St Helens block outside noise out with play-off hopes assessed
· Matthew Shaw · 2026-08-15T19:37:47+00:00 · nguồn gốc
St Helens block outside noise out with play-off hopes assessed
St Helens' interim head coach Eamon O'Carroll
Eamon O’Carroll insists his St Helens players are not listening to the outside noise after their stunning victory at Wakefield Trinity.
Saints snapped a three-match losing streak as they thrashed top-two chasing Wakefield 46-16, keeping their faint play-off hopes alive.
The win moved them to within four points of sixth-placed Leigh with four games remaining, and while a play-off spot remains unlikely, this result, and performance, will have certainly done them no harm.
They have come in for heavy criticism in recent months but O’Carroll was delighted with their response after last week’s defeat to Hull FC.
“I’m happy for the players,” he said. “I’m happy for the staff, they’ve worked tremendously hard for the last three weeks. And although it’s not shown on the field in terms of performance, we all have the belief that we’re doing it today.
The players didn’t listen to outside noise. All the things that have been said, they’re just trusting what we’re doing in training. We’ve tried to simplify a few things, we’ve only had such a short period left. And everybody’s bought in, that’s the key to it, there’s buy-in and there’s belief.”
He continued: “There’s no secret recipe, you just have to block it out and focus on yourselves. We’ve got great belief in the team, I know I’ve said it a couple of times, but we believe in what we’re doing. And we’ve certainly got enough quality in the team to put pressure on teams.”
O’Carroll did refuse to get drawn on their play-off hopes, though.
“I don’t want to get too far ahead. I think what’s important is tonight we really enjoy this, it’s important. But we have to keep our feet firmly on the ground, I think we’ve still got a lot of work to do.
“There’s still things in that game, particularly in the first half, in our defence, where we have to be better. And we understand that, I think that’s the key. So look, yeah, enjoy it tonight, but we’ve got work to do, we know that.”