ST HELENS head coach Paul Wellens senses that his men are reconnecting with past success but warned there is still work to do.
Saints made it six wins out of seven as they carried on their recent resurgence with a gritty win at Hull FC.
Wellens said: “Toughness is probably the word that comes to mind.
“There are bits of our game that we need to work on if we want to take that next step as a team, however what I can’t fault is the resilience and the effort.
“I thought it was top class. If you have got that type of toughness in you, you can win games when you are perhaps not at your best.
“We looked like a team that enjoyed being in that type of encounter and were comfortable being in that type of encounter. I’d probably question that in the past.
“That’s really pleasing to see, because we have got a lot of players out there who have been around success and know what it looks like and I kind of feel that we are reconnecting with that a bit, however we’ve got to keep moving forward because we’ve got improvement in us.”
Jonny Lomax nailed a late field-goal to give Saints a seven-point cushion and Wellens said: “He is a player who enjoys the big moments like that.
“It kind of started to look like there were no more points in the game other than a field-goal or a penalty. Jonny’s experience there to recognise that and take the one and give us a little bit of breathing space was great.”
Discussing them handling a vociferous home crowd, the Saints head coach said: “When you come into hostile environments, that’s things that you have to handle as well.
“Any away team deals with the fans on the referee’s back calling for everything so we knew things were going to go against us but our response to that was great when it happened.”