Paul Wellens singles out player for praise in ‘chaotic’ St Helens win

Following their golden point victory of Salford Red Devils, Paul Wellens has highlighted the efforts of one St Helens player in particular in what he labelled a “chaotic” game.

St Helens took the lead through Tommy Makinson’s unconverted try but two Marc Sneyd penalties saw the sides level at the half before Waqa Blake and Chris Hankinson scores cancelled each other out. Joe Batchelor then crashed over on the hour mark before Nene Macdonald did the same ten minutes from time.

Salford played the majority of the final ten minutes with a man advantage as referee Chris Kendall flashed three yellow cards in the space of ten in-game seconds and during that final ten-minute period, Moses Mbye made a brilliant try-saving tackle on Deon Cross.

Saints’ utility man would then kick the winning drop goal in golden time to secure a 17-16 win and the Man of the Match drew huge praise from St Helens head coach Paul Wellens.

Speaking to the media post-game, Wellens explained: “Believe it or not, we train for those moments, we train for chaos, big games can get chaotic at times, but there’s nothing you can do about that, what you do is have to handle chaos. I thought we did that really well at the back end of the game.

“Moses’ tackle on Deon Cross, when he looked like he was going to score a try there, it was outstanding and a huge play in the game because without it, we probably don’t win the game.”

St Helens star earns huge plaudits

Paul Wellens’ compliments to Mbye didn’t end there but also weren’t limited to the 30-year-old with the Saints boss praising Mbye’s half-back partner Lewis Dodd who has returned to the fray in recent weeks after being dropped.

Wellens stated: “I can’t speak highly enough of Moses, the way he’s handled being thrown into the house in the last couple of weeks. Along with Lewis, they’ve been really calm. They understand where the team’s at and they’ve been instrumental in us sticking to a game plan.

“We understand, as coaching the playing group at the time, we’re missing Jonny Lomax and Jack Welsby, our probably two most important attacking players in terms of creativity. That would impact any team but Lewis and Moses were two halves that really got the team around the field and stuck to the game plan.

“For Moses, the try assist for Curtis Sironen, the drop goal and the big tackle he made. He had a big hand in a lot of big moments tonight.”

Salford head coach Paul Rowley had noted the importance of Mbye’s tackle on Deon Cross as he reflected post-game and explained that moments change games with his side coming out on the wrong side.

Paul Wellens was in a similarly reflective mood as he spoke on the attritional and error-laden nature of the game, something St Helens will have to clean up if they’re to continue their winning run next week when they face Wigan Warriors at Magic Weekend.

He explained: “I thought it was a really attritional game, two good teams going at it, fine margins throughout, so I’m just obviously very pleased for the playing group more so than anything, to come off on the right side of the results.

“Once they went down to 12 men, we got a little bit loose. We dropped too much ball, we had too many penalties and did that probably too often throughout the course of the night. And that’s what made it the type of game it was.