Before the World Club Challenge St Helens were well and truly written off against the Penrith Panthers.
The Super League Champions were 6/1 outsiders with some bookmakers, others gave them a 24 point head start whilst NRL pundit Phil Gould said that Penrith “should be able to declare” at halftime against the Saints.
Speaking after the game, Paul Wellens revealed that he and his squad were told time and again bu the Australian public that they had “no chance.”
He now hopes the Saints have changed some opinions:
“I am sure we shocked a few people. Walking around Australia, wherever we went even after we beat the Dragons a lot of people would say to us, ‘You did well, but you have no chance next week.’
“Those types of conversations became common place going around Australia but we just answered with a wry smile.
“We had a lot of self belief that we could go there and get a result.
“One thing that I spoke to the group about was, winning the game was very important and really why we were there but we also had motivation about changing opinions, changing opinions about us as a club, Super League as a competition and British rugby league in general.
“I’d like to think in coming to the UK now that there is a lot of people in Australia that think differently.”
