Kristian Woolf frustrated by St Helens’ ‘below-par’ display in defeat at Catalans

St Helens head coach Kristian Woolf admits his side were well below their usual standards as they suffered a first defeat of the season away at Catalans.

It was a day to savour for the Dragons, with Saints, defending Super League champions, falling well short in the face of a powerful French display at the Stade Gilbert Brutus.

A late revival by the visitors led to a frantic finish in Perpignan, but they couldn’t quite finish the job and slumped to a narrow defeat.

Speaking after the game, Woolf expressed his disappointment at the sporadic nature of Saints’ performance.

He said: “We’re all disappointed, that performance wasn’t anywhere near our standards and we’ll have to get things sorted before our next game.

“I liked our fight at the end and we had patches of that in the first half, but our 20 minutes after half-time was really poor and we backed that up with some poor defence too by our normal standards.

“That’s where the game is won and lost. We had to show the fight that we had to get into the game in that early period in the second half.

“We want to play a bit of footy, and our halves are in control of when we play and when we don’t. The rest of us have to make sure we’re connected with that.

“It’s about execution and concentration and that’s something we didn’t do too well tonight.”

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