ONLY two points like any other in the 27 rounds of Super League..... pull the other one.

The final ten minutes of Friday night’s utterly compelling rubber-levelling derby game at the DW Stadium probably prematurely aged a few people in the away end but it brought out plenty of emotions, not least from the coach Nathan Brown.

A couple of months previously Brown was lambasted by a section of the Saints support for not displaying the same heart-on-sleeve passion of his Wigan counterpart Shaun Wane.

Of course, Wane is a born and bred pie-eater and those instincts of needing to get one over the men in the red vee come naturally to him.

How could it be any other way? And of course he has been able to use that ‘we hate St Helens’ mentality as a motivational tool and has always been adept at firing up his pack for the last few derby encounters.

Brown, a relative newcomer to this rivalry by comparison, has in the past tried to draw the emotion out of the fixture – and to be fair got hammered for it by the fans when the team lamely surrendered their unbeaten record on Good Friday.

But, having been sat a few rows in front of the Saints boss on Friday night, I can safely say that there was no shortage of desire, will to win and emotion crackling from the voice barking down the orders to his headset wearing assistant Jamahl Lolesi on the sidelines.

Browny was well up for this one and was still fired up afterwards in the press conference when he let rip at the referee Ben Thaler.

As outbursts go – and as much as some papers said it overshadowed the previous 80 minutes – it will probably do him a favour in the long term.

It was a great game, a big crowd and wonderful atmosphere but it would have been an absolute travesty had Saints lost, particularly on the back of the lop-sided penalty count.

The most pleasing thing for me was the aggression and commitment Saints showed from the opening tackle from Sia Soliola.

Yes, it was a proper derby – and the fans and Nathan Brown lapped it up.