Super League star headed home

Jai Field and Bevan French at Wigan Warriors, Matt Dufty at Warrington Wolves, Tex Hoy at Hull FC, of course Jack Welsby at St Helens and many more, Super League is awash with some great fullbacks but we sadly lost one this season when former St Helens star Lachlan Coote was forced into early retirement at Hull KR after the Magic Weekend clash with Salford Red Devils.

In that game he suffered another concussion which in recent years have been causing him real problems.

Coote’s legacy will remain unsullied winning three Grand Finals at St Helens and a Challenge Cup Final and he was the guest of honour at the match between his two now former clubs last week with the Scotland international saying a final goodbye to the teams who he starred for in Super League before returning to Australia.

It was a cagey and penalty strewn first twenty minutes with both teams making errors in the opposition twenty, and that ultimately led to a scoreless first half an hour.

That was until Saints got a penalty following a high shot on young prop Delaney which prompted Mark Percival to take the two, something that was added to just minutes before the break when Sione Mata’utia capitalised on an error at the back to extend the score to 6-0.

Saints kicked on early in the second half with Tommy Makinson crossing over courtesy of an overlap to double the St Helens lead and that was compounded by a Moses Mbye try minutes later.

Mikey Lewis spilled the ball which allowed the hooker to pick up and race through to make it 18-0, putting the game firmly in the control of the Red Vee.

Tommy Makinson then added his second and Saints’ fourth of the night diving in at the corner to make the game 22-0 with 25 minutes to go, putting a real dent in Hull KR’s playoff hopes.

Rovers did hit back through Mikey Lewis with Brad Schneider adding a difficult kick to make it 24-6 but it was too late for Willie Peters’ slide, who following Salford’s heavy win over Huddersfield, slipped out of the playoffs and into seventh.

It wasn’t over from Saints though as they added another to compound KR’s misery with Ben Davies the beneficiary of clever play by Jonny Lomax and Lewis Dodd.

That saw the game finish 28-6 with Saints pushing on for a chance at second and Rovers dropping into seventh.