“Winning becomes habit, it becomes contagious. And you can see they want more of it.”
Paul Wellens is speaking to The Sportsman ahead of his first season as St Helens head coach. The club legend has learned from the best during his time as assistant to Kristian Woolf and, after an unprecedented four successive Betfred Super League Grand Final wins, it now falls to the former Great Britain full-back to lead the charge for number five.
“Kristian deserves respect for bringing such consistency to the club and I aim to continue in that fashion,” Wellens tells The Sportsman. “If you go into a team that has notoriously been struggling, as quite often happens when a coach goes to a new club, there are a lot of things that need fixing up. That’s not the case here. We will look for improvements. But they are only very small ones.
“I do think there are a couple of areas where we can improve. I don’t want to give too much away but we are working hard on that. One way that complacency doesn’t set in is by looking for improvements, however small.”
Wellens has only ever been loved at Saints, thanks to a stellar playing career that yielded 495 club appearances, five Challenge Cups and five Grand Final wins.
He appreciates the thirst for success at the club will mean a lot of pressure on his shoulders to emulate Woolf’s achievements. The playing staff, however, remains largely intact, so rather than look to make his own imprint on the side, Wellens could be forgiven for simply asking for more of the same.
“There’s a little bit of that, if I’m honest,” admits the 42-year old who has brought in France coach Laurent Frayssinous as his number two.
“But there are only so many times you can repackage the same tale and say ‘let’s go again’.
“If I was going into a different team, a different club, then I’d be going in there and putting my own real stamp on things. But that has already been done here and I’ve had a little input already on how the team looks and how they play over the last few years anyway.
“I’m a new coach and don’t envisage changing a great deal. Each year this team has to prove itself in a different way, as if winning four in a row is not enough to cement their place as the best team in Super League history.
“We want to keep getting challenged and the World Club Challenge is one we are very confident we can rise to.”
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Saints travel to Australia for that fixture next month, as the Betfred Super League champions meet the NRL Grand Final winners for the first time in three seasons. Penrith Panthers provide the opposition in what Wellens knows will be the toughest possible start to his stewardship.
“One thing I have become accustomed to at this club is starting every year expecting the team to be successful. It is no different for me this year other than I am tasked with driving and delivering those standards.
“We are in uncharted waters. No other team has achieved what this team has. And not every player has been there for all four, which maintains that level of hunger. When you are successful, complacency is your biggest threat. That is something we have to be really mindful of.”
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