Castleford Tigers rue missed goals as St Helens just about overcome Lee Radford’s men

St Helens took on Castleford Tigers this afternoon at the Totally Wicked Stadium, live on Channel 4.

Curtis Sironen opened the scoring early on following a Bureta Faraimo mistake before Morgan Knowles stretched over in exactly the same fashion.

The Tigers had absolutely nothing of the ball in the first-half with Liam Watts’ sinbin for a late tackle on Jonny Lomax compounding Castleford’s problems, but they finally began getting their hands on the ball towards the back end of the half only to be stopped by resolute Saints defence.

Tommy Makinson added a penalty after the break to make it 14-0 before Joe Batchelor scored a controversial try with the ball appearing to come away from his grasp.

20-0 down and Castleford had to score next – and they did just that with Bureta Faraimo in the corner. And, the blockbusting winger had enough to force his way over once more minutes later as the Tigers reduced the deficit to 12.

Faraimo got his hat-trick three minutes from the end, but this time Paul McShane couldn’t convert as they trailed 20-12 and that’s the way the game ended.

Highlights

Sosaia Feki returning after three years out for the Tigers was superb to witness.

Jonny Lomax’s 20/40 was an incredible boot for Saints.

Danny Richardson’s 40/20 was a thing of beauty in the second-half.

Talking points

1. Castleford’s disjointed attack

Castleford didn’t actually play bad against Saints, they just looked void of ideas for most of the game until they finally got over the try-line with less than a quarter of the game left.

2. Goal kicks win the game

Castleford scored the same amount of tries as Saints but missed every conversion with Danny Richardson missing two conversions and Paul McShane one whilst Tommy Makinson knocked over four with his own boot to settle the game.

St Helens

27 Jon Bennison – 7
2 Tommy Makinson – 8
23 Konrad Hurrell – 8
22 Ben Davies – 6
29 Daniel Hill – 7
1 Jack Welsby – 7
6 Jonny Lomax – 7
8 Alex Walmsley – 7
9 James Roby – 8
10 Matty Lees – 7
16 Curtis Sironen – 7
12 Joe Batchelor – 8
13 Morgan Knowles – 7
Substitutes
14 Joey Lussick – 6
15 LMS – 6
19 Jake Wingfield – 6
20 James Bell – 6

Castleford Tigers