ALL of Saints’ play-off eggs are now in one Castleford-shaped basket after they suffered another disappointing defeat at Warrington – their third loss of the year inflicted by their neighbours.

It was frustrating watch, not least because apart from the opening minute and the last they very rarely got within sight of the Warrington tryline.

Although some credit must go to Warrington’s defence, Paul Wellens’ side were not helped by some sloppy errors – stone cold drops in carting the ball in yardage, an unforgiveable throwing a forward pass from a tap penalty and then couple of completely unnecessary penalties.

But even without those errors, the still depleted Saints found it tough to get beyond the half way line due to the cumulative effect of a number of factors.

Saints’ lightweight back three is not short of spirit, but they were rag-dolled at times in those early set-starters clearing the line and as a consequence the forwards coming in off the back of that never got any impetus and so made little headway.

As a result Saints' primary tactic, through the boot of Moses Mbye, was to repeatedly boom the ball downfield from inside their half on the last tackle – and back their own aggressive chase to keep the Wolves at bay.

That they did the latter effectively was one credit in the plus column, but that made the manner of their first half unpicking even more frustrating.

Having done plenty of the hard work in defence, they failed to respond collectively to an Alex Walmsley dropped ball, with the player himself turning his back in immediate frustration.

Although Morgan Knowles and Jake Burns were up swiftly, the defensive line came up in a higgledy-piggledy manner and a glorious opportunity to counter.

As soon as the ball was shipped wide to a speedster like Matty Ashton in space then the odds were in his favour as he raced past Joe Batchelor, Waqa Blake and Jonny Lomax and crossed in the corner despite a fine cover effort from Harry Robertson.

The remainder of the half saw Saints continue an effective containment job on the more threatening Wolves, and would have given themselves a fighting chance to make a game of it had they kept it at 6-2 at the break.

Alas, after defending stoutly, a slip on the line by teenager Robertson allowed Wolves’ masterful halfback George Williams the chink of light to dart through and present a gift to the supporting Jordy Crowther.

That gave Wire a half-time lead that was never threatened in the final 40 – and it often felt like the conservative game plan was to contain rather than chase the game - admittedly something that is difficult to do when losing the territory battle.

Fittingly, Saints’ second half highlight came from a defensive effort when Jack Welsby, on just before the break after more than a month’s absence with a hamstring injury, raced across to scrag a motoring Ashton into touch.

It was a good job, as a simple long ball from a Wire scrum had unleashed the speedster and completely bamboozled the Blake and Tee Ritson edge.

It was another disappointing display from Blake, in a game where you would expect a man with NRL experience to shoulder more responsibility and leadership in a depleted backline.

His display was underlined by a needless penalty for an off the ball shove on John Bateman that led to one of the pair of Wolves second half penalties – the only points of the final 40.

Saints finally got some good ball sets late in the second half, and George Delaney – a forward who along with Morgan Knowles and Matty Lees ran his blood to water - crossed from close range.

But the video ref spotted a Welsby fumble in the mid-air challenge that led to it being chalked off.

They actually managed to play some football in the closing minutes, and Jonny Vaughan was a split second away from a try from a clever Lomax kick after the hooter – but the boot of Cai Taylor-Wray intervened.

The result means that out of three games against Super League’s top three this past four weeks Saints have scored just one try - but as this game outlined there are plenty of contributory components to fix to sort that.