KEIRON Cunningham says he is proud of the collective effort and that his Saints team found a way to win against second-placed Warrington, writes Mike Parsons.

The opening Super 8s clash literally went down to the wire, with Mark Percival’s try-saving tackle on Rhys Evans two minutes from time earning Saints a sixth straight win.

“I just thought it was a really brave performance,” said the Saints head coach.

“There was a lot of things that we probably waivered with a little bit, with direction, the way we kicked the ball.

“In these big games, you’ve just got to find a way to win. And credit to the players, defensively they were immense again.

“We started the game with zero ball and for six or seven minutes we camped on our line again. And that was a common theme throughout the game.

“We gave over a little bit of soft possession. I think we’re just convinced that we are a really good defensive team who wanted to keep giving them the ball and keep challenging ourselves.

“But I’m proud of the players. They’re in a really good space and are really enjoying working hard for each other. Sometimes you’ve got to win the ugly games because they really count at the end.”

He added: “A lot of people deserve plaudits. You look at the extra efforts. When they stripped us for numbers late on you can see that never-say-die attitude which we’ve probably been searching for over a few weeks we seem to have in bucket loads now.

“Late on (when Rhys Evans thought he had scored), it was quite easy to just give that one up but the boys fought and young Percy (Mark Percival) and Swifty (Adam Swift) and them boys on that edge fought really hard and that’s what happens when you work hard for each other.

“I do think we were deserved winners. I thought for large periods we were the better side, even though our completion wasn’t great I just thought the way we handled things when we had the ball in the right areas and the way we defended I thought we deserved the game.

“Warrington are a good side. They have some of the best dummy-half runners in the country. You combine three or four of them one after the other it is tough to defend against them when you’re on the back foot.

“We’re not falling in love with anything we’re doing. Every week’s a Grand Final for us. We said that six or seven weeks ago and that’s how we’ve had to approach this final run-in. And nothing changes, not next week or the week after.

“We’ve just got to face the team we’re facing or go out to play as hard as we possibly can. We can’t fall in love with where we can be or where we can’t be. We’ve just got to do it every week. And if you pick up more points than you drop then you’ve got a good chance to finish in that four.”

The change in the performances have been marked in this sequence of six wins, with the defensive capabilities showing up in particular.

Cunningham, responding to being asked how this has transpired, said: “It’s just confidence.

“Anxiety is your worst enemy on a rugby field.

“They always say anxiety and fatigue makes a coward of everybody. That’s something I got taught as a kid and it’s true. That’s the game of sport. That’s what you’re trying to do to the opposing team.

“For large parts of the year we were anxious with what we were doing.

“For large parts, if we’d have performed how we performed with the ball tonight eight weeks ago then we’d probably lose by 40 points.

“But we’ve got a belief and a faith in each other, and a trust in each other, that we can defend our line, that we can defend for each other and work hard for each other.

“Systems go out of the window sometimes. We’ve got lots of defensive systems and we work hard on them but it’s all about working hard for each other.

“A great player once told me that systems aren’t worth the paper they are written on. That was from Leeds and Jamie Peacock, and they won plenty of trophies, and they had no defensive systems.

“It’s all about working hard collectively as a group and that’s what we’re doing at the minute.”

Ahead of the rest of the weekend's games, Saints stay fourth - a point behind Wigan and four in front of the chasing Catalans Dragons, who host Widnes Vikings on Saturday and then visit Langtree Park next Friday.