Simmons: We froze in spotlight

06:45, Feb 11 2012

St Helens coach Royce Simmons claimed his players suffered from stage fright as they stuttered to a 38-10 victory over Salford in the first Stobart Super League match at their new £30million Langtree Park stadium. A week after having their own stadium opening night ruined by Castleford, the Reds threatened to spoil Saints' party when they led 10-0 after 24 minutes. But Saints responded in the second half, with substitute second rower Andrew Dixon scoring two of their five tries. They currently sit at the top of the Stobart Super League with two wins from their first two matches. "I think having all the great players here and the build-up over the last month or more, it got to us," said Simmons. "Our ball completion was very poor in the first half, which came back to a lot of blokes playing as individuals." He added: "Salford's ball completion was up in the eighties and we were down to 50 at one part of the first half. "We needed half-time. We spoke about settling down and in the second half it was definitely a big improvement." Story continues ADVERTISEMENT Reds coach Phil Veivers said: "We had to deal with a lot of adversity. We had eight players that couldn't train until [Thursday]. "We put a lot of effort in but effort alone doesn't win you ball games. We came here to be competitive and we thought we could win. "We spoke in the week about it being a circus and we were hoping to spoil the party. At half-time we were right in the frame to do that. "They upped the tempo in the second half and we stopped doing what was working for us in the first half. We went 10 or 11 sets when we saw the ball once. "I'm very disappointed with how the score blew out at the end. They played some good footie and we missed tackles."

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