Leaders Hull KR hammer stuttering St Helens

Betfred Super League

Hull KR (28) 34

Tries: Broadbent 2, Hiku, Lewis 2, Minchella Goals: Mourgue 5

St Helens (4) 4

Tries: Murphy

Super League leaders Hull KR thrashed a stuttering St Helens side to ensure they head into next week's Challenge Cup final at Wembley on a high.

The hosts were cruising at the break with a 28-4 lead, thanks to two tries from Jack Broadbent and finishes from Peta Hiku, Mikey Lewis and Elliot Minchella.

Lewis Murphy, who went over for Saints' only try in the first half, went close to pulling one back after the interval but had his acrobatic effort ruled out just moments before Lewis went in for his second of the night at the other end.

Rovers' commanding display against the long-time Super League powerhouse, who won a record 10th Super League title just three years ago, sets them up well for their cup decider in London against Warrington Wolves next Saturday.

Saints' defeat in east Hull came after Paul Wellens' side had recorded thumping back-to-back wins against Huddersfield Giants and Catalans Dragons to somewhat revive their season following a run of six losses in nine games between early March and May.

Kelepi Tanginoa popped up a one-handed pass for Broadbent to give Rovers the ideal start with the game's first try from close range after just six minutes.

Talismanic prop Alex Walmsley endured a frustrating and blood-stained 300th appearance for St Helens.

He was having his head bandaged moments before Hiku stormed in for Rovers' second try of the night, and then minutes later the former England and Great Britain international was held up over the line after taking a number of defenders with him as he attempted to touch down.

St Helens' response, however, was only delayed by seconds as Jonny Lomax linked up with Murphy, who bounced over the whitewash to finish.

The visitors then had Deon Cross sin-binned for a high tackle on Arthur Mourgue, but they were back to full strength when Broadbent got on the end of neatly threaded kick from Jez Litten to grab his second try.

Lewis quickly followed that up with a dashing effort before the England half-back kicked and collected to set Minchella up for the host's fifth score just before half-time.

It was a clinical way to finish the first 40 minutes against St Helens side that also lost full-back Jack Welsby to an apparent knee injury.

After the break, Murphy went for an audacious diving effort in an attempt to reduce the margin, but his finish in the corner that left him injured was ruled out by video referee Ben Thaler.

And it only got worse, with Lewis zipping over with a dummy and fend off to complete the win and add to his phenomenal scoring form against Saints - with the try his eighth in his past six games against them.

Hull KR have now beaten St Helens twice this season

Rovers now have 'a job to do' - reaction

Hull KR head coach Willie Peters told BBC Radio Humberside:

"Tonight could have gone either way in terms of mentality, but I like to think where this group is at now, we would put in a performance like that.

"It doesn't matter what game it is that we play, we want to have a similar sort of approach and they certainly did that tonight, so I'm really pleased and proud of the players.

"You need to play well against St Helens, you need to be physical and you need to have the right mental approach. And we had all those things.

"We had a positive start and it helped us later on in the half when we scored our points because we did a fair bit of damage early on in the game and got rewarded later in the fist half with the tries we scored.

"Players will recover now, which is the most important thing for them, and then we start looking at Warrington.

"We have the week [ahead of he cup final] already planned and it's just a matter of building into it as the week goes and enjoying it. But we've also obviously got a job to do."

St Helens boss Paul Wellens told BBC Radio Merseyside:

"It was a struggle for us. The start of the game wasn't great. They beat us to the punch physically, which was disappointing.

"Then off the back of that were a few things that didn't go our way and we didn't handle it as well as we needed to and we conceded a few tries, which we are all naturally disappointed with because we feel we should handle them a lot better.

"It made it really difficult for us. There were patches there where we didn't handle things as well as we need do. I thought it came off the back of not being physically where we needed to be.

"I was expecting a lot better, I have to be honest.

"It is a really disappointing result and performance, I'm not shying away from that, but we have done a lot of good things in the last couple of weeks and we need to get back trying to do that again and doing that in games like tonight where you don't have it all your own way."

Hull KR: Mourgue; Davies, Hiku, Broadbent, Burgess; Lewis, May; Sue, Litten, Whitbread, Tanginoa, Batchelor, Minchella.

Replacements: Luckley, Brown, Doro, Leyland.

St Helens: Welsby; Sailor, Percival, Cross, Murphy; Lomax, Whitby; Walmsley, Clark, Lees, Sironen, Whitley, Knowles.

Replacements: Mbye, Pa'asi, Delaney, Robertson.

Sin-bin: Cross (21 mins)

Referee: Liam Rush.