SAINTS boss Nathan Brown says he’s been in the game too long to be pressing any panic buttons following the opening day disaster at the hands of his former Huddersfield Giants side.

And he has confirmed that there won’t be wholesale changes to the team that was trounced 40-4 on Saturday, rather the focus being on getting the side prepared for the challenge of a currently buoyant Widnes Vikings side.

The review has been done and ingested, and now Brown expects his players to learn from their inadequate physical approach and move on.

It is hard to recall a game in recent years where Saints have so utterly failed to compete, butBrown remains calm and committed to the course he has only just started plotting.

He said: “I have been around too long to worry about pressing panic buttons. We know where we are heading and you take the good with the bad.

“I remember two years ago when I was with Giants we absolutely battered Warrington on the first day – and I think Warrington only lost one game in the next four months.”

Once again he underlined what was obvious on Saturday, the failure of Saints’ forwards to match up physically to their Giants counterparts being the root of the team’s demise.

He said: “When you don’t physically get in the contest things generally fall the opposition’s way.

“The Giants made their own luck by physically being much better than us, that was quite clear.

“We have watched the game plenty of times since – and nothing from my opinion has changed.

“Everyone has games like that during the year and unfortunately it has come after round one.

“If it had come after eight or nine wins on the trot you would have put your hands up and said we have got carried away with ourselves. Being round one makes it a lot worse.

“We had played and trained reasonably well in the build up and were quite buoyant but maybe we just got a bit too complacent and did not get the physical part right, and that is always a key part.

“It has happened now, but now we have to make sure we physically get ourselves prepared for Widnes.”

Saints bounced into the game quietly confident of making a good impression this year with new boys Willie Manu and Jordan Turner coming on board under Brown’s coaching regime.

But they were out-gunned from the off and any attempts to counter the momentum of the Giants invariably backfired.

So it was a sombre dressing room facing Brown on his return after the match.

“The players are disappointed,” he said.

“Their pride is hurt and they certainly did not plan on going out there to play like that. They have taken their share of responsibility and the coaches will take theirs too.

“We are all still optimistic of having a good year. If you remember a game here last year – St Helens did exactly the same to Leeds – and by the end of the year Leeds had played at Wembley and won the Grand Final.

“You have ups and downs in a year. It is not the be all and end all losing in round one.”