Newly-appointed St Helens boss, Paul Rowley says he feels extremely “privileged” to be joining the nine-time Grand Final winners, after his move to the club was confirmed earlier this week.
Rowley, who joins from Salford Red Devils on a three-year deal, departs the club he spent six years at following their relegation from the Super League competition.
The 50-year-old replaces St Helens legend Paul Wellens as head coach, who was sacked after failing to find success at the helm of his hometown club.
The new boss has given an insight into how proud he is to be joining such a prestigious club like the Saints, and knows that a very high bar has been set and will have to reach high expectations to be deemed a success.
“I’m made up to be joining a club like St Helens,” said Rowley, speaking to SaintsTV. “It’s such a proud club, such a successful club and it’s a real privilege to be offered this opportunity and I’m made up.
“I know that they’ve got standards that are set very highly. They certainly build everything off what they do defensively. Their appetite to defend has been a benchmark in Super League for a generation now. The people here are world class, to be honest, at the job that they do, so I’m walking into an environment that’s not broken, it’s in good shape and I’m looking forward to getting to know more and looking a little bit deeper.”
His final season at Salford was nothing short of disastrous, with financial difficulties and broken promises from the owners meaning that over a dozen players left the club across the season, resulting in a 12th placed finish. The IMG gradings, released this week, placed Salford 15th, meaning they dropped out of the initial 12 places, and since they didn’t provide an application for Super League next year, their relegation was confirmed.
“Part of a journey” – Paul Rowley ready for the next chapter as St Helens move confirmed
Rowley hopes that this will be a fresh start in his career, and hopes that his prior experience will be able to help him transform this current St Helens side.
Asked if he was excited by this new chapter in his career, he said: “Absolutely, I’ve had a wonderful time at Salford and it’s given me my best friends, and so this is just another part of a journey for me, and I’m looking forward to meeting new friends at St Helens, from top to bottom, and getting to know the community a little bit better and really get in and amongst it and just work hard for the badge and for St Helens so that’s what I’m here to do. I just want to work hard and live up to the expectations that this club has, really.
“You only have to walk around St Helens for half an hour and you can tell straight away that the only thing on St Helens peoples’ minds is rugby league. They’re fiercely passionate, and they’ve very supportive of the team and the town. It’s a very proud town, I’m a proud bloke as well, and I want to represent them, and I want this team to represent them, and I’m looking forward to learning more from them and hopefully I can give a lot back as well.”
Rowley has become known for his free-flowing, expansive style of attack, something that he had success with during his time at Salford. The Englishman hopes that he can bring that brand of rugby to the Red Vee, and after last season’s showing prove, it would be a welcome addition to the Saints team.
Whilst admitting he wasn’t there to make wholesale changes from the off, Rowley wants to bring his renowned attacking “identity” to the club.
He said: “I want to find out about what I’ve got here and what the lads want to do and the coaches want to do. I’m coming in with an open mind, but I’ve got an identity as a coach, my team has an identity and I want to bring some of that here. I think the perception of risk is the big thing, but if you practice something hard enough and good enough then that risk gets reduced, so we want to play good rugby, express ourselves, and challenge our opposition offensively, so that will be a focus coming into the club, that’s something that I’ve seen from the outside looking in. But, certainly, in defence, we want to have an influence there as well and try and maintain and grow what they already have here at the club and the standards that they’ve already set.”
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💬 The first words of our new Head Coach
Saints TV spoke to Paul Rowley to discuss his appointment.
Paul discusses what we can expect from his style of play, and he shared his excitement to work with our young stars. 😇#COYS pic.twitter.com/nbdpZUy2jP
— St.Helens R.F.C. (@Saints1890) October 17, 2025
Sean
October 20, 2025 at 10:21 am
10 times grand final winners actually