Saints need some 'soul searching' after third Wire loss

St Helens must "do some soul searching" following their defeat by Warrington Wolves on Thursday, said head coach Paul Wellens.

Thursday's loss was their third against the Wire in five weeks, having also lost at home in March and again in an away Challenge Cup quarter-final earlier in April.

Matty Ashton shone with a hat-trick of tries for Warrington as they sealed a well-earned win against Saints in the latest meeting.

"It's obviously really disappointing. Not just the result but the performance," Wellens told BBC Radio Merseyside.

"Some soul searching needs to be done both individually and collectively because it's way off the standard we need to be.

"I'm responsible for the results and performances of this team. I've never, for one second, shied away from that."

Saints opened their season with four wins from four in all competitions, during which they scored a cumulative 192 points and conceded just 12.

Since then, however, they have lost five out of eight games, are out of the Challenge Cup and have dropped to fifth in the Super League table, four points off leaders Hull KR.

"For the second week in a row we've started really sloppy in a game," Wellens said. "We've coughed up cheap possession, I can't keep talking about that, we've got to fix it up.

"We've done so much great work in pre-season and the early rounds and tried to implement things to improve our attack.

"But to get the opportunity to attack, you need to keep hold of the ball and turn up with a defensive attitude and resilience to earn the right to play and we did neither of those tonight and it needs to be better."

Wellens has identified one area where his side can improve off the back of their recent inconsistent run, however.

"We have a tendency as a team, and it's something we need to eradicate, that when we are frustrated we want to go and solve things on our own and do things individually," he said.

"Nothing good ever comes from that. That's one thing to work on. You solve things by doing things together as a team. But that's just one thing amongst a number of things we need to fix up."