For minor premiers St Helens the Friday night round twenty-seven game against the Castleford Tigers was all about getting back on the bike after last weeks massive disappointment at Wembley, where they arrived as favourites and were totally outplayed.

For Castleford Tigers the game was all about a massive two points in their quest to be part of the 2019 play-off series. A win would lift the visitors into fifth place and a win by more than twenty-two points would lift them into third.

Saints were without Lachlan Coote and Dominique Peyroux while Cory Aston and Tuoyo Egodo were omitted from Daryl Powells side.

All the early pressure was on the Saints line after Kyle Amor knocked on in the kick-off return. Three consecutive sets of six on the Saint line saw Greg Minikin go close but the Saints defence kept calm and Castleford pointless.

After being under constant pressure the Saints finally secured a set in the Tigers twenty when Greg Minikin lost the ball after taking a high kick under the tackle. Danny Richardson was held up under the sticks on the fourth tackle and it was Castlefords turn to put in a great defensive effort.

On twenty the heavens opened but both team played through it with few handling errors.

The deadlock was finally broken in the thirty-second minute when Regan Grace went twenty metres down the left wing and stretched out an arm under the tackle to ground the ball on the line.  Danny Richardson pulled his touchline conversion to the left of the uprights. It would be the only points of the night as both sides struggled to get over the line.

Try as they would, the Tigers couldn’t turn second half pressure into points. Great Saints defence when it mattered shut down everything that the visitors could throw at them and they managed to see out a pointless second half to take a 4-0 victory to give the Tigers all sorts of problems in their attempt to qualify for the play-offs.

Castleford simply can’t win in St Helens, they are now without a win there since October 1990.

Saints: Welsby, Grace (T), Costello, Percival, Makinson, Lomax, Richardson, Amor, Roby, Thompson, Ashworth, Taia, Knowles.  Subs: Walmsley, Paulo, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Bentley

Tigers: Rankin, Clare, Mata’utia, Blair, Minikin, Trueman, Ellis, Watts, McShane, Millington, Holmes, McMeeken, Massey.  Subs: Milner, Sene-Lefao, O’Neill, Smith.

Referee: James Child.

Half-Time: 4-0.

Full-Time: 4-0.

Attendance: .