SAINTS coach Paul Rowley gave his reaction to his side's disappointing 32-0 Challenge Cup semi-final defeat by Wigan.
Q: What went wrong for you? Were they just too good on the day or did the performance from your side really fall below what you imagined it would be?
PR: I thought it was quite an arm wrestle for long parts of the game, I thought. But they owned some really big moments from start to finish, most of the big moments to be honest.
And they made their own luck in that respect by putting themselves in picture, having the energy and excitement to do so at the right times.
And some moments we could control, some we couldn't.
Q: What about that 10-minute period before half-time? Was that what broke the game?
PR: I thought the whole first half, but what we've learned in this game is that you can change things around and you can score a lot of points in a short space of time.
In that second-half we started strong and dominated territory and field position but just didn't get the points.
We'll look back at it and we'll look at the tries that we conceded and be disappointed - and then look at opportunities that we perhaps missed.
But again, I think most of that is we'll be disappointed in the fact that we didn't put ourselves in the picture by having enough excitement and energy at the right times and we didn't force or be master of our own destiny in that respect.
Read more
Q: Did the fact that your skipper went off after 50 odd seconds change your rotations and how you approach the game?
PR: It's not ideal is it?
First tackle of the game you lose your captain so you lose a lot there so that's disappointing. That's one of the moments we probably were in not in control of. Daryl Clark's the disallowed try there was another big moment and so on and so forth.
What's the matter with Matty? I'm not quite sure.
I don't think it's the same injury, but I think it's a bad one and a bad knee injury anyway that doesn't look too good.
Q: Psychologically, you've got to pick them up quickly.
PR: We've got Thursday game now, so it comes thick and fast, but I think that's been the tale of our season.
We've dealt with adversity every step of the way, so this is another challenge for us to recover and get back on the field, so maybe it's a good thing. Thursday will tell us.
Share