St Helens boss Paul Wellens hoping for a ‘positive response’ following ‘honest conversations’ with his side

St Helens coach Paul Wellens hopes to see a ‘positive response’ from his side on Friday night after having ‘honest conversations’ following their defeat at Hull.

The Super League champions will aim to return to winning ways against Castleford Tigers on Friday night after being humbled in a 34-6 defeat at Hull FC last Thursday.

Wellens said they had an ‘honest team meeting’ this week, outlining the ‘effort areas’ where they must improve if they are to bounce back against Castleford.

“We were disappointed and we’ve had a pretty honest team meeting from that game around our standards,” Wellens said.

“You can watch a game like that and show the players 20, 30 or 40 clips if you want to but I don’t think that’s going to solve anything.

“What we got wrong were our effort areas. Too many of us turned up to a game hoping for an easier night and when you do that you make it a lot more difficult for yourselves so its a massive learning curve for us but what this group has done really well in the past is respond well on the back of a poor performance.

“The response that we need at the weekend is a real positive one with the standards we expect of each other.”

TEE RITSON: St Helens set to land speedster on permanent contract

Paul Wellens: I hope to see a great response from the team on Friday night

Wellens says he wants to see his side respect the ball more this week against Castleford and show more intent in the way they defend.

He added: “I thought we were complacent on the weekend and I don’t want to detract from the performance of Hull FC, they came with a real intent and energy which, unlike us, we couldn’t match, and that was the most disappointing aspect.

“Even when you make mistakes and you don’t quite get things wrong with the ball, you can have an intent about the way you want to defend and us at our best are able to deal with that and we were far from it at the weekend because us as a collective and a number of individuals within the team weren’t where we needed to be.

“We’ve had those honest conversations during the week to ensure that doesn’t happen moving forward and I hope to see a great response from the team on Friday night.”

The Saints take on the Tigers at The Totally Wicked Stadium on Friday night, 8pm kick-off.

READ NEXT: Andrew Johns says NRL club should ‘go after’ St Helens star as potential replacement for key man