St Helens interim coach Eamon O’Carroll has hit out at those criticising the club for their celebrations after last week’s impressive win against Wakefield Trinity.
Saints mounted a stunning second-half comeback as they roused from 16-14 down at the break to win 46-16, with Tristan Sailor playing a starring role.
It marked St Helens’ first win since Paul Rowley’s exit and just their second in seven games but it was witnessed by a very strong travelling support, who the Saints players ending up celebrating with.
That caused come controversy on social media in the aftermath with many questioning it, and even highlighting it as a sign of the club’s standards dropping.
When asked about it in his press conference on Thursday, O’Carroll was clear to clean matters up: “I’ve read a couple of things in terms of how we celebrated, and I think we celebrated respectfully which, first and foremost, is important.
“We’ve been through a real tough period, and I think there’s a bit there where the players wanted to connect with the travelling supporters, which is something that they’re more than entitled to do.”
He’d go on to explain exactly what happened, even championing centre Nene Macdonald who was at the heart of the celebrations with the fans.
Most Read on Serious About Rugby League
“Others have [criticised] and this is an opportunity for me to voice and back my players. That’s what I’ll do,” O’Carroll said.
“A young lad asked Nene for a photo, and Nene being Nene, he asked some of the young boys, I think there were four or five 18-year-olds, maybe more, to jump in the picture.
“That showed great leadership from Nene, who has just come back for his first game as well, to have the picture with the young lad.
“I think we acted really respectfully, and celebrated harder in the changing rooms, which we’ll always do.”
NRL lowball Super League, Hull FC’s gargantuan signing, and new title favourites – Click here to watch this week’s episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show
St Helens not disheartened by outside noise as reality of situation laid out
O’Carroll was also asked about general criticism of the club during what has been a very difficult year, to which he explained that the high expectations are ‘part and parcel’ of representing a club such as St Helens.
He admitted that whilst the club won’t ‘shy away from things’, the mitigation around their injury list is hard to ignore, as he explained: “I think there’s some clubs, even in the top six, that have lost one of two key individuals and had a dip in form. We’ve lost eight or nine.
“We’re calm, we understand kind of where we’re at and the reasons why. That’s now to shy away from things, there’s certainly times where we could and should have been better, but I think it’s quite extreme the scenario the club finds itself in.”
Echoing his earlier point about criticism, he’d add: “We won’t be too disheartened with outside noise. What we have to do is concentrate on ourselves because I still believe that there’s a lot to play for this year.
“I’m not too sure any club or squad in Super League, having eight or nine top liners out would be sat in seventh where we are. They’d probably be a bit further down the table.
“We can say it’s not acceptable on one hand, where we’re currently sat, but I think what we’ve got out there at the moment, playing with such a young and inexperienced team, to be sat where we are and perform how we did in the last game, I think is creditable.”
