Leeds Rhinos picked up the first trophy of the season last weekend as they win the Challenge Cup as they now turned their attention to the Super League and securing a play-off position.

But they were up against the toughest of opponents as the reigning champions and league leaders St Helens welcomed Richard Agar’s side to the Totally Wicked Stadium.

Leeds are entering an intense period of matches as they try and catch up on fixtures and their coach elected to field a mix of youth and experience, the emphasis being on youth, as he appeared to have chosen to prioritise more winnable fixtures later over the coming days.

St Helens, however, were at full strength and determined for the win.

Neither side would change position as a result of the game, but St Helens would consolidate their claim for the minor premiership with a win and the Rhinos really needed the points to keep in touch with a top four place.

It was top against bottom as minor premiers elect St Helens were pitted against the lowly Wakefield Trinity in the last round sixteen match at the Halliwell-Jones Stadium.

Saints were massive favourites coming into the game but after a number of close results in recent weeks coach Chris Chester was due a bit of good luck.

Saints were without James Graham but still named an impressive squad and they knew that a win would make them increasingly secure at the top of the table.

The two sides met just six days ago, Saints winning by 20-16 as Trinity gave them a tremendous game, leading at the interval but eventually succumbing to the Champions.

It was top against bottom in round fifteen of Super League as Wakefield Trinity took on St Helens at Headingley Stadium.

There was only one possible outcome to the game, Wakefield being more firmly stuck at the bottom with St Helens increasing their lead at the top.

Wakefield continue to soldier on despite being decimated by coronavirus and injuries and they were facing a near full-strength St Helens side in a game which the bookies gave the Yorkshire side a thirty-four point start on the coupon.

One ray of hope for Trinity was the return of David Fifita as the big prop finally agreed to wear a GPS tracker enabling to meet Super League monitoring requirements.

There was only one possible winner as a full-strength St Helens side took on a very young and inexperienced Wigan Warriors in the first original derby of the 2020 season.

Wigan coach Adrian Lam had clearly prioritised the weekends Challenge Cup semi-final game against the Leeds Rhinos whereas Saints had no such distraction as they focussed wholly on their league position.

The bookies gave the Warriors no chance at all, handing them a twenty-eight point start on the coupon.

Everything pointed to a Saints massacre as Wigan debuted six players including the son of league legend Ellery Hanley.

Super League’s top two teams, Warrington and St Helens, kicked off today’s quarter-final action in the Coral Challenge Cup when they staged a replay of last year’s final at Salford’s AJ Bell stadium.

 

On that occasion, Warrington took the honours and lifted the cup they were defending, against a team any regarded as the cup kings of the Super League era.

 

And they took the field this afternoon with the best defence in the top flight against a team with the highest scoring attack.

 

Third took on tenth in the third game of round twelve at the Totally Wicked Stadium in St Helens where the hosts looked for a return to the top of the table as they played a Hull KR side who knew a win would lift them ahead of a Salford Red Devils side who have a bye this weekend.

The odds were well and truly on a Saints victory but there must have been a nagging doubt in the minds of their players and coaching staff after the Robins demolished the high flying Wigan Warriors last time out in the biggest shock since the restart.

If KR could prevent any early momentum from the Champions then they’d fancy their chance of causing back to back upsets.

A win of any description for St Helens, over seventh placed Huddersfield Giants, would lift the red vee ahead of fierce rivals Wigan Warriors into top spot in the table.

With the Giants reputedly down to sixteen fit players a win looked unlikely, and a win by the fifty points they needed to lift them above the Leeds Rhinos looked like an impossibility.

Saints themselves were rocked by another positive coronavirus test today, but it was a player who was not part of the squad for the last Saints outing against Hull KR last weekend, the player in question now in isolation.

Saints were big favourites with the bookies, the Giants having been given a twenty point start on the handicap coupon, and you could get odds of 10/1 on a straight Giants win.

St Helens climbed to second in the table after a close-fought tie with bottom-placed Hull Kingston Rovers.

Saints’ Alex Walmsley opened the scoring on the five-minute mark after a couple of errors by Rovers, with full back Lachlan Coote’s conversion making it 6-0 to the Merseysiders.

Coote’s opposite number Adam Quinlan was tackled in goal the second minute, gifting a second set to St Helens – who themselves lose the ball in the second tackled but then get it back on the 30m mark after a knock-on.

A set restart on the 10m line kept up the pressure and a relative simple offload from James Roby at dummy half allowed Walmsley to power over.

Fresh from thrashing the Leeds Rhinos last weekend St Helens were back on home turf for an ninth round fixture against the Castleford Tigers.

Castleford needed to get back on the bike after they themselves were on the receiving end of a beating from the Catalans Dragons and coach Powell would expect much more of his troops against the defending Champions.

A Saints win would put them on the top of the pile but a win for Castleford would also lift them level with the three leaders on ten points in a congested top of the table.

Saints were massive favourites with the bookies and the Tigers had been given a sixteen point start on the coupon.

No-one but the most fervent of Castleford fans could see beyond a Saints win, and few believed that the Tigers could win their first league match in St Helens for forty years.

There was no doubt that the most mouthwatering tie of the restart round, the eighth of Super League 2020, was the clash between the champions St Helens and the side who were sitting at the top of the table until the Wigan Warriors overtook them in this afternoon’s game.

Both sides have already got a game under their belts since the coronavirus lockdown, Saints scoring a comprehensive win over the Catalans Dragons while the Giants launched one of the all time finest comebacks to beat the Giants in Golden Point thanks to a Luke Gale Drop Goal.

