IT looks as though St Helens may miss the Super League play-offs for the first time since they were introduced in 1998 after their 18-32 home defeat by Hull FC last Thursday night.

They are now priced at 80/1 by Betfred to win this year’s Grand Final and I rather doubt whether many Saints fans will be risking their money, even at those odds.

The two clear favourites are now Wigan and Leeds, at 11/8 and 5/2 respectively to win the Super League trophy at Old Trafford on October 3rd.

St Helens are the only team to have played in every play-off series since 1998. Of the two other most successful clubs, Wigan have missed out on three occasions and Leeds on five. Saints, as Eamonn McManus told Sky Sports in an interview before last Thursday night’s game, haven’t missed a play-off series since 1962, those far-off days when only four teams featured in them.

Following their defeat to Hull there was the inevitable sight of Saints supporters leaving the ground early and there was lots of comment about the strange atmosphere at the ground during the game, with the Saints fans largely staying silent as Hull gave one of their best performances of the season to bring a losing run of seven matches to an end.

Former Saints player Jon Wilkin, who is now a Sky pundit, was scathing about the team’s performance and the current state of the club. He was quite emotional about the state of the club.

And it is certainly struggling. Of that there can be no doubt.

But it is worth pointing out again which players were unavailable for selection for the current Saints interim coach Eamon O’Carroll last Thursday night.

In squad number order they were: 4 Mark Percival, 5 Deon Cross, 7 Jonny Lomax, 9 Daryl Clark, 10 Matty Lees, 11 Curtis Sironen, 13 David Klemmer, 15 George Delaney, 16 Matt Whitley, 18 Jake Wingfield, 21 Noah Stephens, 24 Owen Dagnall, 25 Nene Macdonald.

Given that injury list, with many players out for the long term, it shouldn’t be a great surprise to any St Helens supporter that the team has been struggling, regardless of who the coach might have been.

The problem for St Helens, however, is that their supporters do have a strong sense of entitlement to success, regardless of the size of their injury list.

They expect the players who replace the missing stars to carry on winning regardless.

But unfortunately it just doesn’t happen like that, as any other club will confirm.

But there is a wider problem for St Helens.

I think the club has probably enjoyed too much success for its own good.

St Helens officials have always promoted their club to the fans as a club that will regularly win trophies.

That is a high-risk strategy, although it has often worked for St Helens, as their trophy cabinet would confirm.

The problem is that when the club stops winning, then there is nothing to fall back on.

It’s a truism of sport that a club is in the greatest need of enthusiastic support when it is going through hard times.

But unfortunately in Rugby League that is often the time when the fans turn their backs on their clubs.

The implication is that St Helens need to find other ways of rallying the club’s supporters.

It looks to me as though the club is going to go through a rebuilding process, starting with the appointment of a new coach to take charge in the close season. Whoever is appointed will then have a key role in recruiting a strong squad for next season.

In the meantime, in the last five rounds of the competition Saints face games against Wakefield, Leeds, Leigh and Hull KR. It will take a superhuman effort to qualify for the play-offs, given that opposition.

But of course we do have that St Helens mantra – never write off the Saints!

Never has that seemed to be such a tall order.

Is Dublin a future home of Super League?

Super League will happen in Ireland for the first time next April when Warrington face off against Wigan and St Helens play Hull FC the following day at the Laya Arena, which used to be called the Royal Dublin Showground but is now the home stadium of the Leinster Rugby Union.

Its capacity for rugby is 20,600 and I hope the clubs will come close to filling it on both days.

I’m always pleased to see Super League breaking new ground and the clubs concerned should be congratulated on planning what promises to be a great weekend in one of Europe’s favourite destination cities.

My only reservation is that it shouldn’t be a one-off event, designed simply to give the fans a weekend away in the Irish capital.

Whenever Super League is taken to a new venue it should ideally have a strategic purpose. It shouldn’t simply be viewed as a weekend away for the fans of the clubs concerned with nothing more happening afterwards.

The obvious strategic purpose in taking games to Dublin should be to pave the way for the establishment of a Super League club at some point in the future while also strengthening the Irish national team.

In order to do that it will be necessary for the games to be promoted strongly in Dublin itself, so that plenty of locals turn out to watch the action and then go home again after having been impressed by what they have seen.

At some point in the next few months I’m sure the four clubs involved will want to head across the Irish Sea to hold a launch event in Dublin itself.

Giants on the move

So the future of the Giants will be in Dewsbury, not Huddersfield.

Their owner Ken Davy has clearly grown tired of trying to find a site to build a new stadium in the town where the Northern Union was born.

He will acquire the FLAIR Stadium and develop it into a venue that will hold around 8,000 spectators.

It will host the Giants and it will continue to be the home of the Dewsbury Rams.

With two teams playing there I hope the stadium will be an economic proposition.

But I’m sure the Huddersfield supporters will not be happy to see their side playing out of its home town, even though it will still be in Kirklees, the local authority area that includes both Huddersfield and Dewsbury.

I would have preferred the club to stay at the Accu Stadium and build its support.

But now that the decision to move has been made, I hope the club will make the best of it.