Castleford pay the penalty
St Helens 26 Castleford 16
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Your support makes all the difference.Castleford still have not won at Knowsley Road since 1990, but they threw away a golden opportunity last night when the steady flow of penalties they conceded allowed Saints to claw their way back out of trouble.
It was Danny Orr, one of the stars for Yorkshire in the Origin Series, who struck the first blow for Castleford, the last side to beat Saints in the Super League. He shimmied through after he winmning possession with an intercept. Saints soon replied when the towering Peter Shiels held the ball above his head in a tackle and somehow dunked it down for Darren Albert's blistering pace to bring him an equalising converted try.
Shiels was the scorer three minutes later when another unlikely pass, thrown inside from Anthony Stewart, opened up the Castleford defence, with Tommy Martyn adding his second goal.
Despite their lead, Saints were making some basic mistakes and, after Martyn had kicked straight into touch, Lee Harland and Andy Johnson linked up to send Darren Rogers in and only Wayne Bartrim's missed goal kept them ahead.
On 28 minutes, Castleford did take the lead. Waine Pryce's long break was halted by Albert, but the Tigers moved the ball around to score later in the set through Mick Thealey's pass to Barrie-Jon Mather.
Paul Wellens' penalty reduced the margin before half-time and another penalty, this time for Bartrim's high tackle on Barry Ward, brought Saints level. The heavy penalty count always looked likely to tell on Castleford, and 20 minutes later Johnson was penalised for ball stealing and Wellens was on the mark once more. Dean Sampson was put on report after one incident involving Mark Edmondson and was penalised again as Wellens continued to punish Cas for their indiscipline.
The points were not genuinely safe until 10 minutes from time when Ade Gardner celebrated his first start for Saints by taking Mick Higham's pass and going over. Wellens tagged on his fifth goal before Sampson became the first player sin-binned four minutes from time, an appropriate end to Cas's doomed attempt to end their long losing sequence on the ground.
St Helens: Albert; Kirkpatrick, Stewart, Newlove, Gardner; Gleeson, Martyn; Britt, Higham, Nickle, Bennett, Joynt, Shiels. Substitutes used: Ward, Edmondson, Wellens, Stankevitch.
Castleford: Warren; Rodgers, Mather, Johnson, Pryce; Orr, Healey; Sykes, Bartrim, Sampson, Smith, Fritz, Harland. Substitutes used: Hudson, Rainey, Faxton, Lynch.
Referee: K Kirkpatrick (Warrington).
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