ST HELENS co-head coach Craig Richards is confident his side can bounce back from Saturday’s 54-6 Wembley disappointment and show the game that Saints are still a major force in Super League.
After losing out 42-6 to Wigan in last season’s Wembley showdown as well, Saints held Wigan to a 22-22 draw just weeks later, with the subsequent meeting ending in defeats by just four points for Saints.
Now Richards is expecting a similar response from the squad over the rest of this season – starting on Sunday at home to Huddersfield Giants – and believes the mid-season split will help get even more out of them.
This season, after every team has played each other once, the league will split into two with the top four playing each other twice more before the team that finishes top earn a place in the Grand Final, with second and third facing a play-off for the remaining spot.
The bottom four will follow a similar system, but will be aiming to avoid finishing bottom and enduring a promotion/relegation play-off against the winners of the Championship.
“After last year’s final everywhere we turned people told us we were done,” said Richards.
“But then over the next three games against Wigan there was only eight points difference.
“We’ve almost got to do the same again now, but we also need to get over the line and that is something we need to figure out how to do.
“In the game at Wigan, and again in the one to win the League Leaders’ Shield, we lost a few players to injury, so keeping players on the park will help. But you can’t avoid injuries, but it’s about you deal with the adversity of that and keep the momentum going to get you over the line, and that’s what we’ll work hard on.
“The only way to get better is to continually play better sides, and the new format will push the players to a whole new level and really challenge them every week.”