SAINTS boss Keiron Cunningham had another bitterly disappointing defeat to reflect upon.

He spoke with the Star’s Mike Critchley about his analysis of the team’s 48-20 defeat by Huddersfield.

MC: How did your review of Sunday’s game look?

KC: It was tough to reflect back on and I do get disappointed with things, mainly myself, and ask could I have done things differently.

I just want the players to do well. Once we break the game down and analyse it, the game was even in terms of metres.

Huddersfield had a little bit more possession than us and their execution was much better.

We had opportunities and should have scored four tries in the first 18 minutes. Lama was short, Wilko was held up, Tils should have been in a space and he would score and then Matty’s pass to Swifty goes astray.

You are looking at four chances, tries that should have been posted.

We lose concede three tries, then got one back. After that score at half time we should have come out and kicked on and my belief is we could have won that game.

In front of the half way line we just were not good enough defensively and that let us down.

MC: There were a couple of really worrying periods in the game where it just seemed to completely unravel, with Huddersfield scoring tries in bunches which were really punishing.

KC: It's as frustrating to me as it is everyone involved. There’s only one solution – hard work and we are working tirelessly in training.

We are guilty of reserving a lot of energy for attack but we need to be expending more in defence.

We had a few people out there who believed they were working harder than they actually were, so we have had a few home truths.

We know where we have got to head as a club and in the grand scheme of things we are not far off.

Defence is something you can fix up quite quickly if you work hard in the right areas.

With the ball in our hands we posted some good tries in the second half.

MC: Looking at the pack, do you not need to get more out of that second wave of front rowers coming on - on both sides of the ball?

KC: We are just trying to find that balance. Some people defensively are in really good form and others are not.

Every week, tirelessly every week you look at what Robes, Wilko and young Morgan Knowles offer you every single week.

That is where we want to be, Morgan is a teenager, but there is a lot of responsibility on him because he is one of our best defenders.

I feel for Wilko – he has got his critics and people are giving him a bit of a tough time, but what he and Robes do for the team is exceptional.

Everybody has got to jump on board to what these people are doing, when we have good defensive performances that is what we do.

MC: Jon Wilkin is out there a long time every week – maybe the tackle misses are noticed more than the ones he makes.

KC: He is doing 30-40 tackles a game and getting his hands on the ball more than anybody else. I am stuck between a rock and a hard place with Wilko. I need him on the field, but I need him off it to get freshened up.

MC: You have dropped players this year after defeats Jordan Turner after Catalans and Joe Greenwood after Hull.

Will we see similar sanctions taken against players that knocked off against Huddersfield?

KC: You always want consistency. As a player I believed in trying to keep the team together for as long a period as you can, but if people are not cutting it then you have to make the decisions.

People fall in and out of form and you have to aid that by rest, or sitting them down.

We will look at the team selection later in the week. We will see what happens at the session on Wednesday. Hard work gets you where you want to be in life.

MC: The game was made tougher by Danny Brough's kicking game constantly making sure Saints’ play one started on their own line?

KC: It is particularly tough when Huddersfield are starting from in their own corner and we are receiving the ball on our line.

You don’t win an arm wrestle with the opposition making 100 metres in a set.

That is not playing tough for me; that’s not being the ruthless side we are capable of being.

We have identified lots of areas.

We know where we are at and what we have to do to fix things.