Super League / Ralph Ellis / 21 August 2009 / Leave a comment

Saints are rushing their captain back after his eye injury in time for tonight's clash with Huddersfield. However, Ralph Ellis fears the Cheshire club could lose their focus...

"I’m not sure I’d lay Saints even at 1.06. But the thought that their focus could be wrong makes 4.1 for Huddersfield plus 14.5 points extremely tempting, and 2.12 for Huddersfield plus 26.5 points fantastic value."

There's a basic rule for sport, and that's to focus only on your own performance. Stay in the moment, they call it. And there are whole legions of sports psychologists out there now making a tidy living preaching this basic truth, and telling people how to do it. Yet still it's all too easy to get wrapped up in what a match means, or what's happening elsewhere and how it could affect the outcome.

Are St Helens guilty of making that mistake as they approach tonight's Super League contest with Huddersfield Giants? They are top of the table, and should be thinking only of making sure they win against a side that's going to be weakened a week before the Challenge Cup final. Instead all the talk is of the need to run up a cricket score.

That's because come tomorrow their closest rivals Leeds Rhinos, locked at the top on 36 points but 15 worse off in points difference, will face bottom club Celtic Crusaders who have been crippled by having to send half a dozen of their top Australian stars home because of problems over their visas. The expectation is the Rhinos will run in 50 points or more, putting Saints under pressure to do the same tonight.

It's a dangerous road to go down, especially for a team that has fallen apart in the last month after dominating the early part of the season. Saints have lost their last two matches - including a shock 14-24 defeat at home to the Giants in the Challenge Cup semi-final - and were less than convincing when they scraped past Wigan the week before that.

Yet still they worry about how many they might win by, rather than how they might win at all. And whatever the weakness of the opposition that's a fundamental mistake.

The trouble is that the more you try to engineer a big score like that, the harder it gets. If the two sides just set out to play the game, then there'd be every chance of a late landslide of tries to give St Helens a thumping win. But if it's what they are planning . . . well, you don't always get what you wish for.

I'm not even sure it's a good thing that St Helens are rushing their inspirational half-back Sean Long back into the game. Seven weeks after breaking his jaw, they want him to try to lift them from the couple of shock defeats.

"Sean still can't shut his eye perfectly but the fact it is a night game should be better for him," St Helens head coach Mick Potter has told today's papers. "He started to get some movement in his eyelid, then it stopped getting better, but the nerve endings have fired up once again. The daytime and brightness affects his eye - it dries out and becomes sore - but he should be fine under floodlights."

That hardly sounds like a ringing endorsement of his fitness, and is a symptom of Saints' desperation which could well backfire on them. Okay, I'm not sure I'd lay Saints even at [1.06]. But the thought that their focus could be wrong makes [4.1] for Huddersfield plus 14.5 points extremely tempting, and [2.12] for Huddersfield plus 26.5 points fantastic value.

Five things you might not know about Sean Long

1. Born in Wigan in September 1976, he started playing rugby aged seven but was also good at athletics. Age 16 he was Wigan high jump champion

2. He joined Wigan from school, but they released him - partly because he refused to go to college two days a week to study for a GNVQ in Sport and Leisure

3. He still lives in Wigan. Younger brother Karl plays rugby union for Fylde. Sean turned down the chance to switch codes, calling the half in a friendly between Saints and Sale that was played under Union rules "the worst 40 minutes of my life"

4. In 2006 he starred in Great Britain's first win in Sydney for 18 years, but then left the tour early. He'd been seen drunk on a flight, but everybody claimed he came home for 'personal reasons'

5. In 2004 he was banned three months and fined £7,500 for betting on a weakened Saints team to lose to Bradford by more than eight points. He hid in a caravan to avoid the fuss that followed

Tags: Huddersfield Giants, Rugby league betting, Saint Helens, Sean Long, Super league betting, Wigan