Everything Paul Wellens said after Leeds vs St Helens

Last night saw an all-time classic at Headingley. Lewis Dodd’s drop-goal in the second period of golden point was enough to secure the win for Paul Wellens’ men.

Here’s everything Paul Wellens said to the media following his sides dramatic late victory.

General thoughts on the game

“Yeah, obviously pleased that we got the win. But I’ve just said to the team that we’ve got to learn some lessons. Because that result could very easily have gone the other way, there’s arguments either way really there, but it’s always a lot easier when you can learn tough lessons with the two points in the bag, so we’re pleased about that. There’s certain areas of our game that we need to improve on. The lads in the dressing room, they’ve identified those areas already. There’s a lot of smart rugby players in there who know what the game looks like and know what we look like at our best. I’m confident we will make those improvements but the override of the motion at this moment in time is just relief that we’ve come and got the win.”

Lack of composure

“Yeah, that’s one of the areas that we need to improve. I find that quite difficult as a coach sometimes because we’ve been in those situations before, most notably earlier in the season, away at Penrith, and dealt with it much better than we did tonight. So we’ve shown in those pressure environments that we can do it, but for some reason tonight we just made it really difficult for ourselves. It’s a learn, and again, something that we can look at and try and improve on.”

Start of the second half, that first 20 minutes, you seem to have put right a lot of the things that perhaps were going wrong in that first half, particularly building pressure?

“Yeah building pressure, you know we’re making too many mistakes so you know that’s the bottom of it all and we need to eradicate those from our game as quickly as possible. I know that teams will make errors but what we’re doing is going error, error, error and just putting ourselves under far too much pressure. But I agree with you in that first 20 minutes, after half-time, when we held the ball and Curtis Sironen got his try, we looked like we were in the ascendancy and again put ourselves under pressure.”

I mean some big players, some of your players come up with some big players there at the end, Konrad Hurrell as well taking that ball, probably a match winner really isn’t it?

“Yeah, a huge play. I look at Ignatius Passi working his way back on the inside when he just gets a hand to a ball that Sangare fumbles, a huge moment in the game as well. When games are tight like that and like they often are at the back end of the year. Those games are littered with small moments that may seem like not really important at the time but can go a long way to having a bearing on the outcome. So there’s a couple of those instances for us tonight where some individuals have come up with big plays.”

How important was the win? If you look at the league table, even Leigh turned in Warrington over tonight, it’s going to be hard to keep getting into that top six isn’t it?

“Yeah it is I mean and the most pleasing thing about the win is that we’re keeping pace with us and you know we’ve got to look to start to improve but also string some victories together as well so yeah it’s really tight it’s really competitive and that’s a challenge so we can’t get carried away with the fact that we’ve won the game we just need to focus on improving as a team but I am confident that we’ll make those improvements and I think you saw signs there tonight that you know when we do get it right you know we’re very tough to handle but we need to get it right on a more consistent basis.”

With the drop goals, I mean there was one, I think you had two in the bag and you still weren’t pretty even though you’d miscued the pass. Is this just to learn that you’ve just got to perhaps keep your nerve a little bit more?

“Yeah I think that word composure that you mentioned earlier, I think that’s where we’ve got to be a little bit more more composing. You know Tommy Makinson tried one from 40 out. I would have been much happier in that instance, kicking them into the corner, backing our defensive work and then maybe being a bit more patient to get the ball in better field position. But that being said, when we did get in better field position, we didn’t quite handle that as well as we normally have done in the past. So the word I keep mentioning is learn, we’ve got to improve.”

You kept Joey [Lussick] out there for a lot longer today, didn’t you?

“I thought he was doing a really good job in the game. That’s the reason I left him out of there. He was kicking the ball well out of nine, although one of them went a bit long. That can happen. He was working hard in D and looked sharp. I challenge him to use his running game whenever he can. I didn’t really see any real need to make that change with having Rose back on the field at the time.”

It was very nearly a draw wasn’t it, even in Golden Point, it’s just one of those games that seemed to be destined for that.

“Yeah it was and it was frantic and if I’m totally honest I think probably leads a little bit unfortunate that they didn’t get something from the game. pay them huge credit there tonight. The players were dropping like nine pins at one point. Their interchange was all messed up. But what they showed is a real competitiveness as a group and made us work to the very last seconds to get that victory. So I’m sure that, despite the loss, I’m sure that Rowan is probably very proud of his players and the way they performed. They’re certainly a very challenging and competitive team for us to go up against tonight.”

There was a running battle of verbals all through the night that finally spilt over at the end. It probably shows the feeling between these two teams doesn’t it?

“Yeah there’s always a bit of emotion in saying to these games. I think it stems from the fact that we’ve contested a lot of big games with each other in the recent history. I love that, that’s what makes sport great, that’s what makes for a wonderful occasion like tonight. I’m sure people whether you’re in the ground tonight or sat at home you can see that there’s two committed teams giving absolutely everything in terms of effort and energy to try and win a game. In terms of quality it probably wasn’t where it needed to be but sometimes games and tight games in particular can bring that out in teams.”

What do you think it is Paul that brings out the best in Saints Leeds? Going back to when you played there’s been some unbelievable contests

“I don’t know what it is about this fixture, I know there’s a real, not, well it’s close to hatred, I don’t like the word hatred, but you know back in the day when I played. I think when you have two teams very similar in terms of competitiveness, in terms of will to win, you know both want the same thing then I suppose it’s like two brothers fighting in the backyard they you know they want to get one over the other. So I think that’s what you see in games like this. I love these types of occasions. I love coming to Edinburgh. I’ve done it. It’s a great place to come and play a bit. And it’s always a huge challenge. So in that sense, that’s why I’m so pleased we’ve come away with a win.”

 

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