St Helens coach Kristian Woolf isn’t worried about his side’s first defeat of the season but he admitted there are lessons to be learned from Saturday night’s loss at Stade Ernest Wallon.
The three-time champions and previously unbeaten league-leaders were beaten 22-20 by bottom club Toulouse Olympique, but Woolf isn’t pressing any panic buttons just yet.
Woolf told League Express, “I’m disappointed; we were quite obviously well off the mark and quite a way from where we’ve been for the first five weeks.
“We need to re-establish a real consistency in effort and performance. We’ve shown that for the most part over the first five rounds but we let ourselves down tonight and it’s as simple as that.”
Toulouse’s first win of the season came courtesy of a late try for French international winger Paul Marcon, but Woolf is more concerned about his own team’s performance.
He added, “It was very much our own doing. We usually play with discipline and intensity; our defence is something we pride ourselves upon and we just didn’t have that about us tonight.
“Full credit to Toulouse, there were a couple of times where we got on top and we looked like we had an opportunity to run away with it but they found a real energy to stop us and they found some good tries as well.
“If they turn up and play with that energy every week, they are going to beat some teams.
“They deserve all the credit; it’s a great win for them and their club but we’ve got to look at what happened tonight and learn from it.
“We need to be a lot better; we didn’t look like us tonight.”
Saints were missing some senior players for the trip to Toulouse but Woolf wasn’t looking for excuses.
He added, “The biggest indication for us is that we’ve had 25 points scored against us in five games against some of the leading teams in the competition and we conceded 22 tonight.
“That proves to me that we weren’t quite as committed as we usually are.
“At this level of the competition, if you are a little bit off and you don’t quite get your preparation right, you have a chance of getting hurt.”
And the Saints coach wasn’t too concerned about losing the ‘unbeaten’ tag so far this season, adding: “Nobody at St Helens ever talked about trying to go through the season unbeaten; that talk came from other people.
“We have never mentioned it as a goal for the year, so it’s not a factor at all.”
And Woolf isn’t blaming travel for Saturday’s defeat by Toulouse.
“I don’t think the travel is the problem; a trip to Hull takes about the same time, but we must look at it and handle it better. We’ll learn a lot of lessons from today.”
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