St Helens coach Keiron Cunningham believes Sydney Roosters have a superstar in the making in Jayden Nikorima, but feels the 38-12 scoreline in Friday’s World Club Series contest was unjust.
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A Dominic Peyroux try two minutes after the restart raised slim Saints hopes, before Nikorima’s thrilling break led to Shaun Kenny-Dowall touching down, and the half-back then had a hand in Guerra’s second.
“I thought we started really well, I was happy with the response from last week”, he said.
Dominique Peyroux scored down twice for Saints at Langtree Park.
“I was excited before the game to see how they went and I think both of them performed really well”, captain Jake Friend said. They hurt us a bit because we are playing against a very good side, a clinical side – their outside backs were brilliant.
“It wasn’t a true reflection of the game and I’m proud of what my players did tonight”.
NRL clubs achieved a 3-0 whitewash of the cream of Super League in the inaugural series in 2015 and there was a familiar feeling as a weakened Saints, humiliated 39-0 by South Sydney a year ago, went down tamely in the opening game of the three-match tournament.
But man-of-the-match Kane Evans played down his side’s obvious dominance.
“We’ve got a long way to come from to where we need to be to beat the Sydney Roosters and it’s an achievable challenge to bridge but it’s going to be a very tough challenge”.
Fresh from a shattering 44-10 league defeat by Salford, Saints were quickly mis-firing once more and their troubles were illustrated when playmaker Luke Walsh, clearly ignorant that the series was being played under global rules, kicked the ball on the first tackle in the mistaken belief that Super League’s free play was in use.
“It was a tough call for the try on the freeplay, but you take the rough with the smooth”, he added.
“I knew he could do a good job, he played there at Penrith”, Cunningham said.
“One of the biggest positives for us was watching how well some of the young blokes played – that can only be a good thing this season”.
While it was an early chance for Wolves half back Kurt Gidley to face some old foes from the NRL competition he left at the end of past year, mixing it up with some of the best players on the planet was a whole new experience for younger members of the squad like Declan Patton, Joe Philbin, Sam Wilde and Harvey Livett.
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“We thought the second half was a bit sloppy and we didn’t get the performance right”.
