STEPHEN IBBETSON speaks to PAUL WELLENS as he prepares for his first season as a head coach with St Helens, the club with which he’s done it all.
YOU don’t get the name ‘Mr St Helens’ for nothing.
Paul Wellens really did do it all in 495 appearances for his hometown team – five league titles, five Challenge Cup crowns and two world titles for the club, and an individual haul including the rare trinity of Man of Steel, Lance Todd Trophy and Harry Sunderland Trophy.
After hanging up the boots in 2015 his roll call of contributions only grew, starting as player performance manager working with the Academy and Reserves, then in the first team as assistant coach for their four consecutive Super League titles under Justin Holbrook and Kristian Woolf.
If anybody has served his apprenticeship, Wellens has.
“It’s something you can prepare for as much as you can, but ultimately you’ve got to walk in those shoes and start experiencing what it’s like,” says Wellens, who has signed a two-year deal, with the option of a further year, to start his head coaching career with the reigning rulers of the land.
“Working alongside the likes of Justin and Kristian has certainly helped me understand the demands of being a head coach but, at the same time, there’s nothing like doing the job.”
Most striking for Wellens so far has been the all-encompassing, ever-demanding nature of it, unlike any other role in the game.
He says: “It’s almost a 24/7 job. Something’s always coming your way, whether it be seven in the morning or nine at night. Your phone rings with things that need dealing with.
“There’s the rugby side but then there’s a lot of managerial stuff outside that. Things like going to Australia (for next month’s World Club Challenge) takes some planning, being involved in the decision making of what we do and when we do it and how we do it. They’re all different experiences for me but I’m enjoying them.
“I witnessed it with Kristian in his last couple of years, how heavily involved he was in a lot of the decision-making that went on. Kristian was really kind to me; he knew my ambition to be a head coach, so he allowed me into a lot of those situations so I could see what he dealt with on a daily basis, and we’d sit down one-to-one and talk about the different things you have to do managerially or with the players.”
Communication with players is one particular area Wellens is now getting to grips with.
“With 30 players in the squad, you can’t have a conversation with everybody every day. It’s about touching base every now and again, showing them we do care about them,” he says.
“Also part of the territory of a head coach is that sometimes you have to have difficult conversations with players. Those are conversations that in previous years Kristian had; I wouldn’t have many of those.
“What players appreciate more than anything, I think, is honesty from a coach. I know that from my own playing experience as well.”
Wellens had no shortage of fine coaches in his playing days to learn from – “Hanley, Millward, Anderson, Potter, Simmons, Brown, Keiron (Cunningham), you always take bits from every coach” – and from working with England under Steve McNamara, Wayne Bennett and, right up until his St Helens appointment, Shaun Wane.
He says: “You’d be foolish not to pick up bits from each coach. But ultimately it’s about being true to yourself and putting my own stamp on the team.”
What did he take from the successful Saints tenures of both Holbrook and Woolf?
“When Justin first came to the club, he brought a lot of excitement. He got the players enjoying playing for each other, but at the same time the enjoyment came after understanding that this is a job and you’re here to work hard for each other.
“Then Kristian just evolved that. He comes across as a tough bloke but he’s a really good guy, someone I have a huge amount of respect for. What you saw from the team out on the field was probably a reflection of Kristian’s personality. They went out there and they played really tough and uncompromising, but there was a fun element to them as well.”
How might Wellens’ personality be reflected in his team, then?
“I’m hugely driven, I’m a competitor and I want to win. I hope you see that in our team. That’s in my personality but I know it’s in the personality of most of our players as well.
“I like to have fun at times and I hope you see the players play with a smile on their face and enjoy playing their rugby. But that comes on the back of a strong work ethic, which is the most important thing.”
Saints are enjoying a dominance unprecedented in the summer era. Wellens acknowledges that his job is not to rip things up but keep things going, though with room for minor improvement.
“If I was going into a different team and a different club I’d probably be going in there and putting my own real stamp on things, how I want things to look,” he says.
“But that’s already been done to some extent, and I’ve had a bit of input in how the team play anyway. People have seen how they’ve played and the consistency with which they’ve played over the last few years and Kristian deserves a lot of credit for bringing that to the club. I aim to continue in that fashion.
