Jon Wilkin says St Helens “felt disrespected” in Australia

St Helens stunned Penrith Panthers in Australia on Saturday after it had been suggested for the weeks going into the game that they hadn’t respected.

The Super League Champions hadn’t been officially welcomed down under and Phil Gould claimed that Penrith would be “able to declare” at halftime.

Following the win, former St Helens player Jon Wilkin has said that the NRL in general disrespects Super League:

“I think the NRL is quite disrespectful of Super League in general, but from the World Club Challenge, you can’t deny the quality of our top tier but the question remains: how do we improve our competition from the bottom up, but St Helens lead the way. They represented our competition really well.”

Today, Wilkin has echoed this thought saying that the Saints “felt disrespected,”

He said: “I think they felt disrespected. Respect is earnt, it maybe took a team like St Helens, a Champion team like them to go down there and stick it to the Australian Champions to earn that respect and we have been fighting for that respect for a long time and ultimately you only get it by fighting and winning those kinds of games consistently.

“This team has done this competition an incredible amount of good.”