Kristian Woolf has warned his St Helens side that they can’t afford to be marginally off the pace if they want to keep their dominance going.
Saints have won Super League three years running and completed a league-and-cup double last season and are again favourites for all the trophies on offer this term.
But after starting the season with five consecutive victories, they suffered one of the biggest Super League upsets in years when they fell at previously winless Toulouse Olympique.
They were able to see off any prospect of another shock on Saturday by comfortably overcoming Championship side Whitehaven to start their Challenge Cup defence.
However, Woolf has warned ahead of Friday’s league trip to another struggling side in Leeds Rhinos that the standards they have set over recent years can only be maintained if they produce their very best game every week.
“We just didn’t get our preparation right,” Woolf said of the Toulouse shock.
“Sometimes you might only be five per cent off, but five per cent is a big percentage in our game.
“We were probably a metre off the pace in all the things we do, and that’s not a big difference, we weren’t a million miles off, we just weren’t quite where we (usually) are.”
Woolf expects to have Will Hopoate back in the team this week, having missed the past two games with a hamstring issue.
“He’ll most likely be available for Leeds,” said the Saints head coach.
“It’s a twinge in the hamstring. With soft tissue injuries you’ve got to earn the right to run fast first.”
Props Alex Walmsley and Matty Lees will also hope to come back into contention for the Headingley clash, but backrower Sione Mata’utia will be out for several more weeks despite serving his two-match ban because of a hamstring injury.
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