Traynor: Saints can beat Castleford again
St Helens interim coach Derek Traynor says his team were powerless to stop Warrington last Friday, but believes they can bounce back at Castleford this weekend.
Saints raced into a 14-0 lead against the Wolves, before being blown away by the hosts who ran in 36 points without reply in a devastating 29 minute spell.
The game finished 40-18 to Warrington and Traynor admitted Tony Smith’s team were worthy winners.
“Sometimes you just can’t stop these things once they get a roll on you, but we didn’t help ourselves with the errors we made and some of the decisions we made,” he told the club’s official website.
“Them scoring two tries when we actually had the ball was a bit of a killer really.”
Despite the defeat, Saints head to Castleford for their Challenge Cup sixth round tie on Saturday knowing they are capable of turning over the Super League leaders.
The two teams met at St Helens during April, with the home side running out 26-22 winners, and Traynor believes the players can draw inspiration from that result.
“We’ve got to take confidence from our best performance of the season which was Castleford at our place,” added Traynor.
“We’ve shown we can definitely compete with them and beat them, so we’re going over with confidence. It’s most probably the toughest test at the moment, but we can go over with some confidence that we know the ability we’ve got.
“We’ve shown it in patches, we just need to do it for eighty minutes and we definitely need to do it for eighty minutes on Saturday.”
Saints’ recent confirmation that Justin Holbrook has been appointed as their new head coach will see Traynor return to his role with the club’s academy, but the incoming Australian has already been familiarising himself with the team ahead of his arrival.
“I don’t know him personally – what I’ve heard about him is he’s very attack minded,” said Traynor. “He does the attack at Sydney Roosters and I think if he can get us playing like them we’ll be quite happy with that.
“He’s got a lot of experience in development – he’s coached the Junior Kangaroos and is very highly thought of. I’ve spoke to him on the phone and he seems a really nice fella – I’m looking forward to working with him.
“He’s watched videos so he’s up and running when he gets here, but he’s not actually said ‘get them doing this, get them doing that’ or ‘play him here and play him there’. He’s just using it for information for himself when he gets here.”
