Kristian Woolf: Why champion Saints deserve more recognition

The team will largely be staying together - with the only 1-17 moving on being Regan Grace, who has missed most of this year's campaign.

With young players like Lewis Dodd, Jack Welsby, Jon Bennison and Jake Wingfield continuing to develop alongside the seasoned homegrown and overseas professionals, Woolf believes the team will remain as hungry as ever to add to their already unprecented level of summer era success.

Woolf said: "I could not be prouder of this group. They are an outstanding group of men.

"We have won four in a row and I think sometimes that does not get enough credit and I don’t think people realise how hard it is to do that.

"There’s a reason every Grand Final has been played against a different team and that is because it hard to back it up and have that same hunger and drive."

Saints (Image: Saints)

Saints have done it tough this year with injuries robbing them of Grace, Lewis Dodd and Alex Walmsley for the final - and of Will Hopoate and Mark Percival for large parts of the regular season.

Despite that disruption, there has been something to galvanise them - and those are things that Woolf believes his charges genuinely deserve plaudits for.

"To get through the adversity that each season tosses up and still put yourself at the top of the table and give yourself the opportunity to be in a Grand Final is tough," Woolf said.

"This group haven’t just done that, they have won every time they have got there as well this past four years.

"In my mind – and there is a debate that people will want to talk about and you can’t compare eras with different players – what you can do is compare results.

"And there is evidence out there that this is the best team of the Super League era."

And looking at the roster for next term and the attitude they have shown this year, Woolf believes his successor will inherit a team that will retain the bit between its teeth.

"I have no doubt that with what they have got as a group and the way they fight and work for each other that they are going to give themselves a chance again next year because they are outstanding group.

"I would also like to say this group does not gets enough credit.

"It deserves more credit – not just for the way they come out and compete and win and what they have done.

"You don’t see any of these blokes in the papers for doing the wrong thing.

"They are an exceptional group of men. They are role models and flagship for what this competition is all about.

"We need to celebrate that a little bit more than we do," Woolf said.