Kristian Woolf on the impact of Joey Lussick

Steven Hughes
Joey Lussick St Helens

St Helens Head Coach Kristian Woolf has praised the impact of hooker Joey Lussick since his arrival at the club.

Lussick arrived at the club from NRL club Parramatta as a second choice hooker behind James Roby. He has come off the bench in all three of Saints’ Super League fixtures so far.

Speaking following Saints’ latest win over Wakefield on Friday night, Woolf said Lussick had allowed Roby to have a rest. He said this had not been an option in previous years.

Woolf said of the former Salford hooker: “Yeah, I think he’s he’s done what we bought him here for. He’s been a really good fall for Robes (James Roby).

“Tonight, we played Robes for 50 minutes and that’s really good for Robes to play. That means that we’re not dragging him along for really big minutes like we had to at times last year.

“He gets a bit of a breather at the end of each game and we’ve got a bloke you can come on and make a bit of an impact at the same time. With the way kicks out a dummy half the way can run out a dummy half, he obviously gives good service like Robes does as well and he’s a good defender.

“I’m happy with what he’s doing, and as I said, that’s what we we bought him here for.”

Woolf looking to utilise players like Lussick

The Saints Head Coach also talked about getting players like Lussick and Curtis Sironen into games earlier.

He added: It just depends on the game sometimes. Tonight, I thought everyone was travelling really well and we didn’t really need to make a lot of changes in that first half.

“So we only made two changes and that meant that Joey didn’t come on until the second half. Last week,  I think he came on at the 30 minute mark and because of the conditions and because of the way the game went, we had to make some changes a little bit quicker, which meant that we could get Joey on a little bit earlier and it also meant that we could get goes on a little bit earlier as well.

“So it’s really just dependent on what’s going on in the game and how blokes are travelling.”

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