ST HELENS boss Paul Wellens questioned the penalties in his side’s defeat at Hull KR – and urged the sport to tackle the issue of messy rucks.

Although Wellens acknowledged Hull KR deserved to win and called them “exceptional at times”, he made his points after being asked about a first-half penalty given against Joe Batchelor for impeding Mikey Lewis.

Wellens said: “It’s soft. That’s almost re-refereeing the game for me. There’s nothing in it.

“We had one penalty in the first half when Morgan Knowles got knocked clean out. And then one just before half-time when Mark Percival kicked the goal. But I’m not sure we got our fair share of the calls.”

He added: “I’ll make this comment now not based on this game. It’s something we are seeing, week in week out, in every single game, defenders laying in the back of the ruck.

“I’ve been around this game for a long, long time and I always remember being told since I was a kid that if you’re in the ruck you’ve got to make an attempt to roll away.

“Why have we gone away from that as a game? It’s starting to get messy. It’s something the referees need to look at.”

Wellens defended George Delaney over his sin-binning because of the speed of the incident – and later said that he is now more confident after watching this game that his club can go deep into the season.

Reflecting on how far St Helens have come recently, Wellens said: “There were periods in that game when we were under immense pressure. When we last came here, we wilted under that pressure. We certainly didn’t do that this time.

“So I think we’ve come a long way as a team but quite naturally we are disappointed. We came here to win. And that’s a sign of where we are as a team at the moment.”