
St Helens are a club pulling in the same direction after a 2024 campaign that was ‘not up to scratch’ according to centre Mark Percival.
Percival has made that admission when speaking with the St Helens Star to outline what went wrong in 2024 and how the club are learning from it for 2025.
With the likes of James Roby hanging up the boots at the end of the 2023 campaign and Tommy Makinson leaving to join Catalans Dragons for 2025, it has left the 30-year-old Percival as one of the club’s senior leaders and long-serving players.
He has now reflected on the club’s 2024 which marked the first year since 2017 that the club failed to achieve silverware, highlighting the sheer dominance of the Red Vee of late.
Percival explained: “Last year was so frustrating with all the injuries that we had and I think everyone was trying to pull to the right direction, but in a way, we were all pulling away from that right direction.”
Injuries not an excuse for St Helens in 2024 claims Percival

Credit: Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com
Saints’ campaign saw them lose many senior figures to injury with Percival one of those affected, however, despite the devastation to their squad he has tried to downplay that factor.
“Nobody likes talking about injuries, and I especially don’t because it’s not an excuse at all as I remember us winning the competition in 2014, when we had hardly any players playing.
“So it’s definitely not an excuse, but there were a lot of casualties last year that stopped us from stringing any form together and that did bite us at the back end of the year.”
Whilst Saints limped into the play-offs in sixth place, they would go on to put in one of their season-best performances in the play-off clash against Warrington Wolves. Paul Wellens’ side lost 23-22 courtesy of a George Williams drop goal in a defeat that was certain to inspire better things in 2025.
With new coaches added in Lee Briers and Eamon O’Carroll, St Helens are ‘ripping in’ according to Percival with the centre claiming that there is a clear plan to improvement.
“We have taken that on the chin now that we were not up to scratch last year and I think this pre-season, everyone is ripping in,” he explained.
“We all know what we need to do in attack and we know what we need to do in defence and we’re all striving to get better in those areas and hopefully hit the ground running but again nothing’s perfect.
“There will be ups and downs for the year, but it’s how you keep coming back and we need to come back strong.”
St Helens will start their Super League campaign with a home game against Salford Red Devils before then travelling to Wheldon Road in Round Two.
