SAINTS boss Justin Holbrook admitted his side struggled to recover in time from Sunday’s cup semi-final heartache as they fell to a 16-12 home defeat to Huddersfield.

Holbrook’s men made another slow start as they trailed 16-0 in 20 minutes and the Saints boss acknowledged the knock-on effect from the cup defeat played a role in tonight’s display.

“We just had too many tired bodies out there and we did as best we could to try and put Sunday behind us and come and lift tonight but too many guys couldn’t get up for it,” he said.

“it was always going to knock us around a bit on Sunday and it took us a few days to get over it and clear the head and we came with the right intentions but unfortunately it was a really slow start, going down 16-0.

“It’s not going our way at the moment so we’ve just got to keep working hard and bounce back next week.”

Holbrook added: “There were a lot of mentally and physically tired boys tonight and when you’re mentally tired you just make dumb errors and we did that for the first 25 minutes again. That’s something we’ve got to fix.

“We kept trying. I don’t want to take anything from Huddersfield. They got their lead and deserved it but I didn’t think they looked a threat in the second half but they didn’t have to be.

“We weren’t good enough.”

While praising a couple of Saints’ big men, in particular Luke Thompson and Loui McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Holbrook admitted that there were too many players below par.

“We’ve got a couple of guys playing really well but we’ve just got too many not playing near their best,” he said.

“The effort’s there and we nearly could have won but in the end they’re not good enough.

“It was always going to be tough coming off Sunday.”