What Kristian Woolf said in Saints' post match press conference

The victory was remarkable given Saints lost Will Hopoate with injury early on - and then had Sione Mata'utia red carded and they finished the game with 11 after Morgan Knowles was sin-binned.

This is what Woolf had to say about aspects and incidents in the game in his post match press conference.

On the Saints performance with 12 and then 11 men.

I was really proud of the effort – I thought we were outstanding.

I knew we were ready to play in the first 10 minutes and a few things went against us – and we ended up defending our line for the first 8 or 9 minutes.

But you could see we were working really hard and had a great energy about us.

When we had that red card I thought we found another gear and we had to because we were playing a good footy side there.

Your effort always shows in your D and that is what we showed tonight.

When you have 12 men, and then finish with 11 you have to win it through your defence. That is exactly what did.

We made it sure they didn’t find points and any opportunities through us. And when they did get on out outside we made sure we scrambled really hard and did a great job turning up for each other.

They can take a real confidence out of that game at the back end of the year.

To be able to do that with 12 men against a really good team – 11 in the last 10 minutes then we can really back our D to make ourselves hard to beat at the back end of the year.

On Saints willingness to keep playing football.

What we did in that middle period of the second half was blokes like Konrad Hurrell, Agnatius Paasi and Joe Batchelor kept coming off the back fence, wanting to carry and get us down the other end of the field.

That gave us something to play off the back of.

We played footy off the back of that and were great – that also gave us some good field position to kick into the corners and play the game at the other end.

When you are short that you have got to play the game at the other end of the field.

Joey Lussick's opportunity.

Joey Lussick has been looking for a bit more opportunity all year. It has been hard because he is back up to one of the best hookers the game has seen so it is hard for him and we’d love to give him more opportunity.

But we have eight interchanges and id you change your three middles twice that is six gone and then your hookers, that is seven, and you always have to keep one up your sleeve.

It has been really tough for him and he has had to be patient there with his 25 minute stints but he came on early tonight and played terrifically.

I am not sure where we are at with Hoppa tonight as he has copped something there (with his head and shoulder) so we are not sure what that means. But id we have got to go with Joey playing big minutes we know he can do a good job, and Robes can do a great job in the halves.

Should play have been stopped earlier for Will Hopoate's head injury?

Play does not need to stop straight away but our trainers and doctor were certainly getting to the doctors to stop it earlier than what it did.

We can’t be stopping play straight away because you would be taking away attacking opportunities and if we have attacking opportinites ourselves I don’t want the play stopped.

And I don’t want to see it happen just because we are the ones getting injured either. But then again this ended up going for three or four more plays and it had to be stopped earlier than what it was.

The crowd lifting when Saints needed it. 

The crowd were great tonight – getting behind us when things were tough there and showing how much we appreciate the effort that the players are coming up with and the way they showed the appreciation at the end.

They know what sort of win that is against a very good side – and to do the way we did. It is great for players when they know that.

Curtis Sironen.

He is a very skilful player – I have said all along with his size, athleticism and his skillset that he’s going to have a big impact.

He has just got better and better – and was really good against Wigan last week and came to the fore at the back end of the game when it counted.

He has taken the confidence out of last week and really stepped up and been even better tonight.

He was great every time he carried and showed his skillset, but he was even better defensively. The number of times he turned up on that edge where they have really classy players like Will Pryce, Leroy Cudjoe and Jermaine McGilvary.

The Sione Mata'utia red card.

I understand where we are going there, but we have got to look at it is not even a high shot to start with so we are reacting to blokes lying on the ground looking to milk penalties – or over-reacting to that.

To put into context that is deemed worse than Dylan Napa’s tackle two weeks ago. Which one is most dangerous? We certainly know which one is.

We have just got to get them right and I understand where we are going with it, but I don’t think we have got that right tonight.

Jonny Lomax goalkicking for the first time since 2014.

He kicked terrifically last week. He had a couple of things going on the previous week and was unable to practise but he kicked terrifically through the week.

He is such an experienced and steady headed player and so he is a great person to have kicking for us.

I have no doubt that he’ll do a great job for us going forward and young Jon Benninson can step in too. It probably knocked his confidence around last week that he didn’t kick as well against Wigan – but it was great that Jonny could step in.

Reward after a tough four-game period.

We get a long turnaround and our blokes now get a couple of days of and that is a deserved break after a really tough run of Leeds, Catalans away, into a massive game against Wigan at Magic and then to do that tonight with 11 men at the end it takes a lot out of you.

The blokes deserve a couple of days off. When we come bck we have eight games and six and half weeks to the finish.

It is a big finish but the fact that we are so close means everyone gets excited about the big finish for the big games that are after that as well.