Rugby League: Long flash of genius goes astray for Saints

Oct 15 2007 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

THE absence of a shirt from Sean Long's peg before the start of the engage Super League Grand Final proved to be a false alarm.

But the gaping hole in the Saints dressing room where a trophy should have been at the end of it was all too real.

And in between, there were plenty of open spaces on the Old Trafford pitch too, which Leeds Rhinos exploited to the full to storm to their second title of the summer Super League era.

Long’s starting place was confirmed only an hour before kick-off but Saints simply failed to get going despite the boost they received when Long regained his number seven jersey after a late fitness test.

Their chief playmaker, in only his third game in two months following hamstring trouble, did provide a rare flash of inspiration when he sliced through the Rhinos backline to create a fine try for James Roby after 27 minutes.

But it was all too rare.

You sensed it wasn't going to be Long's night within the opening three minutes when he curled what seemed a simple penalty wide of the posts – Saints had blown an opportunity to take the lead and they never had another one.

And while Long eventually did pull on his missing shirt, the mercurial scrum-half failed to rise to the occasion and his teammates went similarly AWOL.

Long was at loss to give reasons. "I don't think that fitness was a problem or anything," he said. "Leeds just wanted it more. I didn't feel any effects or anything. I felt okay and I felt fine. I just thought Leeds played really well.

"We don't have any excuses, we were all fresh after having the week off and I felt more fresh than others because I haven't played much this year."

Ultimately, Saints have to concede that this just hasn't been their year in matches against their rivals from Yorkshire.

Despite pipping them to the League Leaders Shield by a point, they lost both encounters against them in the regular season and the 10-8 victory in the play-off eliminator that secured Saints their early passage to Manchester could have tipped either way.

Similar delicately-poised tension looked to be in store once again when Roby's try and Long's conversion closed the gap to 8-6 in Leeds' favour, which was how it remained at half-time.

But when the teams re-emerged it turned out to be all unprecedented territory for Saints. They've never lost in four previous Grand Finals and rarely get taken apart by the kind of scoring blitz they so often inflict on their hapless opponents.

In a five-minute spell, Leeds scored 13 unanswered points to kill the contest, then extended their superiority to the point where they fell just four points short of the record-winning margin in a final.

They were ruthless, determined, hard-hitting, and imposing in defence and attack.

Despite this defeat denying them a second consecutive domestic double and with it the chance to defend their World Club Championship crown and complete successive trebles, Saints remain the dominant force of the Super League era.

That, however, spans only 12 seasons. True greatness was achieved in the years immediately preceding the switch to summer when Wigan landed six successive championship and Challenge Cup triumphs, a record clearly beyond any St Helens of this or any future era.

But then sustained challenges, which Saints find themselves on the receiving end from the likes of the Rhinos and Bulls year-in year-out, were absent from Wigan's processions of the early 1990s, which helps explain why only one team (Saints in 2000) has taken two of the 10 Grand Finals in successive years.