SAINTS coach Kristian Woolf has sprung to the defence of his scrum half Theo Fages after reading an article penned in the Hull Daily Mail by former Hull FC playmaker Paul Cooke.

It relates to Fages’ Challenge Cup semi-final try against Hull after injured ball carrier Josh Griffin threw the ball away in agony.

Fages played to the whistle, the try stood and sadly Griffin was helped from the field with a ruptured Achilles.

But having reflected on the incident Cooke’s piece in the Hull Daily Mail last week says Fages’ decision should “haunt him”.

The former Hull and Hull KR loose forward writes: “As a professional player you know when a player is genuinely injured, Griffin’s wasn’t even a debate and Fages picking up in my opinion whilst isn’t forbidden in the rules, is not in the spirit of a professional players conduct.

“That should haunt him for the rest of his career.

“In my eyes Theo Fages was wrong, not legally but he is the only person who morally has to live with his try and how it feels scoring it.”

Woolf was unhappy with Cooke’s comments, and re-iterated what he said immediately post-match in supporting his player.

He said: “I do need to defend Theo. I thought the comments in the article were quite poor with a lot of ‘what ifs’ thrown up there.

“What we need to do is deal with the facts.

“As a player you make a split-second decision on the run and we are always taught to play to the whistle.

“I would 100 per cent defend Theo Fages in his actions there and he did exactly what is expected of any player in those circumstances.”

Woolf also felt it important to defend referee Liam Moore’s actions in allowing play to continue – and stated that any change in the rule that has existed for years would risk turning something that is clear-cut into another grey area.

“We have to be careful with what we start asking both players and the referees in terms of on-field injuries and trying to diagnose those and figure out in an instant how to react.

“Again, that decision has to be made in a split second with a loose ball on the ground and once we start asking referees to carry a greater load to what they currently do I think we are asking for problems.

“If you look at the number of rules we have changed in the last 12-18 months, that has created uncertainty in certain areas. I have spoken before about the ball steal rule as an example there.

“What we can’t now be doing is putting more loads on referees or expectation, particularly around that type of area with injuries.

“We can’t talk about ‘what ifs’ with it – it is something that occurred really quickly. By the rules it is play-on and that is exactly what Theo did in a short instance make that decision to play on. That is what the ref has done, too and nobody has done anything wrong there.

“We all feel very sorry for Josh Griffin in terms of the extent of injury and the circumstances around it.

“But that can’t be held against Theo in particular,” Woolf said.