Lolesi slams woeful Saints display

St Helens interim coach Jamahl Lolesi blasted his team’s performance after they were dumped out of the Challenge Cup by Castleford on Saturday.

The Tigers were unstoppable as they raced into the last eight with a crushing 53-10 victory and Lolesi admitted Saints’ display was hugely disappointing.

“Unfortunately we’re in a bit of a hole at the moment – we didn’t compete hard for 60 minutes of last week’s game and probably 80 minutes of today’s game,” said Lolesi.

“It’s a little bit worrying. We’ve got some issues we need to sort out. We’ve a group of young men who will need to stand up and start doing better for the club.

“On behalf of the coaching staff I’d apologise to the fans who paid their money to watch that – it must have been hard for them. Obviously Cas are a really good side when you let them play on top of you which is what we did.

“They are like the Harlem Globetrotters. You have got to put them into a tough game and challenge them physically and we did it for a 10 or 15-minute period in the first half.

“But when we were asked to play it tough and knuckle down, we went into our shells and gave in in the end, which is disappointing. We just weren’t good enough at any level, we didn’t win any of the contests out there.”