It is an unfortunate by-product of the dominance St Helens have enjoyed in Super League in recent years that even with this, a perfectly reasonable start to the season given there has been a trip to Australia thrown in the mix to contend with, you are left wondering what more there is to come from the reigning champions in the weeks and months ahead.
Three wins from five is far from a perfect start, but it is not a disastrous one either. Here, the Saints did just about enough to edge an attritional contest against a Huddersfield side who will almost certainly be in the mix come the end of the season so to that end, this is a result which showed plenty about the character of the champions, if nothing else. They were made to work hard for it, and got the job done in that regard.
But it is fairly obvious that there are still a few more gears for the side who have won the last four Grand Finals to click through. Whether there is a hangover from their historic World Club Challenge victory over Penrith, or whether they are just not quite on form under their new coach Paul Wellens yet, remains something of an unknown. But victories at places like this are hard to come by, making this a good test passed for a side still not quite firing on all cylinders.
“It was extremely tough,” Wellens said. “We spoke all week about how tough it would be. To compete and to hang in there, it was a true test of our character.”
The difference in the end was a second-half penalty from Tommy Makinson which put the game out of reach, on a night when both sides scored two tries each. But the fact the Saints had to do it a man light after losing Sione Mata’utia to a concussion after just 30 seconds is perhaps even more impressive.
St Helens needed someone else to step up, and their prop, Matty Lees, did that with an 80-minute performance - a rarity these days - with 68 tackles for good measure. Those numbers, make no mistake about it, are herculean, and it was perhaps no surprise Wellens drew comparisons to another Saints great, James Graham, post-match. Lees’ performance was pivotal in helping the visitors move into a 12-0 lead just before half-time.
“I never came into tonight thinking a middle player would have to do that but I never saw signs of him slowing down,” Wellens said of the England international. “They’ve got a few days off and they’ll all need it, but Matty certainly will.”
After a low-key opening half-hour where defences were very much on top, quickfire tries from Konrad Hurrell and Makinson made it 12-0 in the blink of an eye, underlining the quality this St Helens side has in quickly turning an even game in their favour.
But Huddersfield responded with a crucial score on the stroke of half-time as Ashton Golding exposed a rare gap in the Saints defence to halve the deficit. “I’m not worried about where we are,” Ian Watson, the Huddersfield coach, said after their third defeat in five to start the season. He is perhaps right to be positive as the Giants are within touching distance of the league’s best, as this performance proved. “We’re on the right trajectory for sure,” he said. “That was two good teams going toe-to-toe with each other.”
Another positive on the night for Huddersfield was the second debut for the club for Jake Connor, their mercurial off-season signing from Hull FC. Connor’s introduction to the game after 50 minutes certainly lifted the Giants but when Makinson nudged the Saints into an eight-point lead with a penalty on a night where points were at a premium and defences were mostly on top, it felt like a significant moment.
Connor did have the impact everyone had expected when he laid on a try for Innes Senior following a well-executed move from a scrum, as a glut of Huddersfield pressure midway through the second half finally led to points. That created a somewhat dramatic finale, with Connor and his teammates frantically chancing their arm to try and win the game in the dying moments: but the Saints held on.
