“Absolute joke” – St Helens fans furious after Paul Wellens punishment

Yesterday it was confirmed that St Helens coach Paul Wellens had been fined for breaching the operational rules put in place by the RFL.

Wellens was fined £2000 with £1000 suspended for comments made after the Challenge Cup semi-final defeat to Leigh Leopards which saw Alex Walmsley and Agnatius Paasi suffer serious injuries due to what he felt were dangerous and unpunished tackles from Leigh skipper John Asiata.

Wellens called Asiata “out of control” and questioned why he wasn’t banned and since there has been a rule change to make them illegal but Wellens has still been finned for the comments which can be seen below.

“The RFL before the Match Review Panel met were provided with detailed medical reports from our medical staff,” Wellens told BBC Merseyside.

“Then I spoke to the panel they, by 18:30 on Monday and after the decision not to ban John Asiata, they had still not seen those scan reports.

“What I want to ask is why because that is a very different procedure to what Morgan Knowles was subjected to when he was in a similar scenario when Mike Cooper suffered an ACL injury.

“They say that within the RFL sentencing guidelines, there is nothing in which they could secure a charge. That’s their take on it. I would tend to disagree,” Wellens revealed when asked about what had come of his chats with the RFL.”

He went on to add: “There’s numerous things in the charges that could work and at the very least, even if you’re charging them with something, as a governing body, you are saying, we can’t accept this.

“If Leigh then decide that they want to challenge that and they find a necessary loophole to get him off, well good luck to them. But at least as a governing body we took a strong stand to say we don’t think that’s acceptable.

“The reason I speak here and I speak so passionately about it is because I believe in a cleaner game and a cleaner future for our sport, and what happened on the weekend, that doesn’t tie into that at all.

“I also can’t look Alex Walmsley and Agnatius Paasi in the eye if I don’t come in here and speak my mind and speak on behalf of them, because if the game is not going to protect you, I’ll show them that I’ll do my best.”

Unsurprisingly, Saints fans were not happy as they took to social media to complain with one fan saying: “Unbelievable! Fined for criticising tackles that a few months later are now illegal. You couldn’t make it up.”

This notion of the RFL agreeing with him was repeated as another said: “Those the tackles that have been subsequently banned this season after causing two serious injuries? Well within his rights for me.”

One fan simply joked, “Worth every penny,” whilst another asked, “Is this a prank?”

Meanwhile, some fans were less jovial calling the decision a joke: “Fined for *checks notes* calling out a dangerous tackle technique that the RFL realised itself was dangerous and banned on the off season…what a joke.”

This was repeated by another fan on X: “Absolute joke! They changed the rules on the back of that.”