Saints were big favourites with the bookies and the Rhinos had been given a ten point start on the handicap coupon.

A win of any description would take Leeds back top of the pile, Saints needed to win by more than twelve points to go ahead of Wigan on points difference and into top spot.

It’s been one hundred and thirty-nine days, twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes since the final hooter sounded on the last rugby league game to be played in Super League but after a terrible four and a half months, with the losses of lives and livelihoods, the greatest game was finally back, albeit in much changed circumstances.

First up was a re-arranged round four fixture between St Helens and the Catalans Dragons played at Emerald Headingley behind closed doors.

There would be no scrums, the new six again rule, and a game likely to be played at high speed.

Things have changed in the World, possibly forever, and inevitably this is reflected in our game.

But now is the time to try and return to some semblance of normality, even if it is a new normality for everyone.

Both teams came into the match off narrow losses in round 6 - with Saints’ loss to Huddersfield the most surprising.

But who would bounce back the strongest?

It was the hosts looked impressive in the first 10 minutes and opened the scoring on 11 minutes.

Pressing the Saints line, they moved the ball left to right while less than 10m out.

When it reached centre Peter Mata’utia he crashed forward and over the line.

Despite the attentions of three tacklers who turned him onto his back, he reached over his head and grounded the ball.

Danny Richardson converted against his former team and the Tigers opened a 6-0 lead.

When you are desperate top record your first win of the season, you would probably rather not be going up against the Champions in your fifth round match.

But that is exactly what the Toronto Wolfpack had to do as they took on St Helens in their home fixture being played at the Halliwell-Jones Stadium in Warrington.

Everything pointed to a Saints win which could lift them up into second spot but after last weekends World Club Challenge disappointment the Wolfpack came into the game hoping to gain their first two points which could have lifted them as high as eighth in the table.

When two Worlds collide, there can only be one winner.

It was the night of Champions as Super League’s finest, St Helens, took on the cream of the ARL in the form of the Sydney Roosters.

The Roosters came to the UK as defending World Club Champions after defeating Wigan by 20-8 last year.

They have also won the coveted title on four occasions, compared to Saints two.

The last time the home side picked up the trophy was back in 2007 and the bookies believed that they were unlikely to taste glory tonight.

There was no place in the Saints squad for Regan Grace who is suffering concussion and Mark Percival, surgery suspended, also didn’t make the seventeen.

Either Hull FC or St Helens would end round three at the top of the league as the two sides met at the KCOM Stadium.

Hull were defending their one hundred percent start to the season and knew that a win would guarantee them top spot, Saints needed a seven point winning margin and to hope that Warrington didn’t run in a big win against Wakefield.

Saints were without Mark Percival who has been ruled out for several months with a shoulder injury picked up in last weeks surprise loss to Warrington, but Tommy Makinson and Alex Walmsley were back in the line up.

Hull FC also made a few changes with Kelly, Satae, Faraimo and Savelio all missing for the home side, but Mahe Fonua would make his second debut after returning to Airlie Birds with Gareth Ellis back in at thirteen and Josh Griffin moved into the pack.

Warrington Wolves had the perfect opportunity to make amends for last weekend’s season opening loss to the Wigan Warriors as they welcomed Champions St Helens to the Halliwell-Jones for their first home game of the season.

St Helens were unstoppable against Salford Red Devils last time out, and after one game are at the top of the table that they made their own last season.

Saints were strong favourites with the bookies to pick up another two points, but the last team which beat them were Warrington in the 2019 Challenge Cup Final.

Warrington made an enforced change with the suspended Hill being replaced by Joe Philbin in the starting thirteen with Matt Davis being brought in on the bench.

Saints were without the injured Lachlan Coote as Jack Welsby moved to full back, Alex Walmsley was a late withdrawal, pulling out after the warm-up.

Last years Super League Grand Final was subject to a rematch at the Totally Wicked Stadium as reigning Champions took on last years surprise package, Salford Red Devils.

Saints are favourites with the bookies to finish top of the pile, and repeat last years feat of lifting the trophy at Old Trafford but the Red Devils will take comfort from their elevated position in the odds as they are tipped to finish mid-table rather than be fighting relegation.

Salford hadn’t won in St Helens for forty years and pre-match they were given little chance of overcoming that poor record as the new season got underway.

This was the night.

The culmination of a year’s rugby league encapsulated in eighty minutes as the nailed-on favourites, almost since anyone can remember in 2019, took on the suprrise package, the Salford Red Devils at the theatre of dreams.

Everyone except the Saints fans were ‘Salford for a day’ as the fans from just down the road and all of the neutrals at this grandest of occasions, opened their vocal chords in support of the underdogs.

Salford had earned their Grand Final berth as justifiably as the Saints with defeats of Castleford and Wigan on the road to their first ever Grand Final appearance and they were there to enjoy themselves but also to spring one of the biggest surprises in Super League history and become the fifth name on the famous trophy.

It was semi-final night at the Totally Wicked Stadium as a St Helens side who’ve so far watched the play-offs from the sidelines had their change to make the Grand Final at the first time of asking.

All that stood in the way of the all conquering Saints was their nearest and greatest rivals, Wigan Warriors.

The Warriors edged past a gritty Salford Red Devils last week to take their place in a fourth 2019 running of the worlds oldest derby match.

 Oliver Partington was back in the Wigan line up in place of the injured Dan Sarginson while Aaron Smith was recalled to the Saints side in place of Matty Costello.

Saints were bigger favourites with the bookies than recent form would suggest, the spectators arriving at the stadium weren’t quite so confident.

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.