SAINTS’ season reaches its make-or-break point tonight when 80 minutes of football will determine whether they make it through to their first major final since 2011.

Under Club Call Saints opted to play Catalan Dragons – sending Warrington to Wigan in the other semi.

But nobody at Langtree Park is expecting an easy ride from the deceptively formidable Frenchmen, who have already sent Leeds and Huddersfield packing from the competition.

Although the Dragons are so blessed with quality and experience that they can afford to dispense with the services of Leon Pryce, Saints’ focus is on getting their own game right.

And coach Nathan Brown knows that the team will have to build on their last outing against Castleford if they are to make the leap from no-hopers to Grand Finalists in the space of six weeks.

Brown said: “We are going to need to play like we did against Cas – and then some more because Catalan are going to come here to perform and they are feeling good about themselves, but we are confident too.”

At one point in the late summer it looked like the injuries to key pivots Jonny Lomax, Jon Wilkin and Luke Walsh was going to send the team into early submission.

However, Brown revealed that the woeful, defeatism on display at the KC Stadium in August has given way to the positivity of a group prepared to ‘go down swinging’.

“From the moment we lost Walshy when we had the week against Hull, where we produced the performance of a side and club generally that did not have any belief any more, it was quite clear that we had a team of people that was going to go through the motions for the rest of the year because the ‘injuries had destroyed the team’.

“But fair play to those players for buying into something different – they have produced some great performances against some very good teams.

“We manufactured a few different things and are playing a little unconventionally, but the guys have bought into what we do and know what worksare doing and know what works now.

“Since then we have won the League Leaders’ Shield – which everyone said we wouldn’t. We then beat Cas at home, when plenty were saying they would come here and beat us.

“We have learned to live with what we have got and given ourselves our best chance and that’s all the boys can do.

“The players are giving the fans the best that they have got - and that best – as they have worked out this past six weeks is still good enough.

“It is very unconventional and we know it is not perfect, but we can give ourselves a shot against anyone. When we give it our best shot – and even if we go down swinging – nobody can be critical of it.”