Paul Wellens of Saints would willingly swap his tries for Super League Grand Final win
St. Helens’ skipper, Paul Wellens, shared his thoughts while speaking to reporters on Monday October 3 and said he would happily trade his record-breaking 200 career tries for a win against Leeds Rhinos during the Super League Grand Final showdown, in Old
Trafford to put an end to his side’s five-Grand-Final losing streak.
Wellens will march into the Grand Final with 200 tries under his belt along with the rare honour of making his ninth appearance at the final showdown of the Engage Super League.
Wellens reached his 200 tries benchmark in the qualifying semi-final where the team secured a 26-18 win against the much stronger, Wigan Warriors. With this much prized win for the Saints, they have booked themselves their Grand final appearance the sixth
successive time.
Similarly, a fortnight ahead of this encounter, Saints had defeated Wigans, in the inaugural play-off of Super League at DW Stadium and denied Wigans’ coach, Michael Maguire, the fitting send-off from his two-year stint in Super League.
With their recent semi-final win, Saints are looking to march out of Old Trafford with the Grand Final glory to put an end to their losing streak of the recent past.
While expressing his delight over his recently achieved feat, Saints’ co-captain shared with BBC Radio Merseyside and said, “It's a fantastic personal milestone but I'd swap them for a win next week. A couple of times I got held up over the line and I was
thinking it wasn't going to be my night. Thankfully I got over for one and the boys saw it through. I just stuck my left arm up there and thankfully it stuck and I managed to find my way to the floor.”
The 31-year-old has joined the frachise’s all-time try-scoring clan to be placed next to Alan Hunte, where189 of his total tries have been scored with Saints, whereas four were scored for Great Britain, four for England and three were scored for Lancashire.
While speaking about Wellens’ on-field brilliance, Saints’ coach , Royce Simmons, appreciated the veteran’s freshly claimed milestone, which had been achieved during the concluding minutes of the match. The coach also acknowledged that Wellens bravely puts
himself in the toughest spots, from where generally others shy away, until he claims his share of the points from the tussle.
While further explaining the strategy adopted by his team’s co-captain, Simmon added, "He covers some miles on the football field and gets his rewards."
Against expectation, Saints will take on Rhinos in the Grand Final duel to decide the Super League champions of the running season. Either sides of the clash are believed to have reached their best form at the right time, which will make the encounter fierce.
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