Paul Wellens reaction to Saints' 58-0 win over Hull FC

Here is everything he had to say in the post match press conference.

MC: What was the most important thing you had to get from tonight?

PW: The obvious answer is a response. It's been a tough week for the club and but the players are involved in that they're hurt by what happened last weekend. We've had some honest conversations as a team.

We've had some honest conversations with individuals and I asked them for a response and a team that wanted to stick together and work harder.

I think we got that. So that was most pleasing and that's what it's more like what we look like when we are close to our best, which, if I'm honest, we've still got some improvement in us.

MC: If you look at the Hull team there's a lot of numbers in the 30s and 20s and even a 40 – that’s a lot of young lads – is the challenge to keep your shape and when you're up against a team like that?

PW: Hull as a club are quite clearly now on a bit of a journey – and it seems like they are rebuilding and having to reassess what they're doing.

I felt like we were on a bit of a hiding to nothing today. You come here and you're expected to score points.

If you don't quite do that, then it's a failure. If you do that well, you're expected to do it anyway.

But we did it and that's all we could do. 58 points is pleasing. The zero next to the name is more pleasing for me given what happened last week from a defensive point of view.

So that's a that's a big improvement and you know we are going to have to just continue to try and improve on that.

MC: A bit of ball hit the floor, but is that more forgivable when you're actually trying to play?

PW: Yes, on some level, I thought we did move the ball around a bit more tonight, but we did it with in the in the main a bit more control and were a bit more patient.

The improvement areas in us is that little bit of looseness in terms of the ball hitting the ground again.

It happened a lot last week and it happened a little bit tonight, but we need to eradicate that. I'm happy if a couple of balls hit the ground throughout the course of 80 minutes.

It is probably happening a little bit too much for us at the moment, but I think a little bit of that came from over-excitement.

I told the players to express themselves – I told them to not feel the pressure and for them to take the shackles off. So I think off the back of that, a few balls at the ground. But we'll fix that up.

MC: A different 1,6, 7 and 9 tonight. How much of that was enforced, and much of that was a selection choice?

PW: A bit of both. It was enforced in terms of both Daz (Clark) and Lewis (Dodd) have played the last couple of weeks with bumps and niggles and not been quite right so I made the call that I was going to leave them out.

The decision on Lewis Dodd was a late one because he trained yesterday and trained really well, but pulled up this morning and was a lot worse and feeling sore.

So I made the decision then. What I needed today was 17 fit bodies, 17 energetic bodies who wanted to go out and I didn't need anybody trying to drag themselves through a game.

So I made the call on Lewis and I made the call on Daryl earlier on in the week. So those changes were enforced.

But Jonny has shown in the past that he's got some versatility in the halves and has played on the ball in Grand Finals and done a really good job and helped us win those big games.

Jack showed that he can play 6. Jon Bennison has shown that he can play full back so in that respect, we had a lot of confidence that we could do what we needed to do.

MC: Jonny seemed to enjoy that role and he was quite pivotal in setting up a few of those tries with the way he was taking it to the line.

PW: Well, he's an experienced player, isn't he? He's someone that played full back a fair bit in his career, played 6 and played 7.

He's a student of rugby league, he knows basically what's required in a number of roles.

He's quite naturally by nature, someone who is quite commanding and demanding that so in some respects that role does suit him as well.

I thought he handled it really well tonight because it was only this afternoon when he got a phone call to tell him that his role was changing.

But I had every trust that Jonny could adapt because like I said at the start he's an experienced player.

MC: Jonny's one of those players that thinks a lot about the game, and he probably thought a lot more about last week's game than anybody. Did he need the game tonight where he is really heavily involved and where it comes off?

PW: Yes, I think so.

We were all stinging off the back last week. I think what we all needed was a game.

It was the longest short week of our lives, if that makes sense. The game couldn't come quick enough.

We need to just get out there and play again. We can't repair the damage of last week - that's done but what we can do is focus on what's next and move forward as a team and stay together. I understand there's a lot of upset around that defeat.

That comes with the territory and I accept it, we accept it as a team, but all we can do is focus on what we do next and I thought the signs tonight were positive whilst not being perfect, we have got to get better.

