St Helens face a battle to finish in the Super League play-off spots, and the first obstacle they have to navigate is a game against Castleford Tigers this week.
Saints currently sit inside the play-off spots on only points difference, level on points with Leeds Rhinos and just two clear of Catalans Dragons, who face Super League’s bottom two clubs in their final fixtures.
Missing out would be the first time they’ve ever not made the Super League play-offs, just two years after winning their fourth Grand Final in a row.
Head coach Paul Wellens, despite pressure from supporters all season, has signed on for 2025, and is tasked with keeping his side inside that top six.
Credit: Ed Sykes/SWpix.com
Talking about the home tie against Craig Lingard’s Tigers, he said, in the pre-match press conference: “Our effort and our energy that we’ve put into our last two games have been excellent, but we’ve been poor with the ball in terms of making too many errors and we need to improve our discipline slightly there as well.
“In big games at the back end of the year, if you have too much of those two things, then it hurts you.
“It has been a challenging year and we’ve faced some adversities that we didn’t think we would probably encounter throughout the course of the year. But hopefully, off the back of that, it’s made us a lot more resilient.”
They need to be careful not to be on the end of another shock, after losing to Castleford last time the sides faced each other.
Key boost for St Helens ahead of Tigers clash
Credit: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
Despite originally being banned for the game by the Match Review Panel, Matty Lees is eligible for selection as the club won an appeal against his ban.
On this, Wellens said: “I was a little disappointed that the charge was what it was in the first place.
“I think anybody watching the game knows that obviously there was contact with the referee, we can’t get away from that, but obviously the referee was a big contributor in that.
“That’s not a slight on Chris Kendall, I just feel that when we’re watching incidents like that, we have to apply a fair bit of common sense. There’s no way that Matty Lees had any thought or any inclination that any other referee was going to be in the middle of coming together.
“We quite rightfully got it downgraded.”
