St Helens head coach Paul Rowley has hailed his side’s ‘resilience’ as they won again in spite of their ever-growing injury list, defeating Toulouse Olympique 30-16 in France.
Without 12 players for their trip to France, Saints lost another as George Whitby failed a HIA just minutes after coming onto the field with that limiting the number of interchanges the Red Vee could use, but thankfully they’d done enough in the first-half.
Saints scored five tries in the opening 40 minutes and held strong until the 60th minute at which point Toulouse broke their defences and went on to score two more quickfire tries, however, it was too little too late as St Helens won to move second in Super League.
Reacting post-match on Sky Sports, Rowley expressed disappointment at the second-half but was happy overall with the first-half particularly strong.
He said: “The second half obviously got a little bit disappointing for us. We had some standards that we wanted to uphold in that second half and didn’t quite manage to do that but all credit to Toulouse for having a resurgence.
“Nevertheless, we’ve have taken the result before we got here. I thought we were absolutely fantastic in that first half and I guess the mindset just probably understandably just drifted a little bit.”
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St Helens praised for overcoming adversity
Key in that first half were spine pair Jackson Hastings and Tristan Sailor with the former named Man of the Match, however, Rowley pointed to a host of other players he felt could have been deserving of the award in what he highlighted as a performance showcasing the club’s resilience.
Rowley said: “I think the spine was fantastic and like you say, you picked Jacko as the Man of the Match but it could have been any of the bodies, Harry Robertson and Tristan Sailor in particular.
“I thought Jake Wingfield was fantastic at nine and I thought George Delaney, David Klemmer and Noah Stephens, all the big boys were good as well.
“I thought it was a really good team performance. I think this team showed that it’s got a lot of resilience. We have a lot of adversity with injuries at the minute.”
Rowley also pointed to the travel, stating:”You’ve got to navigate the logistics of the travel, two flights to Paris and then to Toulouse. So we’ve had fun, we’ve shared a long time together, good company and like I said before, we’re getting pretty resilient and there’s some good signs.”
Saints boss hails next man up mentality
Having now won four from five in Super League despite their huge injury list, Rowley spoke about the ability to overcome adversity: “We’re on the start of our journey. Like I said before, we’ve had a lot of adversity. We’re still here, we’re chipping away and we’ve found a bit of a combination and a bit of a blueprint that’s been working for us.
“Injuries or not, we’ll continue to play with a smile on our face and we’ll be confident in every challenge that we face and be no different next week or the week after.”
He added: “It builds belief and the next man up mentality. Like I said before, if you’ve got some structures and processes that get you the wins then it’s a more simple formula to step into.
“We’ve been very fortunate that the boys that have come in, they’ve all stood up, they’ve all held the standard of the Saints player and what we expect of a Saints player and we’ve been doing all right.”
