St Helens’ Joe Batchelor has revealed the sense of “disrespect” that is driving the four-time defending Super League champions to upset the odds in their World Club Challenge clash with Penrith Panthers.
Saints face the NRL champions at the BlueBet Stadium in the Sydney suburbs on February 18 having been written off by many despite their unprecedented recent dominance of the domestic game.
And in an era when Super League stars are routinely linked with big-money moves Down Under, Batchelor has called on other English sides to put traditional rivalries on hold and back their bid to reinvigorate rugby league’s world order.
“We’ve been written off by many people and probably been disrespected in a way we shouldn’t be,” said the Saints backrower, who made his England debut in their crushing World Cup win over Greece in October.
“Once you’re at the top, everybody wants to knock you down. If the rest of the English teams could put rivalries aside for one game, it would mean a lot and I think we’d gain a lot of respect off the back of it.
“It doesn’t bother us really. We’ve won Super League for four years in a row so we deserve this crack at the World Club Challenge. It’s the pinnacle of the club game and an achievement that can’t get any higher.”
Sixteen years have passed since Paul Wellens inspired Saints to their second and most recent win in the competition over Brisbane Broncos at Bolton’s Reebok Stadium.
And Wellens, who stepped up to replace Kristian Woolf as Saints’ head coach at the end of last season, says low expectations have remained one of the few constants to dog British ambitions over the intervening period.
Super League teams have won just three of the 13 most recent showdowns and not since Wigan beat the Broncos in Brisbane in 1994 has one managed to wrest hold of the title away from home.
“The stand-out similarity is that people don’t give you much of chance – they don’t think we can come over and beat a team of the calibre of Penrith as they didn’t think we could beat a team of the calibre of Brisbane back then,” Wellens added.
There sometimes seems to be a feeling that the NRL is far beyond the Super League competition. My experience over the years is that we constantly need to prove ourselves and gain that acceptance from people from Down Under— Paul Wellens
“There sometimes seems to be a feeling that the NRL is far beyond the Super League competition. My experience over the years is that we constantly need to prove ourselves and gain that acceptance from people from Down Under.
“I don’t mind it, it’s a challenge and it’s part and parcel of sport at times, you get written off and people talk about you in certain ways. But for all those who do want us to win, we will be doing all we can to put a smile on their faces.”
Saints begin their preparations for their World Club Challenge clash with a warm-up match against St George-Illawara Dragons in Wollongong on Saturday, in which Wellens indicated he would utilise every one of his 26 travelling squad members.
