SEEING Alex Walmsley ruled out for the rest of the season with a foot injury is the latest of a long line of challenges that Saints must overcome if they are to retain their Super League crown.
It is almost as if the rugby league gods are doing their utmost to make the pursuit of an unprecedented fourth consecutive title an ultimate test of Saints’ mettle.
If this was Jenga then pulling out a plank as substantial as Walmsley, having already seen the blocks of Regan Grace and Lewis Dodd permanently removed, then the tower would be teetering by now – particularly given the various holes created by the absences of Sione Mata’utia, Mark Percival, Will Hopoate and Tommy Makinson.
It is testament to strength and indefatigability of leaders like James Roby, Jonny Lomax and Morgan Knowles that the stack has held firm with plenty of back up across the ranks.
Kristian Woolf will attempt to slot a couple of those missing pieces back in on Saturday to embolden Saints’ mission to indelibly write this class of 2022 into the history books.
Given what has gone on this year, then if they manage to get to Old Trafford and win the four in a row then this would surely go down as the biggest of all modern era achievements.
A mission like this – with 11 other determined teams after lowering your colours - is not meant to be easy. And you credit this crop of sticking at it even when troops were falling, maybe invoking a little of the spirit of 2014.
It is the degree of difficulty that makes the challenge all the more compelling and indeed the stuff of legend.
The 1963 cult classic Jason and the Argonauts adaptation from Greek mythology would have been a pretty dull, forgettable film if the hero simply had to jump into the Argo with his crew, sail across the Mediterranean to find the Golden Fleece gift-wrapped and waiting for him when they reached the shore.
It was the dramatic twists, turns, upheaval and menace that made that long pursuit of the end prize so absorbing and memorable.
In finishing top of the pile, and winning their first League Leaders Shield since 2019, Saints – with an ever-decreasing crew - have already done the rugby league equivalent of finding the weakness in the heel of the bronze statue of Talos, caged the harpies and navigated a way through the clashing rocks.
At this semi-final stage with the Theatre of Dreams in sight, Saints must now slay the Hydra or that 27-round journey will be in vain.
And even when they have done that, they will have to do battle with seven armed skeletons, spawned from the Hydra’s teeth, if they are to lift the Golden Fleece that is a fourth consecutive Super League title.
And just as Zeus looked down from Mount Olympus to plot what to do next with Jason, after the trials and tribulations of this year you do wonder what the rugby league gods have planned for Kristian Woolf before he finally disembarks the good ship St Helens.
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