Just one attempt was given up in two games and two victories. Even though the 2024 season is still very early, Paul Wellens is justifiably happy with how St Helens has started its quest to win the Betfred Super League again.
A heartbreaking loss to Catalans Dragons in the play-off semifinals of the previous season put an end to an incredible quest for an unprecedented fifth consecutive Grand Final victory. If there’s a silver lining to all of this, it’s that Wellens, the head coach in his second year, was able to cultivate a fresh sense of purpose.
A change of leadership has resulted from the retirements of James Roby, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, and Will Hopoate. Waqa Blake, Matt Whitley, and Daryl Clark have been brought in, and the Saints’ early results, including victories against the London Broncos and Huddersfield Giants, have been encouraging.
“It was a really disappointing way to finish last year but it’s allowed us to draw a line in the sand in terms of it’s not the talk about four or five in a row,” Wellens stated.
“It almost feels like a new beginning for the group and for myself. Several new players have joined the team, thus there are many similarities to a new beginning.
What we had was a team that was successful at doing things a certain manner. Perhaps in some cases, failure or not quite reaching the desired outcome is necessary to make you seriously consider where you might improve.
We believe we’ve found a couple of those, and we believe we’re making progress in some of those areas for improvement. Although we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, we think it’s improving our game.”
The clean sheet in the 28-0 victory over Huddersfield on Saturday highlighted the progress made in strengthening St Helens’ discipline, which Wellens had highlighted as a need for improvement following the team’s joint-fifth-highest penalty conceded and fourth-highest number of yellow cards given out during the 2023 regular season.
Wellens placed a strong emphasis on his team’s pre-season tackling technique because rugby league’s head contact restrictions were interpreted more strictly than before this season.
The 44-year-old is attempting to find a balance between abiding by the rules and preserving the players’ innate instincts in a physical contact sport, and so far, it is working well.
“We’ve had to curb our levels of aggression slightly, not only because we needed to change but also because the game has changed in terms of the tackle height,” Wellens stated.
“I told the players that while I think they’re excellent defenders, they still need to improve as tacklers.
“We’ve been really pushing the message that the game is changing with the playing group because, quite naturally, we have players that want to play physically and aggressively, and we don’t want to take that away from them.”
“But there is a discipline which has to come with it and so far, the signs are really good, but we’re faced with the same challenge every week.”
The next test for St Helens will be against the Betfred Challenge Cup champions Leigh Leopards on Friday, live on Sky Sports. The hosts enter the game having missed Round 2 since the World Club Challenge forced a postponement of their “Battle of the Borough” encounter against Wigan Warriors.
In that game against the Penrith Panthers, the defending Super League champions pulled off an extremely close victory against the NRL champions, mirroring their competitors on the opposite side of Billinge Hill’s triumph from the previous season.
Wellens, who has become close friends with Matt Peet, his opponent at Wigan, has no qualms in complimenting the Warriors on how they persevered till the very end to defeat the Panthers 16–12.
It came after St Helens defeated the opposition 13–12 in the 2023 World Club Challenge. Wellens is certain that those outcomes, along with England’s 3-0 Test series victory over Tonga in the autumn of last year—he was a member of the touring team—are indications that the perceived divide between the top Super League clubs and the Southern Hemisphere is not as great as it may seem.
“It’s clear evidence of that if you go off the back of the past couple of years,” Wellens stated. “The matches were quite close, and if you consider how England played in the Test series against Tonga—which included NRL players—and how the top end of the game was played here, things have been sealed.
It doesn’t lessen the competitiveness of both games, even if Wigan or we hadn’t exactly prevailed since they both came down to the wire and you might not have the desired outcome.
“It is important to emphasise that idea. You always want to win such games, but this is perhaps the place where the game as a whole is called into question for being too competitive.
“But the signs are whether it’s England internationally or domestically in the World Club Challenge we are more than competitive, and that’s what we want.”
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