Set of Six: Half way through Super League, playing for penalties and scrums

Here is this week’s set of six to kill a few more moments and reflect on some talking points.

1. Super League leaders at half way stage.

That Saints go into the blank (Cup final) weekend two points clear at the Super League half way point despite some jitters and injury concerns is a positive.

A cup knockout, combined with injuries to key pivots can often knock a side off its game – but two tough wins against Hull FC and Warrington see Saints reach this half way plateau in a good spot.

They can now re-group, energise and set their stall out for their next chunk of games.

Saints will look different on their return with three injured players – Regan Grace, Will Hopoate and Jon Bennison - all available.

This is massive for Saints who have been spread thinly in the halves and outside backs since Easter – leaving Ben Davies and Sione Mata’utia to play out of their normal positions.

Hopefully Will Hopoate will have overcome the bad luck that has plagued him since his arrival in England – and that will allow him to bed in at full back, meaning Jack Welsby can partner Jonny Lomax in the halves.

Regan Grace’s return will mean that Mark Percival can move back to centre and Mata’utia into the pack.

2. Defence.

Saints got away with an error-strewn display with the ball largely due to their magnificent defence.

Even when the line was breached, that never give up scramble and chase was there for all to see.

Nothing summed up that more than the winning or match-saving play at the death. A rare defensive blip allowed Connor Wrench to give Mark Percival the slip and round Jonny Lomax, but a remarkable chase across and perfectly executed tackle from Tommy Makinson saved the day.

Looking back at the replay it seemed he had no right to close him down in that final run in – but he just ate the yards up.

A remarkable effort from Makinson after a fine all round display with a well-taken try and two crucial goals.

3. Playing for penalties.

Kristian Woolf was pleased to see that Warrington’s attempt to win a penalty by trapping the ball in the scrum (and thereby catching the advancing defence offside) backfire.

Saints got a push on, which saw the scrum disintegrate into a heap of bodies allowing Alex Walmsley to profit from the loose ball to score.

It was definitely a case of just deserts for the Wire.

4. Winning a scrum against feed.

When scrums were a contested mess in the 70s and 80s, there was always a chance of winning the ball back when the other side had the put in.

That went out of fashion in the modern era with the view being that teams infringing with a knock on or forward pass should not have a chance of getting the ball back. Refs became more inclined to re-set the scrum if the opposition got a shove on that teams only tended to do when desperate.

5. Les Dyl RIP.

For those getting nostalgic about scrums against the feed, there was a quite poignant one to mark the sad passing of Leeds and Great Britain centre Les Dyl at the weekend.

The footage from the 1977 Challenge Cup Final showed Widnes feeding the scrum, only for David Ward to hook it and seconds later the majestic John Holmes created the space to send Dyl tearing through the middle with a sublime inside ball.

He was part of that Leeds’ team that won back-to-back Wembleys at a time when the Challenge Cup Final was THE rugby league day out.

6 Challenge Cup Final tickets.

There has been plenty of discussion about the Cup final and ticket sales. For the past 20 years it seems venue, timing, ticket prices and the format of the competition are all discussed with the situation getting no better.

There is a genuine dread that goes through the game when it looks like Catalans have a chance of getting near the final – and it is not dissimilar when a club like Saturday’s finalists Huddersfield get there.

Saints v Halifax in 1987 watched by 91,000 fans

We can talk about ticket offers, or making it more attractive to neutrals or doing away with Magic to make sure the Cup Final becomes the big day out again.

However, what is often lost in these debates is that Wembley used to have something special in the sense that it used to be something the whole town bought into.

Die-hards and season ticket holders often grumbled when once a year fans rocked up to pack the old Wembley.

When Saints played Halifax in 1987, both towns emptied and took upwards of 35,000 fans each.

Why did that stop happening?

We have moved away from that with clubs having a larger but more exclusive support base these days and much fewer floating fans. You see that, not only in big match ticket sales but also in the lack of decorations around town before a game.

Last year’s Saints homecoming parade, after a 13 year wait, re-kindled some of that but maybe before we start scrabbling around for solutions and packing out finals with neutrals we should reflect that the finals were better when one end was red and white and the other end blue and white.