Betfred Super League 2025: St Helens need trophies again to satisfy demands

St Helens suffered quite the fall from grace in 2024, with their era of dominance well and truly coming to an end two years on from the last of a record four successive Betfred Super League titles.

Having won the Betfred World Club Challenge in 2023 before semi-final exits in both the Challenge Cup and Super League, they were dumped out of the cup by Warrington Wolves 12 months on in the quarter-final and scraped into the play-offs before again being eliminated by the Wire.

So there’s a lot to prove for Paul Wellens and the Saints ahead of the 2025 season of Betfred Super League, but their star names are determined to return to the top.

“Coming in it’s been really intense from minute one for me and the boys,” England full-back Jack Welsby tells Betfred. “The younger lads and less-experienced lads have got more minutes under their belts and everyone’s looking really sharp.

“I don’t know about the pressure being off. Maybe externally [that’s accurate], but internally we still put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We want to go and win trophies this year and challenge the best teams like your Wigans, Warringtons, Catalans, those types of teams. So there’s a lot of emphasis on that in the group.”

While questions have been asked about the ability of club legend Wellens to lead his side to further trophies, the addition of former Brisbane Broncos assistant coach Lee Briers onto his staff has been a huge boost.

And Briers has already had an impact by selling the club to new signing Tristan Sailor, who he worked with in Brisbane.

“During my decision-making process, Briersy was at the Broncos so he explained everything to me,” Sailor says. “I also played at the Dragons with Jammer [former Saints great James Graham], so he spoke about St Helens and how big a club it was.

“Then, as soon as I came over, I got some St Helens books and was reading through the history and stuff. It’s amazing how good a club it is.”

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But hooker Daryl Clark is adamant that the Saints must return to the top table after a couple of fallow years.

“All the boys are feeling pretty good,” says the former Warrington and Castleford Tigers nine. “Coming off the back of last year, there’s no secret it was a pretty disappointing season for the players and for the club, it’s not where we wanted to finish.

“The inconsistency we had was miles off what the club expects, so we’ll definitely be looking to up the levels this year.

“There are a lot of teams getting better, and Saints are coming off the four years where they won it. Obviously, they’ve had two years where they’ve not been able to repeat that, so we’re looking to be better. We know it was disappointing as a club and as players individually, we know it wasn’t good enough. We know we’ve got to put it right this year.”

The 10-time Super League champions get their competitive season underway on Saturday when they face West Hull in the third round of the Betfred Challenge Cup at Hull KR’s Sewell Group Craven Park.

They then entertain Salford Red Devils on Saturday, February 15 at the Totally Wicked Stadium in round one of the Super League campaign. That could bring home debuts for the likes of Sailor, Kyle Feldt and Lewis Murphy.

Title sponsors Betfred have St Helens as 9/2 second favourites to win the Grand Final at Old Trafford behind champions Wigan Warriors, while they are 7/2 to end the regular season at the top of the table.

You can also 9/2 about them lifting a 14th Challenge Cup trophy, while new man Sailor is 10/1 to be named the Steve Prescott Man of Steel come October.

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