St Helens head coach Paul Wellens insists last Saturday’s sensational Super League play-off win was swiftly consigned to the highlight reels as his side prepare for a semi-final trip to regular season champions Hull KR.
The 16-pass move that culminated in on-loan Shane Wright crashing over 38 seconds after the final hooter to secure a 16-14 win at Leeds is guaranteed its place in rugby league folklore alongside the likes of Martin Offiah’s Wembley charge and Don Fox’s agonising 1968 Challenge Cup final miss.
But for Wellens a more enduring reward would be to lead his team back to an improbable place in next week’s Grand Final at Old Trafford, after a torrid campaign in which Saints seldom looked likely to be one of the last four standing, and his own coaching role has been frequently questioned.
“I spoke to the players after the game and said it was important to enjoy the victory but stressed that when we returned on Monday we had to have a mindset around finding the necessary improvements that we’re going to need to make to face Hull KR,” said Wellens.
“As you can imagine there was a lot of media attention around the way the game finished, and that’s great, and it’s great that the players can enjoy that. But at the same time we need to move on and hopefully we can create some more special memories.”
Rovers finished the regular season 10 points clear of their opponents and are hot favourites to progress at Craven Park, but Wellens will take great heart from his side’s narrow 12-8 defeat in their last meeting in August, when a handful of Rhyse Martin penalties made the difference.
“The last game we played there went right to the death but our discipline let us down,” admitted Wellens. “It’s a tough place to go and we’ll be challenged in a number of ways, but I feel like as a team we’ve made some really good improvements in recent weeks that will stand us in good stead.”
Rovers might have stumbled over the line after blazing away at the top of the table for most of the campaign, but they remain hot favourites due to the stand-out consistency of their big names like Mikey Lewis, Elliot Minchella and hooker Jez Litten.
Litten has particularly shone in a season that saw Rovers shatter a 40-year trophyless streak with their Challenge Cup final win at Wembley, which he believes will help them approach the play-offs in a different light.
Litten told the PA news agency: “It’s a massive game but we are all good from the experiences we’ve had of winning silverware and knowing how it’s done.
“Our standards stay the same for every game, and we tried to keep that after the Challenge Cup final. We enjoyed our time but we moved on to the next job, and that was winning the league.
“I feel like we’ve shown this year we can turn up in big games, and I think that consistency shows.
“Now we’ve got a new challenge to get to a Grand Final and it’s something else for us to chase.
“We’ve set out to win three trophies and we’ve already won two. It’s a tough task but the boys will be firing.”
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