Saints take on visitors Leeds Rhinos in the fourth round of the Challenge Cup on Friday, with just three more wins needed to book a place at Wembley.
Saints haven’t reached the final since winning the trophy in 2021 and, according to Wellens, putting that right is a huge focus for this season.
“How we approach a big game is going to be really important for us,” Wellens insisted.
“It is a game that excites us – you want to play in these games that everybody’s talking about, not just the two teams involved.
“Hopefully we can showcase the best of ourselves. We are desperate to be successful and that means contesting the major games.
“You aren’t guaranteed to win every year, but if you are always in and around those big games you give yourself a chance.
“That’s exactly where we want to be this year. We have fallen short a few times in recent years and hopefully we can remedy that in 2025.”
St Helens are on the back of a 20-10 defeat to Hull KR which ended their winning start to the Super League campaign, but Wellens is confident lessons have been learned.
“Last week gave us an indication of where we’re at, which is not quite where we want to be,” he admitted.
“However, we’re not far off and I was encouraged by a lot of the things I saw, particularly from a competitive point of view and an application point of view.
“The defensive resilience we showed in that first half, to defend for long periods, was outstanding.
“What we need to do is manage the game better so we don’t need to do as much of that moving forward.”
Wellens has named an unchanged St Helens 21-man squad and expects to have Matty Lees back in the matchday side after a couple of “knocks” kept him out of last week’s clash.
Rhinos have had a mixed start to the season, winning two of their four Super League games, but Wellens believes they are improving after some disappointing seasons.
“They are defending differently to how they did,” he said. “You can see the impact [coach] Brad Arthur has had on them as a team – physicality, line speed is a bit quicker and they seem more aggressive than they were.
“There’s a number of different things defensively. With the ball in hand Leeds have always been a really dangerous team, but they seem to have added some defensive steel to their game as well.”
Wellens has identified Jake Connor – who has been playing at full-back, but could switch into the halves this week if Lachie Miller returns from injury – as one of Leeds’ danger men.
“You have to work hard to limit the impact he has on the game,” he warned. “He is a really talented player and has been for a number of years now.
“He’s a really good lad, I had the pleasure of working alongside him when I was on the England coaching staff a few years back and you see when he is playing well how he can impact and influence a team.
“We’ve got a real job on our hands to nullify his threat, but we’re also aware of the other threats Leeds possess.”
