SAINTS coach Justin Holbrook accepted it was not the prettiest of performance from his men - but they still managed to get the job done with a 36-10 win over Leeds.

It was not achieved without cost, with experienced second row Zeb Taia dislocating his shoulder.

Mark Percival left the field just after half time as a precautionary measure with his hamstring, meaning Saints had to re-shuffle with Dom Peyroux switching to the centres.

Saints got off to a flyer, with two tries in the opening four minutes from Kevin Naiqama and Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, before Leeds dragged themselves back in it.

Tries from Lachlan Coote and an acrobatic corner flag effort from Tommy Makinson gave Saints a 24-6 lead at the break.

But the second half was littered with errors, Saints only scoring five minutes from the end with tries from McCarthy-Scarsbrook and James Bentley wrapping up the scoring.

Holbrook said: “We did not play at our best tonight, without taking anything away from Leeds. But we came away with the win.

“We made a lot of uncharacteristic errors and made it hard for ourselves, but we finished the game well which is good.

"Last week, just before full time and just before half time we made a few errors, but at least tonight we finished both halves well and I think that’s important because we did lots in between which wasn’t great, but against the dangerous attacking side that Leeds are with some many dangerous players I’m really happy to get the win we did.

“I think just prior to Tommy’s Makinson try we saw how dangerous Leeds were and in that 10 minute period before the last few minutes before half time they looked really dangerous and we got through that tough period which is important to do especially against Leeds and for Tommy to finish that try – he’s a phenomenal athlete and a great finisher.

"It is so good to watch and that was important but then we knew what Leeds could be capable of in the second half and we made a lot of uncharacteristic errors and made it hard for ourselves.”

Holbrook explained the absences of Morgan Knowles and Joseph Paulo who were both rested to freshen them up

As for Taia and Percival, who both exited in the second half, Holbrook said: “Zeb’s not good. His shoulder popped out on the field so it’s a dislocation and obviously we’ll have to get scans next week.

“I think we managed to get it back in, we won’t know how much damage is done until next week.

"Mark Percival was struggling a bit. He obviously had that hamstring earlier in the year and he was pretty tight there so it was the safer option to get him off."

Holbrook gave a pat on the back to Aaron Smith, deputising for the injured James Roby.

“We knew at the start of this year we could call upon Aaron Smith whenever needed, and he’s done it a number of times now and done a great job.

"We obviously would like to have our captain on the field, James Roby, but, if not we’ve got all the confidence that Az can step in and do the job he has done for us every week.”