Matty Lees makes ‘sort it out’ St Helens demand after Challenge Cup exit

Matty Lees believes St Helens must work on becoming more clinical after their Challenge Cup quarter-final loss to Warrington Wolves on Sunday. The Saints scored two tries at the Halliwell Jones Stadium but they were second best on the day as they lost 20-12, in their second defeat to Warrington in as many months.

The Saints haven’t scored more than 14 points in four of their last five games now and while they did had enough to claim the win over Catalans Dragons last time out in Super League, they have work to do in order to get the best out of their attacking unit. Lees admits Saints have been guilty of losing confidence at times when they’ve been unable to make the most of the chances they’ve created.

And, with some huge games coming up against Wakefield Trinity, Wigan Warriors and Warrington again, with the latter being for the third time in less than five weeks, St Helens must fix things up quickly.

“We’re really disappointed,” Lees told Saints TV after the game in Warrington. “We thought we were building for something special in this Challenge Cup and to come out at any stage is awful.

“We’re really disappointed as a playing group but hopefully we can bounce back in the season now and just concentrate on that.

“There’s no excuses for the performance, we just weren’t good enough. Warrington performed a lot better than us and put us under the pump for a lot of the first half. We came out for the second half and it was a similar story, we started well and then they got on top of us.  We need to look at a few bits in the week and then really sort it out for next week against Wakefield.

“I just feel like when we’re not coming up with the tries, we get our heads down so we need to look at that ourselves and really stay on with it and keep doing what we’re doing because we’re coming up with good opportunities, we just need to nail them.

On Friday’s clash with Wakefield, Lees added: “They gave us a really tough game last time we played them at their place, we’ll take this loss tough but we’ll hopefully bounce back in the league now.”