“I do think there are a couple of little areas where we can improve. I don’t want to give too much away, but we are working hard on that. One way complacency doesn’t set in is by looking for those improvements, but they’ll only be small ones because the team is in a good space at the moment.”
Starting out as a head coach with the number-one team has its obvious advantages – who wouldn’t want a squad with the experience of James Roby and Jonny Lomax, the ferocity of Alex Walmsley and Morgan Knowles, the prolificacy of Tommy Makinson and Mark Percival, and the precocious talent of Jack Welsby and Lewis Dodd?
But with it comes a high yardstick on which to be judged, with anything less than glory a backwards step, and great expectation – Wellens says winning a fifth title in a row is “all everybody says to me as I walk down the street in St Helens”.
Handily, it’s nothing new: “I know the pressure is a bit different for me now sat in this chair, but one thing I have become accustomed to as a player and a coach and previously as a supporter, at the start of every year they expect the team to be successful, expect them to play good rugby, expect to come and enjoy watching their team play.
“It’s no different for me this year. The only difference is I’m tasked with putting the team out on the field and delivering those standards. I’m tasked with the challenge of driving those standards. It’s something I’m really looking forward to.
“I have a lot of confidence in my own ability, but I also have a lot of confidence in the group I’m working with. I’m not new to the club, I’ve seen how they go about their business, and that fills me with confidence.
“We’re in uncharted waters. No other team has achieved what this group has in terms of winning four in a row. There’s only so many times you can repackage the same tale and say ‘let’s go again’. But one thing I know about the group, and I know from being in successful teams in the past, is that winning becomes a habit, it becomes contagious. You can see within the playing group that they want more of it.”
It’s a largely untouched squad with the only major loss – Regan Grace, now in the grasp of rugby union – replaced by prolific lower-league flyer Tee Ritson, but this off-season has been an exception.
Wellens adds: “There has been evolution in the squad over the last few years which maintains that level of hunger as well. I do feel when you’ve been successful that complacency is your biggest threat. But the playing group will be doing everything they can to make sure it doesn’t set in.”
Wellens could hardly begin his tenure with a bigger challenge than going up against back-to-back NRL winners Penrith Panthers, on their own turf, in his first competitive match on February 18.
“It’s certainly a different way to start your head coaching career but it’s a really exciting challenge for the group of players,” he says.
“I’ve said on a number of occasions now that it’s an opportunity they’ve earned, not just for what they achieved last year in defending their title but what they achieved in the previous years too. For the players to go down there and take on a challenge against a formidable outfit is great for the club and we’re all excited.”
Wellens won two World Club Challenges as a player, though neither on foreign soil: “It’s a different challenge; when I won it, we did it playing in the UK. We go down there in everybody’s mind as underdogs, but this group loves that type of challenge. It would be huge for the club to go down there and put on a great performance.”
St Helens 2023 Squad: 1 Jack Welsby, 2 Tommy Makinson, 3 Will Hopoate, 4 Mark Percival, 5 Jon Bennison, 6 Jonny Lomax, 7 Lewis Dodd, 8 Alex Walmsley, 9 James Roby, 10 Matty Lees, 11 Sione Mata’utia, 12 Joe Batchelor, 13 Morgan Knowles, 14 Joey Lussick, 15 Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, 16 Curtis Sironen, 17 Agnatius Paasi, 18 Jack Wingfield, 19 James Bell, 20 Dan Norman, 21 Ben Davies, 22 Sam Royle, 23 Konrad Hurrell, 24 Lewis Baxter, 25 Tee Ritson, 26 Dan Hill, 27 Jumah Sambou, 28 Matty Foster, 29 Taylor Pemberton, 30 George Delaney, 31 Daniel Moss, 32 Ben Lane, 33 McKenzie Buckley, 34 Wesley Bruines.
Ins: Wesley Bruines (South Sydney Rabbitohs), Tee Ritson (Barrow Raiders)
Outs: Kyle Amor (Widnes Vikings), Ellis Archer (Barrow Raiders), Regan Grace (Racing 92), Shay Martyn (released), Tom Nisbet (Leigh Leopards), Rio Osayomwanbo-Corkill (Barrow Raiders), Josh Simm (Wynnum Manly Seagulls), Aaron Smith (Leigh Leopards)
This preview of St Helens’ 2023 season comes from this week’s issue of League Express. You can take out a subscription by going to https://www.totalrl.com/league-express/