Luke Walsh to start for St Helens against Widnes

St Helens coach Keiron Cunningham has confirmed that scrum-half Luke Walsh will be in the starting line-up for the game against Widnes on Friday night.

Saints head into the game at Langtree Park on the back of a heavy home defeat to Leeds last week, and Walsh being in place is a big plus for Cunningham.

“Luke Walsh will start the game this week,” he said.

“He came through pretty good from the weekend, and he’ll be ready to fire for us this weekend.

“It does help when you have your starting half-back starting the games.”

Another player who could return to action is Mark Percival, though Cunningham will not risk him if he is not quite ready.

“There’s a good chance of it,” he confirmed.

“He would be a week early if he came back, but if he’s ready he’s ready. There’s no point leaving him a week if he’s ready.

“It’s in the hands of the medical team at the minute.

“But if he isn’t quite there, then I’ll leave him, and bring him next week, because he’s really important to the side.

“He gives us a bit of strike down that side, so we want him back and we want to keep him back – that’s the most important thing.

“We don’t want him breaking down and then seeing him in another two months’ time, it’d be too late for us.”

Saints are keen to return to winning ways after the loss to Leeds, who are holding a steady lead at the top of Super League.

Cunningham insists that it is his own team’s performance on which he is focusing his attention, however.

“You’ve got to try and pick up as many points as you possibly can in this competition,” he said.

“It’s a bit of cut-throat industry, and the way it’s set out now with the Super Eights, you’ve got to accumulate as many points as you possibly can.

“Everybody’s trying to do the same thing. As you can see, a lot of people are dropping points around us.

“Leeds are holding steady a little bit at the minute. But we don’t need to worry about Leeds, or who’s in our position, we’ve just got to worry about ourselves, and worry about this week.

“We’ve got to put a good performance together for ourselves, our fans and everything around that.

“We’ve done a little bit work on our attack and our attack was sensational against Leeds, it looked really good.

“But our defence, in certain areas, was a little bit scratchy.

“If we can put that complete performance together then we’ll be a tough side to beat on Friday.”