THERE were some pleasing aspects of the matchday at Wigan on Saturday - and not simply the result of England beating the Kiwis to finally win a test series for the first time since 2007.

After the dreadful fare dished up the previous week, this was a better spectacle that it had any right to be given the dreadful conditions.

Hopefully the wider television audience, forced indoors by the rain, will have given the 13-man code another go and liked what they saw.

Full marks to whoever in the England camp decided to warm up in tops supporting our still critically ill journalist colleague and mate Gary Carter.

It is good to see the rugby league family pulling together.

One of my other pleasing images from Saturday was the sight of Paul Wellens running about in his role with the England coaching staff.

It was straight back into work for the man who the previous night had been crowned the Pride of St Helens.

The sight of him fetching, carrying and lugging around the tackle pads prior to the game showed that the accolade was not going to his head.

The last time we saw Wello at Wigan prior to Saturday was last Good Friday.

That day, he put his hand up to play for an already injury depleted Saints side - he grimaced in pain, with what we now know was due to an agonising hip injury that required replacement, every time he fell down to scoop up a Matty Smith grubber.

He soldiered on until half time that day and would have crawled out to play in the second half had he been allowed to.

So, now fully recovered after his operation, it was good to see him so involved and running so freely.

The positive aspect of Wellens' input was that he clearly commanded the respect of the players when he relayed orders and geed them up.

Sure, there is a lot more to coaching than what us spectators saw on Saturday, but to see Wellens do this job so well augurs well for any role he gets within the Saints coaching staff in the future.

However, there were plenty asking what the deal was with both England and New Zealand fielding their 'trainer' every time they had the ball.

I am not sure that this is the route we should be going down.

Players train full time all week, there are captains on the field and there are ways of getting messages out there.

Internationals should not need a permanent chaperone.

If the team needs telling what to do by the coaches while the game is on, maybe they should get some tips off Frankie Barrow or Alex Murphy.

After all, they always seemed able to tell their lads what to do while the match was ongoing!