Kristian Woolf today spoke to the press ahead of St Helens trip to Toulouse as the Champions look to avenge their shock defeat to the French side earlier this year.
However, plenty of the headlines surrounding St Helens this week – despite contract announcements retaining Jack Welsby, Matty Lees and Sione Mata’utia recently – have been dominated by the future of Regan Grace amid links to rugby union.
Today, Woolf addressed those rumours saying that Grace has a choice on his hands but that a decision will be made within a couple of weeks.
“It’s extremely important [that the club keeps their homegrown players],” he said, “That’s what this club has done so well for a long time and why we’re in a strong position. The club has worked really hard to make sure they have the junior base through the academy so that they come into the first grade squad and we make opportunities for them in the first grade squad.
“Jack Welsby and Lewis Dodd are the two most recent examples of that to continue their development and become elite players. Regan has been in that position, Jake Wingfield coming through at the moment who I’m very confident will do the same thing.
“That’s important, that long term succession planning and long term success. Regan is a part of that, he’s extremely important to this team, this club. We want to keep him at the club and we’re working really hard to make sure that’s the case.
“We’ve got some confidence that we can do that with a player like him. Guys like Matty Lees, Jack Welsby and Sione Mata’utia, those quality players are players that other codes and teams in Australia would like to have. So, when they’re off contract you have to work really hard to make sure, within the salary cap, you come up with something attractive.
“That’s what we’re aiming to do and we’re very keen to keep him around and we’re confident we can come up with something that’s really attractive. That doesn’t mean other clubs aren’t going to come up with what they think is attractive and a guy like Regan is going to have a choice and that’s what he has at the moment.
“I’m pretty sure that will be resolved in the next week or two.”
So there could be a big announcement in the next few weeks, positive or negative for Saints fans, regarding the future of Regan Grace but he does set to play this weekend after a long injury layoff.