Six tackles: Leigh's return, World series, participation levels and international rugby

That text message arrived 30 minuttes after the final hooter and was a pretty honest assessment of the club’s first trip to Leigh Sports Village, which resulted in a 24-16 loss.

It was a game of few positives for Saints, but, taking a step back from the abject performance it is pleasing to see Leigh back in the top flight and more than holding their own.

Leigh town centre was positively buzzing afterwards and it was pleasing to see a real rugby league town get its feet back under the top table again.

How good is it to see a restoration of the Saints v Leigh derby rivalry that has been missing for decades.

Older fans will recall that games against Leigh always had a special place on the calendar, and in the immediate post war years up to 1959 the teams always played each other on Christmas Day.

Over the years the old Hilton Park has often been a graveyard to more fancied Saints teams. This was the scene of the low-scoring Challenge Cup knockout in 1974 and the dire midwinter defeat in 1992 that ultimately cost Saints the Championship at the end of the campaign.

Leigh do, and always have done, fancied having a crack at their more illustrious neighbours like Saints, Wigan and Warrington.

And you could see that crackle before the game, 9,000 partisan spectators hollering at each other.

And with a Centurions team liberally smattered with ex-Saints and Wigan players they were always going to rip in like lions. The only surprise was that Saints seemed shocked and ill-prepared for that.

2. By no means an excuse, but one advantage Leigh did have was being more battle-hardened and game ready after keeping ticking over with a game a game against Leeds in week two while Saints were reduced to the role of spectators.

With the fixture programme scheduling two double header weekends in April-May, a spell which also sees teams losing players for international duty, it seems ludicrous that six teams had blank dates after one week.

Any momentum built up after week one was dissipated. The system in which the top eight miss a cup round was supposed to be a reward, but should the likes of Leeds, Huddersfield and Salford get relatively easy ties in round five it will give them an effective breather during a hectic spell when the top eight are going hammer and tongs. Essentially that is a reward for failure.

3. Part of the reason for the blank weekend was the World Series, something a misnomer given it was reduced to the main event and a warm-up act against the only Aussie team that could be cajoled to fly 12,000 miles.

And after two wins for the Super League sides there was plenty of positivity doing the rounds and life being breathed into the concept on this side of the globe.

Two English wins were no bad thing for the credibility and reputation of rugby league in this country, not least because it stopped another line being chiselled into the epitaph after a tough 12 months.

But let’s not kid ourselves, as much as the game and victorious clubs have been whooping over here the people who need convincing about the World Series are the Australians.

For this ‘series’ to have legs beyond the established World Club Challenge it is the leading NRL clubs who must be persuaded that is not only worth their while, but that its good for the well-being of the game.

4. One of the spin offs of Brisbane Broncos participating was England got a visit from national head coach Wayne Bennett who does both jobs.

Bennett was able to take responsibility for a breakdown in communication with Super League clubs which led to England’s pre-season training camp in Dubai in January being cancelled.

Bennett met with Super League coaches and in his words “repaired some of the damage”. It is needed.

Anybody who sees how massive rugby union’s Six Nations is now, and how the anticipation for the British Lions tour to New Zealand in the summer is building must realise the key to any sport’s success is through internationals.

At the moment the English rugby union Premiership is thriving – and carries on unabated while the Six Nations is on. It seems the club v country fall outs in the early days of professionalism are long gone and the club game has gone from strength to strength, as a result of a very strong international competition.

League here, but particularly in Australia, need to recognise and fight for international game and that in turn will see a trickle back into the clubs.

5. Joe Greenwood, one of the members of Wayne Bennett’s Elite Performance Squad is heading to Australia with Saints making the most of his departure by bringing in Gold Coast second rower Zeb Taia.

Although 32, Tai was excellent last year at Titans, as he was in his stint at Catalans Dragons. His aggression, penetration, experience and off-load game will be a huge asset to the team.

And with his visa sorted pretty quickly he’ll soon be pulling on the red vee.

6. It is disappointing to lose Joe Greenwood though, a player who has been nurtured through the system at Saints after being pulled in from Oldham.

The playing fields Oldham, like Leigh, Wigan and St Helens, remains a strong rugby league production line. But worrying figures came out this month concerning the decline in playing numbers in rugby league.

Sport England figures state 44,900 over 16s are playing the game, a decline of 39 per cent on a decade ago.

To give the figure some context rugby union, admittedly a national game, has 199,000 players, which is a 7.2 per cent increase.

Why is league’s adult playing base shrinking while union’s is growing despite efforts to expand the game nationally?

There are a number of factors at amateur level and anecdotal evidence states that the switch to summer has lost some players and even teams.

Although it is probably through that players would prefer playing on grass rather than ankle deep mud, amateur players have other commitments, particularly with family, during the summer.

And then there is work. For a sport like rugby league, still largely based in less well-off towns where there has been a proliferation of zero-hours contracts and less secure jobs, any analysis must take into account players who have no choice whether to work late and miss training or have a shift on Saturday.

Plenty of builders, for example, work longer and later when it is lighter and dry. There is a stronger link between work and sports participation than is often given consideration.

Accepting summer rugby is here to stay at pro level and going into the Conference, but it it not time to encourage some clubs to go back to playing in winter, to see if that can pull in players who have given up or gone over to union and football?

It is a red herring in the argument to bring up expansion to Coventry or Toronto. Teams are not folding in the heartlands because the game is trying to expand.

Face facts, the reason union is four times as big is because every town and large village in the country has a team of some sort.

It is not an 'either or choice' between expansion south and consolidation in the heartlands. We need to do both.