Konrad Hurrell hailed after dream debut for St Helens
Konrad Hurrell in action for St Helens
St Helens coach Kristian Woolf thought debutant Konrad Hurrell was ‘exceptional’ in their 28-8 win over Catalans Dragons in the opening game of the season.
The 30-year-old Tonga international arrived at Saints from Leeds in the off-season. He scored to help the champions claim a big win over Catalans in a rematch of last year’s Grand Final.
Hurrell also came up with an impressive offload to assist James Roby for his try.
Woolf said: “I thought Konny was exceptional. I remember when we signed him, I said, ‘If we can get him fit and get him happy, we can get a real performance out of him’.
“He’s got to back that up next week, but he was great out of yardage and defended really well.
“A couple of tries came off the back of his little offloads and that bit of X-factor he’s got about his game.”
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England international Tommy Makinson scored twice for Saints as hooker Joey Lussick scored on debut. Young half-back Lewis Dodd also got on the scoresheet thanks to an impressive solo try.
Woolf was pleased with all of his players, and says the best is yet to come from his side.
He added: “It’s round one, so you can’t get too excited. There is a lot of footy to be played, but it gives us a lot of confidence.
“I said before the game we were in a good position to attack the season and I think we showed that tonight. It’s a great little block for us to build off and we’re only going to get better from here.
“It was a good tough physical game of footy and, when the game got flowing, there was some real positives and I thought our blokes put on some outstanding tries.
“But there were periods of real stop-start. We want people to come and watch our game and we want to entertain and we’ve got to do something about this slowing down and stopping and holding down in the ruck, it just made it ugly at times.”
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