KC: Start Cost Us Again

“WE can’t keep bemoaning our starts; it isn’t good enough for this club”

That was one of the thoughts of Head Coach Keiron Cunningham following Saints’ 16-12 loss to Wakefield on Friday night.

“I thought we started shocking last week and our start was poor again today,” he said. “We went five unenforced errors in the first half and that just hinders what we are doing. We lacked intensity as we couldn’t build any momentum.

“It is something we need to address and you can only address it with player selection.

“When we got in front, from there we should bring it home and an experienced half back would have done that for us. We are missing one of the best half backs in the comp – he is sat on the sidelines because someone broke his leg.

“He will be back soon but we have to persevere and make it work.

“Today exposed our lack of experience in the halves.

“The boys tried really hard, especially in the second half, but we cannot keep talking about poor starts.”

He continued: “In the first half we had two good ball sets. We spent all our time packing the scrum after turning the ball over. We were better in the second half and got a response. But it isn’t good enough not getting that response at the start of games.

“You cannot feel your way into games. We cannot blame the rain; we cannot blame anything.

“Yes, we came back strong but we cannot talk about the start every week. It isn’t good enough for this club.”

On the penalty try that eventually settled the contest, KC added: “I thought the rule for a penalty try was that he has to be guaranteed to score the try? That was my understanding.

“Danny was escorting him and put his hands on the player’s shoulder … but can you guarantee he scores the try?”

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