KEIRON Cunningham said Saints got what they deserved in their loss to Castleford on Thursday night.
Ben Roberts slotted over a drop goal as the hooter went to hand his side a 25-24 win.
“I felt the game went away from us when we pulled on the shirt before we took to the field,” Keiron said. “It is hard to be critical of the team as they have been phenomenal for the last few weeks and I felt both sides showed a hangover from their big games last week.
“We were awful in that first half, but Cas were just as awful as us with the amount of ball we dropped.
“In the second half, Cas decided to have more want and vigour about them. You can’t play the way we did at Cas and expect to get anything out of the game. We didn’t deserve to win it. If we would have scored it would have been an injustice to Cas. We got what we deserved and we have to improve.
“You could blame the after effects of the Wigan game but I thought mentally the guys came here with a soft attitude. Perhaps they felt they just had to turn up. Leeds did that last week and got hurt. Cas are a good side and are in the top four for a reason. They are well coached.
“I have no qualms with the result and it would have been an injustice if we had won it.”
He continued: “I have no complaints over the sinbinning (Mark Percival). You can’t drop in the tackle and it was a stupid thing to do. We ended up under the pump more as a result. You could question some of the decisions at the end; they could have gone either way but I’m not blaming the ref or anyone else.
“We did our best from minute one to lose the game. We dropped the ball on our first set and I was hoping at half time we could have scraped something, have that will and want, but we didn’t have it. In the second half we didn’t complete a set for 15 minutes. That has to be a record.
“It is tough to be critical of them as they have been super, but you have to be good every week now. It takes the shine off the last few weeks.”
Keiron said Adam Swift was taken off to hospital as a precaution after he left the field with a head/neck injury whilst he will await the results of scans on Shannon McDonnell in the next few days.
He could have Achilles damage but Cunningham said it was far too early for that to be confirmed.