Wellens on Saints' aggressive defence, 2 points, slow rucks

Saints coach Paul Wellens credited his side for the patience they showed in clawing their way back into the game, and the way their aggressive defence turned the tide after a long night looked in store at 12-0.

Wellens also gave his thoughts on the slowness of the rucks, which contributed to an often ugly but tight encounter. 

MC: Not a great start but the response to 12-0 was completely different to that a couple weeks ago, the patience rather than the panic (of the cup game) must be pleasing aspect?

PW: Absolutely. I was really pleased and obviously we got it to 12-6 just before half time, a bit of an opportunist try from Tommy Makinson and he's done a few of those throughout his years.

But then at 12-6 we felt a lot more comfortable as a group and I spoke to the team at half time that around the fact that it's not a game that we're going to go 12, 18, 24, 30. I said don't expect that, don't want that. What we've got to do is work really hard for each other.

If you contrast the response that we had tonight to the response that that we had against Warrington a few weeks ago, that tells me as the coach there has been lessons learned.

MC: Tommy Makinson’s try took some scoring to spy, collect and finish it. He was probably pleased as he will have kicked himself for the for the earlier Adam Swift missed tackle try?

PW: Tommy is an experienced player who has been around a long time and he said to the boys at half time ‘that's on me, I need to be better’, but what he does do really well is put himself on the end of the line defensively.

So any half back or any player in the team wanting to throw cut out balls to wingers, you're taking a chance when Tommy's on the end of the line and obviously he fell in all favour there.

MC: Did you back yourself to wear them down by just being patient and carrying on what you were doing at the start of the second half?

PW: The way the game was going, it was never going to be anything but what we got.

It could have been playing for another three hours, I don't think any teams were scoring the way the rucks went.

What I'm really pleased in is that we were prepared to win a close game. Where we have got into trouble in the past is feeling uneasy being in a tight game and trying to win it by 12, 18 or 20 points.

That's not what we're about as a team. If we have to win 13-12 well, so be it.

MC: Do you credit the aggression of your defence and the way you attacked their ball carriers coming off their line for the Daryl Clark try?

PW: Yes, absolutely. People will see that Daryl Clark went over the line there and that's the big moment in terms of the try. But the work in the lead up to that, and what we did defensively, is why we're in that position.

Every play is a big play and each tackle in that sequence is important.

Every time you limit them by a metre, you turn the game in your advantage, you turn the game in your favour. So Daryl Clark scored the try, but he's probably got a few blokes in and around him to thank for that.

MC: The defence was aggressive, but your carries had to be likewise getting out of your end – and I am looking at someone like Mark Percival who returned the ball strongly?

PW: Percy is such an important player for us and I firmly believe - and have known Percy for a long time and had the pleasure of playing alongside him – that when he's at his best, he's the best centre in the competition and I am prepared to challenged on that because people have their own opinions as well.

But that's why we love him here because for all his talents and all his ability, he always puts the tough stuff first and that was very evident with his performance.

MC: I know you said tonight wasn't perfect and there were probably other factors, the possible offsides and slow rucks and stuff like that, but is this Saints on their way back after the recent loss?

PW: We are hoping so and we have got to keep building.

What we do pride ourselves on as a team, as a club, is consistency.

We've won two games off the back of a disappointing result, but we've got to build on that and we'll continue to work hard and try and try and improve there.

We understand that the games come thick and fast and there's more challenges down the track and but we've, but we've won an important game and we hope to finish high up the table.

We'd love to finish in top spot, but if you finish high up the table at the back end of the year, not many people will look back at the round nine Huddersfield game where we won by a point, but that's a valuable two points all there for us tonight.

MC: Without encouraging to have a whinge, are there things that we need to clean up as a game that was happening tonight?

PW: Well, I think as a game, we made a commitment and I've been in meetings with head coaches and the referees and officials to clean the game up.

And the biggest area that we all spoke around, and we all agreed needed cleaning up was the ruck area.

And it seems to me on the evidence of tonight, we've not only regressed back to 2023, we've actually gone even further the other way.

It makes for a great game because if you watching that live, you don't know which way the result is going to go.

But we want to see tries. We want to see the best players with time, space and the ball in their hands. We didn't see any of that tonight or very little of it.

So it's a game that you probably enjoy watching live, but you're not going to go home and watch it again.