1. Friday saw Saints take a large backing over to Castleford - no mean feat given the M62 was at its horrendous worst from the late afternoon.

They were in good voice, too, and the players appreciated that.

And Lachlan Coote was singled out for a particular ovation at the end.

After Ben Barba you could almost understand an initial degree of reservation towards his successor.

And Coote's creativity for the whole team is chalk to Barba's individually flashy cheese, but those supporters have been quickly spotted those attributes.

2. It is pleasing to see Dom Peyroux get some deserved recognition for his unsung toil this year.

And once again it is worth noting what a different player he is than the one who first donned the red vee.

Much has been made of Saints front row this term, but the back row last Friday were immense - with Zeb Taia and Morgan Knowles both working themselves into the ground.

3. After a stingy as anything defensive game, Saints were probably annoyed with themselves to concede the soft try to Jake Trueman, who tip-toed through to the whitewash.

Prior to that they had nilled the Tigers in the first half and then conceded an interception to an offside looking Michael Shenton, who seemed to be turning back the clock and joining Saints in the line.

To limit a free-scoring side like Cas to just those two tries took some doing. And that shows the spirit running through them at the moment.

4. Having passed their biggest test to date with flying colours, Saints have a home game with Hull KR this Friday.

It is one of those tricky games - one they are expected to win - and a match that comes ahead of a run of Catalans away, Warrington at home and then Wigan on Good Friday.

Rovers are in a bit of a bad run, and were pasted by Huddersfield at the weekend.

But they will have Mitch Garbutt, Danny McGuire, Kane Linnett and Ben Crooks back.

As results have already shown this year, clock off and take the consequences - so I don't think Saints will be falling for that one.

5. It was interesting to see rugby union moot the idea of 50/20s, in a move taken straight from the league play book.

Just as Super League has sought to make the 13-man code more attractive this term, union, too, is constantly looking to reach new audiences - and some of the tricks they will use will be from league.

The irony is, union dipped heavily into league for defensive coaches.

Now it looks like they need more league ideas to break them down!

Union is still evolving as a game.

Their rucks at the breakdown are much quicker than they used to be.

It will be interesting to see what happens long term with the scrum as they continue to broaden their appeal.

And as a code, we cannot deny that union is spreading out. Newcastle had 27,284 at St James Park for their home game with Sale. That is 2,000 more than the last Sunday at Magic.

And then there were 42,717 at Saracens v Harlequins.

The union code has its traditional base and its purists, but it is not afraid to innovate to grow their game.

League has to be more like that.

6. The 'will he, won't he' Shaun Edwards to Wigan saga seems to be a little clearer this week.

The latest statement from Wigan says they will not attempt to compel Edwards to stick to his oral agreement to rejoin Warriors as head coach.

The Wales rugby union defence coach Edwards was unveiled as Wigan coach from 2020 when Adrian Lam was appointed for the 2019 season.

Although not universally popular in St Helens, having been part of that Wigan team that terrorised the rugby league world in the late 80s to 1995, Edwards' return would nevertheless been good for the game.

Talk of non-binding contracts and Wigan bring back bad memories of the Adrian Shelford affair. A player Saints thought they had signed, only for Wigan to claim likewise. After a bitter dispute the High Court ruled that the big prop had not entered into a binding contract and that was a pretty costly decision for Saints at the time.