Final victories matter most to dominant Saints

Aug 7 2008 Sean McGuire Liverpool Daily Post

QUIETLY, St Helens RLFC have manoeuvred themselves into a dominant position in the rugby league season.

Last October’s Grand Final defeat to Leeds, which ended hopes of a back-to-back treble at the final hurdle, led some people – not just in Yorkshire – to think it showed a shift in power from Super League’s most successful club, Saints, to the perennial underachievers, Leeds.

This year started in the same vein.

Leeds beat the Australian champions Melbourne Storm to become World Club Champions and built up a six-point lead in Super League, aided by a rare victory at Knowsley Road.

Saints, by contrast, had lost five of their first 10 games. Since then they are unbeaten in 17 league and cup matches.

They have overtaken Leeds at the top of the Super League table and, more crucially, beat their title rivals in the Challenge Cup semi-final.

Cup final fever is fast becoming more like hay fever in St Helens – an annual event that strikes each August.

It’s the club’s third consecutive final and sixth in eight years. They have lost only two finals and two semi-finals in that time. Although their opponents in the final later this month, Hull, were the last team to beat them in the competition, Saints are clear favourites to complete a hat-trick of victories.

And they know that it is victories in finals that count, not mid-season unbeaten runs.