Woolf disappointed with aspects of Saints' play in win over Leigh

He did draw positives from his side's defensive display in the 22-12 win over the Super League newcomers.

After an opening score from Sione Mata'utia midway the first half was cancelled by a Matty Russell effort conceded when Theo Fages was in the sin-bin, Saints came out strongly in the second half.

Two quick tries when Lachlan Coote scored off a Jonny Lomax break, swiftly followed by a Jack Welsby score put Saints well on top.

However, as they seek to press home their advantage Coote's pass was snapped up by Leigh's Anthony Gelling for an interception try.

Although crisp handling saw Kevin Naiqama cross, there was no further score.

Woolf said: "I thought we were off tonight. We were really ill disciplined and our ball security was poor.

"We never got any flow to our game at all.

"When we did get some opportunities for whatever reason we looked disorganised attack wise and I don’t quite think our heads were quite where they needed to be in terms of what we expect of ourselves performance wise."

The one plus point he drew was his side's defensive resolve in the face of plenty of self-inflicted pressure.

"The real positive we can take from it is we defended our line really well.

"We gave Leigh a lot of opportunity on our line, even with 12 men.

"If you look at the tries we did allow one was with 12 men on the wing and we made them work for it.

"The other one was an intercept.

"Outside of that, with all the opportunity we gave them, they had 60 per cent of the ball in the first half," he said.

Woolf will speak with the players to find out why they were off colour - but it was nevertheless another win for the back-to-back champions.

"We have certainly had an off night, and every team does at different times.

"They are a group of players that want to challenge and want the big games, and we have got that coming next week and that will get them excited.

"We will see much better performance that is for sure.

"Our execution was a little bit off, our organistion was a little bit off – those things happen when you are in that state you tend to throw the wrong pass.

"There is positive – when we can be as far off our standards as we were and still get a win it is good sign of the group.

"We have done that a couple of times this year. What we need to do is make sure we don’t put ourselves in that position again," he said.