St Helens coach Paul Rowley told BBC Radio Merseyside:
“It was an absolute rollercoaster of emotions for myself and the coaching staff. First and foremost, getting over injuries with a long time left in the game, was a challenge we had to get over pretty quickly.
“The players had to not let that derail what we are about and how we had prepared and planned and that we still had that belief, with people out of position, that we could hold tight, stay resilient and get the outcome we wanted.
“It’s a long list of injuries and Jonny [Lomax] and Nene [Macdonald] going off so early in the game had a direct impact on the fluidity of what we wanted to do, offensively.
“As always, you learn more about people in adversity, so buckle up and we’ll see where we get. Mid-season we’ll have an influx of top-line players coming back.
“Jonny has a fractured arm, to be confirmed and Nene took a bang to his leg so we expect more investigation on that over the weekend or early next week.”
“Leigh coach Adrian Lam told BBC Radio Manchester:
“We had the game won in the first half. The Leigh team of last year would have taken advantage of that and gone on with the job in the second half, but it wasn’t to be.
“We were our own worst enemy, with so many mistakes and put ourselves under pressure against a St Helens team who were very enthusiastic.
“In the second half the wind was quite strong, we scored the try to go up eight points right at the end of the first half and they kicked off and got the ball back.
“That was a massive play in the game – if we go in at half-time up by eight it’s a completely different ball game, but they’re the little things we’ve just got to get through at this point.
“It’s difficult to point the finger. We’ve got a lot of new faces and it’s going to take some time.”
