We talked about this after the game and the players can say that the man next to them tried their best and that is important in these moment because we are all very disappointed as this is a competition we wanted to do well in but we weren’t good enough.

What was the injury to Rob Burrow? 

He got knocked out attempting a tackle and he came off. Later, into the second half, the medical staff were happy that he was ok to play otherwise we wouldn’t have played him. We are really pleased that Rob is ok as I was a bit concerned at the time. When you see one of your players get knocked down like that, the game becomes secondary.

Danny McGuire looked as though he was struggling throughout the game? 

He picked up a calf injury but he carried on the game and we were in a position that he just had to battle on and that is what Danny was prepared to do. Near the end we offered to get him off but he wanted to keep going and that is the way the game is. It’s a tough game out there, particularly in those conditions, it was hot and physical and there are a lot of tired players at the end of the day.

You got back to within six points in the second half- did you think you might be in with a chance? 

Definitely. We had the momentum and the supporters got behind us and we were the team with the energy. We got a penalty against us on the play the ball and then the momentum swung. That is how quickly it can happen in a game. I think we really needed to keep the momentum at that stage. We had used six substitutes in the first half and we had done too much work by that stage and so we had the ascendancy and we needed to keep the ball longer but we flattened out a bit too much in the first half.

What was your reaction to the penalty that was given against Lee Smith? 

At the time I thought it was harsh but I would have to see it again. As you would appreciate, your emotions run high during the game but I’m not going to start pointing the finger to anyone because that is not my style but at the time I thought, “That is a harsh call” but if I look at it and review it he might have got it right. However, that is not the reason why we lost but it was definitely something that took away our momentum and perhaps we might have finished up at the end of the field.

How good were Saint Helens? 

They were very good especially in the first half. Their first quarter was good and kept winning territory and were pretty clinical. Sean Long came up with a magic play to get them 6-0 up and that hurt us a lot. I think in the first half you need to make the other team use more gas than you and they did that quite well. They will be very hard to beat in the final.

How big a factor was the heat? 

The heat is a big factor in these big games and both teams have done extremely well in a high intensity match. I don’t know how hot it was but it can suck the energy out of you. Saints were very good but we were good at handling the heat as well. We had a bit of experience of it last week down at the Catalans and we felt the heat there and we felt it again today.

Shamoon Hafez

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