St Helens cruised to a 24-6 victory over arch-rivals Wigan, but Saints boss Kristian Woolf was unhappy with some of the treatment his players were getting from their opponents – though he was happy with his side’s performance.
“We spoke about a good positive start and I thought it was something that let us down against Warrington and I thought we were terrific in that first 40 minutes,” Woolf said.
“We started the game really aggressively and we put a lot of pressure on Wigan – overall I was really happy with that first-half in particular.
“As you can see the last few weeks we just keep getting little things against us, teams just want to spoil us a little bit.”
Woolf spoke highly about Mark Percival on his return from a hamstring injury.
“I thought he was the best on the field and he was a deserved man-of-the-match – every time he was on the ball he looked like he would create something, but he was also strong defensively.
“Every time Willie Isa got the ball, Mark wrapped him up and he looked so confident so he looks like he’s got a chance of being past his hamstring injury.”
The Saints head coach was, however, keen to stress the weather’s importance on proceedings.
“It just made it really ugly and hard to score and come up with anything – the second-half wasn’t really a spectacle.
“We weren’t having to chase points after our first-half which was good – I thought our defence was outstanding, we did what we had to do.
“Our ball security let us down a bit but I was really happy.”
Woolf was also happy with his side’s discipline in what was an often fractious affair.
“I thought for the most part we showed really good discipline – we lost a bit in the second-half with some penalties and loose carries, but there were moments where our blokes stood their ground and weren’t going to cop it but they weren’t ill-disciplined.”
