Betfred Super League: St Helens need ‘no motivation’ to beat Wigan – Wellens

Paul Wellens says his St Helens team will need “no motivation” on on Friday night when they take on local rivals Wigan Warriors in a Betfred Super League clash which will help to decide the end-of-season play-off shake-up (20:00 BST, live on Sky Sports +).

Speaking to The Last Tackle on The Sportsman Rugby League, the Saints head coach has insisted that there is one area his players will need no help with as they get set for the 96th Super League derby between the famous old clubs.

“I can’t speak for [Wigan coach] Matty Peet, but in these weeks from a coaching perspective there’s not a lot to do,” Wellens explains to the weekly magazine show in partnership with Betfred.

“You want to keep things simple and come up with a way you want to play, and be diligent in terms of your preparation and what you’re coming up against. But the teams need no motivation.

“Having been involved in many of these games as a player and as a coach over the last 20 or so years, I’ve seen it done in so many different ways.

“You can choose to hype it up, you can keep it low key, and sometimes you’re successful one way and sometimes you’re successful the other. But I think it just all boils down to getting the game won.”

A narrow 12-8 loss to table-toppers Hull KR last week has made this game all the more important for Saints. And Wellens admits a win becomes vital if they are to topple Wigan and qualify for a home semi-final as second-place finishers.

“There’s no getting away from it, it’s a massive game for us,” he adds. “The defeat last week hurt us in terms of our aspirations of finishing second in the table, but we’ve not given up on those.

“But to achieve that we’re certainly going to have to win this weekend, so there’s a lot riding on it for us.

“There’s no getting away from that, but when I look at the team at this moment in time they’re embracing challenges and they’re excited about the opportunity at the weekend.”

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The 45-year-old, a five-time Super League winner as a player with St Helens, says his side have been excellent for the last three months as they look to finish as high as possible before the play-offs.

“We had a game at the end of May at Hull KR where we really dropped our standards as a team and let ourselves down. Since that moment we’ve drawn a line in the sand with what we want to be as a team.

“We’ve laid some solid foundations in the last few months, and there’s still bits of our game that we need to get better if we want to be successful at the back end of the year.

“But the raw ingredients of what successful teams look like in terms of your work ethic and your endeavour, that’s there in bucketloads at the moment.”

Saints go into the match sitting in fifth spot, four points behind the second-placed Warriors with three games to play.

And they also know that a victory would help to potentially tee up Hull KR to clinch the League Leaders’ Shield on Sunday, ending Wigan’s two-year stranglehold on the regular-season crown.

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