St Helens underlined the growing chasm between themselves and the reigning champions, Wigan, by opening up a four-point lead at the top of the Super League while also consigning the Warriors to an unwanted piece of history. With only three wins from their opening 11 games, this is the joint-worst start from any defending champions in the competition’s history, emulating Leeds’ horrendous start of 2016. Then the Rhinos laboured to a 10th-placed finish at the end of the regular season, and on this showing it is hard to imagine the Warriors, now joint-bottom, doing better.
Glimpses of their qualities were too few and far between in front of the biggest crowd of the season, and with uncertainty over their next coach following Shaun Edwards’ decision not to lead the Warriors in 2020, all is not well with one of the game’s most famous clubs, who lost the wing Tom Davies to a suspected double leg-break here.
Yet for St Helens the story is almost the polar opposite. With 10 wins they are the standout side this season and while we are often reminded that form goes out of the window on derby day, Justin Holbrook’s side were on a different level to their fiercest rivals.
In his 47th Wigan-Saints derby, James Roby scampered over from dummy-half, catching Wigan’s defensive lineout cold as he has so many times before, Lachlan Coote converting to make it 6-0. The loss of Mark Percival to a hamstring problem stunted the Saints’ early momentum, but after Zak Hardaker’s try for the Warriors reduced the gap to two, they were soon back in the groove.
After the lengthy stoppage for Davies’s horrific injury, the visitors soon scored their second when a sublime break from Jonny Lomax was finished by Regan Grace in the corner. Coote missed the goal but added a penalty six minutes later – and he would make no mistake when Grace scored again on 33 minutes.
Few could argue with the 18-4 lead the Saints held with half-time approaching – but when Oliver Gildart broke down the left before releasing George Williams, it inspired hope among the home supporters. However, that hope, as it has been for so much of this season for the reigning champions, proved to be short-lived.
It was clear the Warriors had to score the first try after half-time, but seven minutes after the restart, their defence opened up once more, this time allowing Kevin Naiqama to free Tommy Makinson, the England international doing the rest to create a 12-point gap once more. From there it was as routine as the Saints could have hoped for.
The hour mark brought with it the game-defining try, as Grace claimed his hat-trick by racing away past more insipid Wigan defending, before Coote claimed the try his performance merited after leaping over Hardaker to round off another impressive afternoon’s work for the Saints.
