SAINTS boss Kristian Woolf bemoaned his team’s ill-discipline and ball control after seeing them slump to back-to-back defeats.

They were beaten all round – being outmuscled in the middle and not unrelated to that were subsequently beaten in the creativity stakes and found their normally tight defence routinely unpicked with the Tigers regularly finding space on their right edge.

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The team have lost half of their six Super League fixtures, as many as they lost in total in 2019.

But it is not simply the scoreline, but the performances – individually and collectively – that are troubling.

Woolf said: “For the second week in a row we have been really disappointing. It is frustrating, but we are ill-disciplined with and without the ball at the moment and we are not giving ourselves much chance in the early exchanges because of that.

“That is something we need to fix up pretty quickly.”

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Saints lost Matty Lees for 10 minutes in the first half, and then Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook saw yellow for a late hit on Danny Richardson – neither helped the cause and was symptomatic of the side’s general ill-discipline in other areas.

The second sin-binning knocked the wind out of their sails after Tommy Makinson had given Saints a toe-hold with a try on the half time hooter.

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“We started the second half with a lot more energy, even though we had 12 men – defended well and created some opportunities, but it was not consistent,” Woolf said.

“But we have to play with that energy for 80 minutes.

“We have to be disciplined. When you have a completion rate like we did and a penalty count like ours then that is on us.

“We have to be more disciplined.”

Saints conceded routinely on the troublesome edge that has seen centres come and go since Mark Percival’s round two injury.

Jack Welsby was paired with Regan Grace this week, and Cas coach Daryl Powell admitted that was something they had factored into their game-plan.

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However, Woolf believes most of the issues stemmed from not winning the midfield battle.

“I thought a lot of our problems started in the middle in that we allowed Cas to play a lot faster than us,” he said.

“We obviously were not working hard enough at the ruck when we were defending, nor when we were attacking either.

“That is what we have got to control.

“If you are doing a better job there you give your edges a better chance to defend as well.”