Royce Simmons pays tribute to Paul Wellens for his 200 career tries – Rugby League
St. Helens’ coach, Royce Simmons, lauded his side’s co-captain, Paul Wellens’, for his 200-try reaching qualifying semi-final performance against the defending champions, Wigan Warriors, on Saturday, October 1. With this win Saints have kept their tradition
alive of reaching the Super League Grand Final berth for the sixth consecutive time.
This was Wigans’ second defeat against Saints, whereas they received their first blow, just two weeks ago, in the opening play-off match at DW Stadium, which ended Wigans’ coach, Michael Maguire’s, dream of exiting from Super League on a higher note.
Leeds Rhinos will clash against the Saints, in the Super League title-decider, lined up for this coming Saturday, at Old Trafford Stadium. Both teams surfaced as the strongest ones against their contenders in the semi-finals, which should make for an exciting final
duel.
While speaking about Wellens’ extraordinary performance which swept him to the 200th try of his rugby league career, along with the honour of making his ninth appearance for the Engage Super League Grand Final, Saints coach spoke highly of the
distinguished player.
According to Simmons, Wellens’ milestone-reaching performance “is a tremendous effort”. He further added, “He keeps putting himself where the action is so he's going to score tries. He puts his head where a lot of blokes won't put their heads. He covers
some miles on the football field and gets his rewards.”
Royce explained that the 31-year-old veteran’s key strength is his hunger and nothing stands between him and what he wants. He talked about the player’s fearless nature, which keeps him going until he succeeds.
Recalling the course of the match, Simmons admitted that Warriors started off with an impressive unanswered 6-0 lead within the initial eight minutes of the clash. Josh Charnley touched down and was followed by a penalty kick by Pat Richards placing Wigans
in dominance since the start.
However, Saints did not lose heart as they fought their way back into the game, until they beat the expected winners of the clash to book their spot on the Final showdown.
The coach said, "They got a couple of early penalties and were on a roll for the first 18 minutes. They didn't let us into an attacking position. A lot of sides wouldn't have hung in. It was a draining period for us.”
He also mentioned the spell in middle of the second-half of the game when Saints were unable to score tries at all but that did not dampen Saints’ struggle for the final berth. Helens finally broke through the gaps and kept their own defence strong.