JOE BATCHELOR was thrown straight into what his coach Paul Wellens called a “cyclone” at Leeds – but that’s still preferable to being on the sidelines.
The backrower made his first appearance of the season for St Helens in last Friday’s comeback victory after suffering a collarbone injury in their pre-season game against Salford.
He was initially meant to play off the bench, but the late withdrawal of winger Tommy Makinson, with a hamstring issue that makes him a severe doubt for this week’s return to Headingley on Challenge Cup duty, saw him promoted to the starting line-up at the last minute.
“It was literally as we were about to come out to start playing – I had to get my head around that quickly,” Batchelor told League Express.
“It took me a little while to get my rhythm but I’m delighted to get the two points at the end. Headingley is a tough place to come on a Friday night and they really challenged us.”
Leeds caused all kinds of problems with their expansive play, but Saints limited the damage to trail just 8-0 before responding with three tries to win.
“We’ve got to be really proud of that sort of thing,” said Batchelor of Saints’ resilience.
“Leeds really came to play tonight. We knew they would. They challenged us in that first half an hour especially.
“We did really well to keep it to eight points with the weight of possession and what they were doing with it.
“We flipped it at the start of the second half and we went at them. Even then, they came back and we had three or four sets on our try-line that we had to survive. It was just a real tough, gritty win.”
After a standout 2022 season in which Batchelor broke into the England team and played at that autumn’s World Cup, the forward was limited to 17 appearances last term.
He missed the first two months of the year with an ankle injury sustained in Australia ahead of Saints’ World Club Challenge win, before hamstring issues saw him miss six games in the summer and then their Super League play-off semi-final loss in Catalans.
“The most disappointing thing was I missed the two semi-finals. I’m not a good watcher of games and especially big games like that, which are so tight,” added Batchelor.
“It was horrible. I’ve got that as fuel this year to make sure I’m fit for them and I can contribute to them.
“We’ve done the research and we’ve done everything we can, so as long as I keep doing what the physios tell me and stay on top of stuff, touch wood it’s behind me.
“I was hoping I’d already put them behind me. Hopefully I’ve got (injury) out the way early and I can have a good run of games now.”
