St Helens head coach Paul Wellens admitted he and his team needed some “soul search” after losing to Warrington Wolves 32-18 in the ninth round of the Premier League.

After 20 minutes of the game, St Helens rally raised the score to 16-14 in the half, two points behind and looked like the top of the team.

However, when Matty Ashton quickly admitted the second half for his hat-trick, Rodrick Tai and Matt Dufty then left as they won.

The second half was particularly sloppy defense of the Saints, which led to 15 consecutive losses to the top of the Premier League since defeating the Wigan Warriors in the Good Friday derby in 2024.

Now, Wellens thinks he and the players need to look at their intentions for the game, St Helens is confused by his team, keeping his team away from their usually effective defensive system.

“I think I’ll be (thinking deeply) for a while to tell the truth,” Weirence said.

“It’s obviously disappointing, not just the result, but also the disappointment.

“Some soul searches need to be conducted individually and collectively because this is not a standard. It’s far from what we need to meet.

“I’m responsible for the performance and performance of this team and I’ve never shyned.

“In the second game we’ve started a real game and coughed up cheap property, but I can’t continue talking about that, we have to fix it.

“We have done a lot of work throughout the preseason and early rounds trying to implement to improve our offense.

“But if you plan to have a chance to attack, you need to a) keep the ball, b) win the game with a defensive attitude and resilience, we don’t do it tonight, it all has to be better.

“I think we have poor edge defense, but because people stand out from our defense system, I can’t think about my life.

“We showed last week that when we are united and stay connected, we are a team that is hard to break down.

“But not only did we show up, we also missed the basic one-on-one, and at this level you just couldn’t do it.”

While the second half was quickly admitted, the way St Helens defended Ashton’s third attempt was a “worrying signal” from Wellens, which signaled a lack of “effort” in his team.

Indeed, Wells realized the level of criticism his side would receive, but revealed that he had grown “thick skin” in the 18 months he was responsible.

“It’s really frustrating because we’ve shown great characters to get ourselves back into the game, especially in the first 15 minutes or so poor.”

“Then, we admitted it gently again after halftime.

“It’s a worrying sign because we talked about the strong start of the second half in the half, but I’m not sure, first of all, as a collective, some of our team played tonight’s game.

“One thing I’ve learned to do over the past 18 months is to grow skin.

“I know a lot of people will feel frustrated and disappointed, but I’m no longer stuck with this.

“I got stuck in the performance of the team, the performance of the individuals, and worked hard to help them improve, and we all improved.”

Super League – Round 9

Thursday, April 24: Warrington 32-18 St Helens
Free April 25: Leeds vs Hull KR – 8 pm
Saturday, April 26: Huddersfield and Castleford – 3 pm
Saturday, April 26: Salford vs Leigh-5.30pm- Only Live in the sky Sports
Saturday, April 26: Catalonia vs Wakefield – 5.30pm
April 27th Sun: Hull FC and Wigan -3pm

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