Lew on League (An occasional RL blog by my dad)
St Helens 38 - 24 Leeds
There were two differing starts to this game. First Leeds weathered the expected St Helens’ opening attack and went on to score after only three minutes. This led their many supporters to assume that the Rhinos were going to start where they had left off in their win at Headingley. Then the Saints hit back and began to tear Leeds apart as they had done in the equivalent fixture last year. On 39 minutes they were leading by 26 – 6, when a piece of Sinfield magic opened up the Saints defence for Jones-Buchanan to score.
At 26 – 12 there seemed an opening for Leeds to make a come back in the second half, but Saints opened up once more and only desperate Leeds defence kept the score down to tries to Hardman and Sculthorpe. Yet just when it seemed that Leeds might break at 38 – 12, they gradually forced themselves back into the game and in the final fifteen minutes the hit back with two more tries by Jones–Buchanan to give themselves a more honourable final score or 38 – 24.
It was a fine win for Saints new coach Daniel Anderson. The St Helens pack was clearly superior to that of Leeds whilst Shaun Long seems to be back to his best form.
All in all it was a brilliant game with the ball flying across the field. Saint Helens were the more forceful and too often Leeds held back in defence when they should have been pressurising the Saints attack to force them into errors. Leeds have looked out of sorts for some time and if they want to maintain their early season momentum they will have to show more enthusiasm, avoid errors and regain their fluency and discipline.
Bradford seem to be back to their old form. At Hull, where they were well beaten in the Challenge Cup, they turned the tables on the home side to register a convincing 42 – 24 win. Wigan also had a good win away to Salford under their new coach Ian Millward. The second half of the season looks like being an exciting battle involving the old quartet of the Rhinos, Saints, Bulls and Warriors.
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