ROYCE Simmons pointed towards Saints’ poor ball completion as one of the reasons they lost to Wigan on Friday night.
His charges were simply overawed as they slipped to a 32-10 defeat against the Auld Enemy.
“Our ball completion was poor and it put us under pressure,” he said after the match. “Their’s was 95 per cent in the first half and ours was 63. That led to fatigue and we began to run one out. When you do that against Wigan it takes you a week to get up and play the ball because they are very good at slowing that down. They slowed us up really good, squeezed us and in turn we let them up too quickly.”
“In the second half we were at something like 43 per cent – but we did make chances. When you are fatigued and on the back foot you don’t play with your head enough. We had seven or eight chances to score and on a number of occasions we could have taken the tackle, got up, and then went for the try. But our ball completion was bad and we forced the pass.
“They got all us all over the park and that was because they had the ball. At one stage they had five sets in a row and we couldn’t get into the game.”
Michael Shenton left the field with knee and ankle problems but the coaching staff aren’t ruling him out of next week’s trip to Warrington.
Jamie Foster clashed with Lee Mossop and had 20 stitches over his eye – but he should also be fine for next week.
