St Helens boss Paul Wellens admits a decision still hasn’t been made on whether he will be at the club next season.
Wellens is in the final year of his contract as head coach at the Totally Wicked Stadium and despite the regular season coming to an end last week, there has been no confirmation either way about whether he will be at the club heading into 2026.
The head coach admits his full focus is on Saturday’s clash with Leeds Rhinos at Headingley as the Saints bid to book a place in the play-off semi-finals, where they will face either Wigan Warriors or Hull KR.
But, as the end of the season nears, the uncertainty surrounding the head coach and a number of other members of his side, including Agnatius Paasi and Curtis Sironen, is certainly a talking point.
“At this stage there has been no decision made on my future,” Wellens told Serious About RL.
“I have had those honest discussions with the chairman and I’ve kind of removed that from my focus at the minute because I don’t want anything to distract from the most important thing and that’s preparing a team to go and win a game at Leeds on Saturday night.”
Indeed, Saturday night at Headingley is his priority, but after the up and down season St Helens have had this year, with Wellens coming under enormous scrutiny at certain periods of the season, reaching the Grand Final would certainly be some achievement.
And, the head coach actually believes the adversity both he and his side have been forced to deal with this season will put them in good stead and they enter the knockout phase.
“Whether as a fan, a player, assistant coach or head coach, I’ve always had a motivation to want this team to be successful and that’s no different this year,” Wellens said. “This year has been a challenging one for us as a team, its been a challenging year for individuals within that team, myself included.
“But I don’t think any team achieves anything without their been obstacles and hurdles that you need to overcome along the way. We’re no different.
“I feel were in a much better position as a team having overcome some of those battles and we go into the play-off series now having learned some valuable lessons over the course of year that could well serve us well.”
Serious About Rugby League has launched a brand new podcast which can be watched in full on our YouTube channel here.
