Super League: St Helens 20-12 Castleford Tigers - Saints restore four-point lead over Wigan

Bureta Faraimo's two tries in four minutes both went unconverted by Danny Richardson, as was his late third by Paul McShane

Super League leaders St Helens secured their 18th win in 22 games this season to restore their cushion over Wigan at the top to four points.

But they were given a scare by Castleford's second-half fightback.

From being 12-0 up at half-time thanks to tries from Curtis Sironen and Morgan Knowles, Joe Batchelor's try stretched that to 20-0 with 17 minutes left.

Bureta Faraimo then went over for a hat-trick of tries in just 13 minutes, but they all went unconverted.

From out wide in tough, windy conditions, Saints old boy Danny Richardson missed the first two, before Paul McShane also proved out of luck with Faraimo's 77th-minute third.

Cas had won the past two meetings between the two sides, 20-10 at the Totally Wicked Stadium almost a year ago to the day, and then 30-10 at The Jungle in April - and Saints were more vulnerable than usual, coming off the back of their shock 44-12 drubbing at Salford the previous Sunday.

But Saints were much improved from that - and a third consecutive Cas win over them did not look remotely likely for the first three-quarters of this contest.

Returning St Helens winger Tommy Makinson kicked four of his five attempts at goal

Forward Sironen bulldozed over for Saints' first try after just four minutes, converted by Tommy Makinson, who also improved the try from Knowles when he went over for the second.

Saints had a chance to stretch their lead when Cas forward Liam Watts was yellow-carded for high contact on Jonny Lomax - but Makinson missed his penalty.

He was on target with his next goal attempt straight after the break, but despite that being followed by Sironen's sin-binning for a high shot on Faraimo, it did not stop Saints scoring a third try.

Lomax threaded a kick through 10 metres from the Castleford tryline and the onrushing Batchelor managed to ground the ball, although the try was only awarded after a lengthy consultation with video referee Marcus Griffiths, allowing Makinson to add his third conversion.

But Cas, having already shown some flashes of inspiration, were far from done - as they showed by quickly matching Saints' try tally.

Faraimo collected a good ball from Sosaia Feki to go over in the corner, before an almost carbon-copy second, again being fed the final pass by Feki.

But, when he showed great strength to complete his treble four minutes from time, and the left-footed McShane took over kicking responsibilities, it was the same result and Cas, having not quite got within striking range, were left to rue a missed opportunity.

Fifth-placed Cas are back in action on Friday night at home to fourth-placed Catalans, while Saints do not return until next Sunday when they visit play-off hopefuls Hull.

St Helens coach Kristian Woolf:

"We made some errors that put us under pressure, but I was a lot happier with us after last week.

"Castleford, especially in the second half, hung in and made it hard for us to find points.

"James Roby is the best hooker in the game, so to have him in that position was important - and Jon Bennison was great against a very good kicking game from Danny Richardson."

Castleford coach Lee Radford:

"I was petrified in the first 15 minutes but we grew into the game defensively. The quality of execution let us down, but I can't fault the effort.

"We have had the most sin-bins in the competition by some distance, so we know how to weather that storm.

"It was just frustrating that we weren't able to score those tries earlier, but the good sides fatigue you."

St Helens: Bennison; Makinson, Hurrell, Davies, Hill; Welsby, Lomax; Walmsley, Roby, Lees, Sironen, Batchelor, Knowles.

Sin-bin: Sironen (47)

Interchanges: Lussick, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Wingfield, Bell.

Castleford: Watts; McShane, Griffin, Edwards, Mellor; Westerman, O'Brien; Richardson, Olpherts, Fonua, Blair, Faraimo, Eden.

Interchanges: Sutcliffe, Martin, Matagi, Feki.

Sin-bin: Watts (21)

Referee: Chris Kendall.

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