PAUL WELLENS was almost lost for words after St Helens won a breathtaking field-goal battle in the dying moments to earn a rare victory in Perpignan.
Wellens said: “It’s almost impossible to prepare for those windy conditions. You can’t replicate 60mph winds in training, you just have to be alert to things.
“You saw how many last plays bounced and it became a competition for the ball. Some went our way and some went there’s.
“For Jonny to land two drop-goals in those conditions is outstanding.
“We spoke to the team in the week about being on the wrong side of results here too often and we had to do something about it.
“I thought the start of the game was excellent from us but all in all, considering the conditions, it was a committed performance from both teams and one of those game that gets settled by fine margins.
“We managed to come up with the big play at the end which was obviously the deciding factor.”
“Harry Robertson (who left the field early with a head injury) has had a great start to the year with us and to lose an outside back so early on does disrupt your game and your interchanges, but Matty Whitley handled it well out there and Jake Wingfield played some minutes in the back row. It’s great that we have the flexibility there.
“It’s great that we won a tight game against top opposition and we’re going to need to do that again moving forward.
“There’s a lot we can take from this in terms of improvements so we will look to find them for next week.”
Dragons’ coach Steve McNamara wasn’t too unhappy with his side’s performance, saying: “I thought it was a great contest and both teams played extremely well in the conditions.
“It’s very difficult for people to understand how tough that was to play.
“Both teams had a game plan, then looked at the weather and scrapped it. Having said that, I thought we played really well in attack for the majority of the game and defended well.
“For those two St Helens tries I thought Jack Welsby was outstanding on both sets and it’s cost us dearly.
“Coming back from that point took a lot of energy but it was one of those games of fine margins and Saints just pipped us to the posts.
“It was extreme conditions and the quality of both teams shone out. It was a high-quality game, and we might have lost but I think it’s the best we played this season.
“I don’t think we’ve had a game this season in decent weather and it’s tested us again tonight but credit to Saints, Jack Welsby was outstanding for those couple of try plays and Lomax kicking the drop-goals was the difference.”
