Paul Wellens’ five-word answer on St Helens spine question as he gives Alex Walmsley update

St Helens boss Paul Wellens gave nothing away after being asked what he felt his best spine was following the defeat to Leigh Leopards.

The Saints were beaten 28-10 at Leigh Sports Village which resigns them to fifth spot in Super League and ensures next week’s game against Castleford Tigers will be their final home game of the season. It also means Wellens’ side have lost three on the spin now as they approach the end of the season and that lack of form has to be a concern.

St Helens fell behind early against Leigh with Andrew Badrock touching down before Keanan Brand added a second. The Saints did get on the scoreboard through Kyle Feldt and Harry Robertson after two Bailey Hodgson errors, but it was largely another frustrating night for the Merseyside outfit, particularly in attack.

Wellens named Jack Welsby and Moses Mbye in the halves, his 10th pivot pairing of the season so far, and it’s fair to say they failed to fire, while Jonny Lomax came off the bench late on and George Whitby watched on from the sidelines.

St Helens boss on the loss at Leigh Leopards

“Yeah it is [frustrating] to be honest,” Wellens said on his spine. “It’s been a difficult year in that respect and there are circumstances around why that has been but quite clearly 10 combinations over the year is too many.”

Asked what he felt was his best spine, Wellens added: “I’ll keep that in house.”

On the game itself, the head coach said: “Frustrating, disappointing. That’s the reality of where we’re at at this moment in time, collectively and individually we have to take responsibility for that and look to find the improvements that we’ve obviously got to make.

“Quite clearly if you look at the last three results, we’re not where we need to be if we want to be successful this year. There are some mitigating factors there but the reality is we’ve conceded 28 points tonight and that’s not good enough.

“That’s not our standard and we need to be better there because particularly in the ruck area tonight things got too quick for us.”

Saints. who were already without Morgan Knowles, were not helped at Leigh but the loss of Alex Walmsley in the first half, with the prop failing a HIA.

“We’re already missing Morgan there and we lose Al early in the game,” Wellens said. “I think that impacted us in a big way but we still need to be better in big games moving forward.

“Part of winning big games is dealing with adversity and we didn’t get that right. There’s a great chance Morgan will play next week, he had to go and see a neurologist this week who advised he have another week off. We know the way the game has gone now, we have to make sensible decisions and we chose to give Morgan the extra week the professionals thought he needed.”