For every great sporting dynasty, there is a line-in-the-sand moment. A point when fortunes change for ever, and a juncture when history begins to be written. Depending on who you ask at St Helens, the answer can vary, but the consensus is that it was May 2017 when they began their journey to becoming the greatest team that England – and perhaps the world – has seen for quite some time.
Having sacked the club legend Keiron Cunningham as head coach and languishing aimlessly in mid-table, Saints faced the very real prospect of missing out on the Super League playoffs for the first time. Their squad included long-serving, veteran players with a group of talented youngsters waiting in the wings. They just needed the right man to mould them – and they settled on an unknown Australian, Justin Holbrook.
“You need an element of luck at times when you bring in an overseas coach,” the club’s chief executive, Mike Rush, says. “You need to hope he settles, hope the family settles … we’ve been fortunate in that regard, but everything else has been down to hard work and planning.”
Holbrook not only settled, he began to transform Saints into a rugby league machine. In 2018 they finished 10 points clear at the top at the end of the regular season, blooding a number of young players who would become modern-day legends in the process.
St Helens missed out on the Grand Final but the following year they defeated Salford at Old Trafford in the 2019 decider. They have not relinquished their grip on the Super League trophy since, becoming champions four years in a row – the first team solely in the Super League era to do so and only the second ever, after the great Wigan side of the 80s and 90s.
Last weekend, they cemented their legacy as one of the all-time great teams by defeating the NRL champions, Penrith, to win the World Club Challenge, the first British club to do so in Australia since Wigan in 1994.
Holbrook left at the end of 2019 to take up a role in Australia. The Tonga coach, Kristian Woolf, replaced him and won three Super League titles and a Challenge Cup. Now, with Woolf also heading home, the challenge has fallen on the former Saints full-back Paul Wellens to continue this era of dominance. His first game in charge produced arguably the most important victory in their 150 years of existence.
Like all great dynasties, there are many things that make St Helens so special. Chief among them is their desire. “I’ve been asked how I celebrated last weekend,” Rush says. “I went back to my hotel room, watched Batman and started thinking about what we could do next. I’ve never come to work after winning a trophy and decided it’s time to put my feet up. We’re all driven by cementing this legacy even further.”
Continuity has also been key. Players come and go but of the 17 who featured in the Grand Final victory of 2019, seven played in Sydney last weekend. “Look at all the great sporting organisations, they’ve always had a hardcore group of players,” Rush says. “A team like Barcelona with Lionel Messi, Xavi and the like, they stayed together and achieved greatness. That’s always been our plan.”
But keeping frontline talent has not been as easy as it is in other sports. The lure of the NRL and its significant wealth is always hovering. That St Helens beat a Penrith side who spend roughly three times more on salary underlines the temptation for English players.
Yet stars such as Alex Walmsley, James Roby and Jonny Lomax have committed to St Helens, with Saints even spending less than other Super League clubs given the marquee player ruling utilised elsewhere.
“All the players play their part by making monetary sacrifices,” Rush says. “We’re never going to be a club that give vast amounts to one or two players because they’ve all made sacrifices. And it’s not the way this club, or this town, is built. We’re built on hard work, pulling together for each other and remaining humble and honest.”
That everything has been achieved with homegrown talent makes it all the more impressive. Nine of the side that won in Australia came through the academy, including the full-back Jack Welsby, who is attracting admirers from the NRL.
When a senior figure has departed, they have often been replaced by a prodigious young talent such as Welsby or the scrum-half Lewis Dodd, who kicked the winning drop goal against Penrith. Having been written off, they put Super League, as well as themselves, on the map down under.
Saints begin their quest for a fifth successive title at Castleford in their first Super League game of 2023 on Sunday. They landed back in England only on Monday and Wellens told his squad Wednesday’s training session was optional. Every player showed up.
Being crowned world champions felt like the culmination of this story. But listen to those at the heart of this club and, with so many of this squad having age on their side, the end could still be some way off.
The town of St Helens, with a population barely reaching 100,000, is the centre of the rugby league universe. And Saints have no intention of that changing any time soon.
