SAINTS coach Paul Wellens understood why the side’s exit from the Challenge Cup a fortnight ago disappointed the supporters.

Although Saints got back on the horse with a straightforward win over a depleted Hull FC last week, the nature of the heavy defeat at home to Warrington had ripped through the town.

The coaching staff and players are now looking to move on after plenty of in-house home truths – but Wellens wants the club to now move on together, and by that he means all involved on both sides of the fence.

Wellens said: “We were all extremely disappointed - and certainly, externally, the fans were very upset.

“And rightly so, because what they saw was a St Helens team in a cup tie unrecognisable to a St Helens the team that they've watched in recent years.

“I expect the supporters to be upset when they see that sort of performance from ourselves.

“We understand that in the good moments, when you're driving around town in open top buses and you're taking the accolades off all the fans, that you also have got to be prepared to accept it when it comes the other way.

“But what everybody needs to understand is that this group of players cares – it cares about the performance, they care about results and they care about standards.

“And when they drop standards it doesn't sit well with them.

“We've had honest conversations as a group, as we always do win, lose or draw.

“And I have had honest conversations with certain individuals and where I feel they can improve and off the back of that we move forward together and by together I hope that’s everybody.

“We're a club that's achieved a lot in recent years because we have been together and you know that's really important for future success as well.”

Saints have by far and away the best defence in Super League, conceding just 58 points in the eight rounds so far.

And that is what made the 31 points they conceded in the shellacking by Warrington even more un-Saints like.

Wellens said: “Who you are shows up first and foremost in your defence.

“That's where when people talk about willingness to work hard for each other, a willingness to put your body on the line, that's through the way you want to defend for each other.

“And that's what this group do really well.

“So I'm super proud of that.

“It's an area that we have got to continue to work hard in but I know, it's something that every single week that the group take great pride in.

“That is why what happened in the cup tie stung so much because what we do pride ourselves is what let us down.”

However Wellens knows that to compete for the big prize at the end of the year, Saints need to develop and refine the attack and challenge the tougher defences.

There were a few teething troubles on Friday night when they sought to be more expressive with the ball in what was a new spine, with Jonny Lomax at 7 instead of the injured Lewis Dodd, with Jack Welsby partnering him at 6.

A fair bit of ball hit the deck – something that has to be ironed out for games against stronger opposition.

“The balls that hit the ground in the Hull game was down to two reasons,” Wellens said.

“First of all it was a bit of an over excitement because off the back of the Warrington game I sensed during the week that we would fall into this trap of playing with fear.

“And I encourage the group to play. We're at our best when we play.

“We're at our best when we challenge the opposition.

“Off the back of making errors the tendency is to put the ball away and I didn't want us to see that because we're going need to play in big games in the back end of the year if we want to score points.

“There was a little bit of over excitement around that, but also a little bit of probably getting caught in two minds. ‘Do I hit the lead, or do I hit the man out the back’ and then almost doing neither.

“That's something we spoke about in the week and the importance of clearing that up so we don’t make as many unforced errors as we did and hopefully that will obviously improve our performance.”