Matty Lees ready to come out on top for St Helens in the battle of Rochdale
MATTY Lees is ready to go into battle as a town is divided in the search for a Grand Final place.
The split between him and Matty Ashton is far greater than just Warrington v St Helens – their home town of Rochdale is in both camps.
St Helens ace Lees comes from the Newhey area, on one side of the M62, while his opponent hails from Heywood – seven miles away and on the other side of the motorway.
And after finding himself the leader of the pack for much of a season decimated by injuries, he is ready to stun Saints’ near neighbours as they look to get their hands back on the Super League trophy the hardest of ways.
Lees said: “It’s been a challenging year for myself. We lost our starting 13 pretty much until there was only me knocking around!
“There’s been a lot of young guys who’ve come up to the first team and I’ve sort of taken them under my wing a bit.
“I’ve tried my best to guide them in tough circumstances but we’re getting a few players back now and hopefully we can tie together a few good performances.
“To be honest, I didn’t really think about my responsibility. It all just kind of happened with me being in the mix of it all.
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“George Delaney played last year and Noah Stephens has got a lot of game time, then there’s Harry Robertson and even someone like Jake Burns.
“And I’ve had to add that ability to show them the way. I’ve been concentrating on my own performance while trying to get the boys up for these tough games.
“They’ve played in some big games this year – Harry made his debut at Wigan – and I’ve just tried to guide them a bit and keep them at ease.
“I said to Harry, ‘Things are only going to get easier from here.’ As a matter of fact, they didn’t as we lost a few more players!
“But I let them do what they do best – they’ve had the shirt on for a reason.”
Look at the league table and sixth-placed St Helens are meant to lose at third-placed Warrington today.
But they were not champions in four of the last five seasons – not World Club champions last year – without reason.
Some may say just making the finals is a success but 26-year-old Lees is having none of it, they are there to cash in their ‘ticket.’
“It definitely isn’t a success,” he added, “as a player, I’m really disappointed and I know the club will be as well.
“But we’ve managed to get our ticket and that’s worth as much as anyone else’s. I know we have a tougher run than the top two but all you need is that ticket.
“For the first time since I came into St Helens’ first team, we’ve been underdogs and teams really kicked us when we were down.
“But we’re looking to fight our way back to the top. Based on the league table, the pressure’s off but between us it’s definitely on.
“We need a really good performance. We were 80 per cent there against Leigh and we’ll be looking to go further.
“We’ve got better each week. Tying it all together at Warrington would be a great feeling.”