoffs. It
just is.
If I
can be optimistic for a second – and those who know me know that it will only
be a second – this could be a turning point.
After all, how can it get worse than this? More chastening? More embarrassing? It probably can’t. Without wishing to go all Yazz and the
Plastic Population on you the only way from this game really is up. The coach and the team have to be galvanised
by it. Make it a red line where they say
enough is enough and we will never be this bad again. The performance against Wigan a week previously
was not exactly edge of your seat scintillating, but something closer to that
could still rescue our hopes of scraping into the playoffs.
Saints
host Catalans Dragons this coming Friday night.
It will be interesting to see what the response is. And what changes Rowley makes. He is limited in what he can do by the
injuries but there is a chance that both Alex Walmsley and George Delaney could
return after missing this one due to concussion protocols. Walmsley is a leader by example which should
help. His ability to get Saints down the
other end of the field might also take a little bit of the pressure off.
But
it is another must win. Another performance
like this one against Toulouse and pressure will ramp up on Rowley.
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