MC: There were a couple of blokes who’ll get real confidence from that game - looking at someone like Waqa Blake who seemed to enjoy taking his chances, are these the sort of games where people can get a footing in the team?

PW: When any team scores points it builds a bit of confidence and if personally individually you get over for a couple of tries it makes you feel good and in Waqa there's a player though for sure and I think the dry track suits him, when the ground is a bit firmer.

He's a big athletic man who is tough to handle when he commits to working with his strengths as opposed to trying to do something which he is perhaps physically not that good at.

So the message this week was all about keeping it simple. It was all about committing to your and doing your roles to the best of your ability before we start to worry about other people or what other people thinking, do you at your best.

I thought Waqa was a lot better tonight. And again, like the team, he's got improvements in him.

It was a strange night because we wanted a performance. We got one. We wanted a result, we got one. But we understand that the opposition we came up against are in a tough spot at the moment.

MC: I think Konrad Hurrell was almost apologetic in making some of those big tackles on some very young players, but you can only play what’s in front of you, can't you?

PW: That's all you can do.

And we spoke about that at length as a team in the week.

I thought to their credit - and you look at the scoreboard and you see 58-0 - what you have to understand as a club is that Hull have given a lot of young players an opportunity.

They'll learn a lot from tonight - those young kids and it's a tough experience for them.

Catching the ball and getting flattened by Konrad at full tilt is a is a learning curve in itself. But I thought Hull FC and their young players tonight in particular never gave in.

They just weren't at that level yet, but if they continue to work hard I'm sure they can get there.

MC: I am sure you want Daryl Cark playing, but Moses Mbye shows what a good player is with a good 80 minutes tonight?

PW: I was very pleased with Moses's game. He's inexperienced player and a very level headed player and he's got a fair bit of guile and is a bit old school in that respect where he can catch defences out.

I think he complements Daryl really well in that respect.

But add to Moses, Matty Lees, Morgan Knowles and Sione Mata’utia - in any game against any opposition, you need your middles to lay a platform and I thought they did that magnificently tonight.

MC: Morgan Knowles is having to do a tough roll there at loose forward then prop – spending a lot of time in that middle?

PW: He is and he's been brilliant. He's been one of the shining lights over the course of this year in terms of performance, both him and Sione.

They play the game in a no nonsense, uncompromising way through the middle. What they've both got is a really good skill set and they've got the ability to play, find a pass, use each other, work well.

But they always do that off the back of doing the tough stuff first and that that's what makes them really great players.

MC: Is today just a good start to start attacking the season again, because Huddersfield have had a good win tonight - they're going to throw something at you next week, aren't they.

PW: Of course they are. What I spoke to the team around last week was let this be a line in the sand moment for us and behind that line is what's happened - some good, some bad, some indifferent.

But the only thing that we can control now is what we do next.

So yes, we're disappointed, but let's move forward and move forward together and that's what I'm most proud of about the team this week.

There's been so many opportunities to blame, to finger point, to find excuses. But to a man the team have owned and we weren't good enough. I wasn't good enough. I need to be better.

It was not finding reasons why performances dipped and that's why I love working with this group of players. That's why I love working with this team because what you will always get with them is an honesty.

So whilst you don't have perfection all the time and I don't expect perfection is an honest group of players will always find the answers themselves and certainly make my job a lot easier in that respect.

MC: Is Percy OK – did he come off just to give Ben Davies some minutes?

PW: Percy has probably not had the training load that that we would have liked and with the short turn around next week we have got very little time on the training field.

So I was I was delighted with his involvement up to 50 minutes. He's such an important player for us.

I'd seen enough from him and given the score line the way it was, I thought get him off the field.

But I wanted to get Ben Davies out of there, the kid who's been 18th man for seven weeks on the run.

That's probably one of the toughest gigs you can get in professional sport when you're one position away from being in the team for seven weeks on the run and he's handled that with the with the maturity way beyond his years.

I've referenced that to the group and he deserves that and it was really pleasing for me as a coach tonight who's had to kind of let his tyres down for the last seven weeks, in terms of not putting him in the team, to see him out there in a Saints shirt.

Not only out there but contributing really well when he got out there.