Jamahl Lolesi to leave St Helens at end of season

St Helens assistant coach Jamahl Lolesi will leave the club at the end of the season and move back to Australia.

The former New Zealand international joined Saints’ coaching staff ahead of the 2013 season and has assisted Nathan Brown, Keiron Cunningham and Justin Holbrook in his time at the club.

The announcement that he would be departing was only made at the club’s awards night on Monday but Holbrook said the club had known for a while.

He said: “Jamahl gave us plenty of notice, he wants to move back to Australia and his kids are getting older but he has been over here for over 10 years.

“I don’t think his short-term plans are in rugby league. I think he is going back to a family business but I’ll miss him.

“He has been a great assistant coach here, and I think he has been assistant to three coaches here and that just shows what a good assistant coach he is.

“I’ll miss him personally but we’ve known that he will be going back to Australia for quite some time.”

Holbrook revealed that Saints will not be recruiting a new right-hand man.

He said: “We have got Paul Wellens and Sean Long as assistants now and Ian Talbot who works with our Academy and in the community, so he will probably step up and give us a hand in the first-team.”