Duffy’s men no pushovers
CENTURIONS WORK SAINTS
JOHN DUFFY backed his basement boys to survive after watching them put the frighteners on the champions.
The promoted side were tipped to get a thrashing from the tabletoppers after losing their previous four league games. But crisis talks by owner Derek Beaumont over their last effort worked wonders.
Coach Duffy said: “Our effort for the full 80 minutes was outstanding and hopefully we have changed things for the good.
“The negative things had to go and we have turned the corner now with our effort and mentality. I am confident we will get results.”
Saints finally broke the deadlock with an 18th-minute try from Sione Mata’utia but Leigh refused to buckle again in the first half. Saints had their hands full defending their own line and it was a sign of the pressure they were under when Theo Fages was sin-binned for a professional foul. Leigh deservedly made their one-man advantage pay with a Matty Russell try to put them all square at 6-6 at half-time.
Saints came out firing after the break and two tries in five minutes from Lachlan Coote and Jack Welsby seemed to have restored the expected order. But Leigh were a different beast this time.
Anthony Gelling scored a 70-metre interception try to cut the lead to six points and Saints managed just one further try from Kevin Naiqama.
The game was held up for several minutes while Saints forward James Bentley went off with a suspected broken ankle.
Saints coach Kristian Woolf said: “I thought we were off tonight, we were really ill-disciplined”