Saints squeak home in high scoring game

But the review of the defence will be painful viewing after they conceded a series of soft tries to make sure the game was never secure.

They led 18-0, and were looking home and hosed but then the home side responded with four unanswered tries to hit the front.

But they found enough to get back in it and pull clear to secure qualification to the last four.

Saints, buoyed by the previous week’s win at Leeds, withstood an early Castleford storm from the kick off before hitting the front.

After Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook had been held up, Luke Walsh kicked the ball left where in the scramble Josh Jones sent Adam Swift in at the corner after seven minutes.

Walsh, who had a perfect evening in the goalkicking stakes,  stroked over the conversion from the touchline.

Saints doubled that lead on 14 minutes after some nice hands from Jordan Turner and a wonderful flick pass from Jon Wilkin allowed Jones to put Swift in at the corner for a try that still took some scoring.

Three minutes later Jones sent Mark Percival racing through the middle for the third, and Walsh’s goal made Saints look home and dry at 18-0.

Wilkin went over for what would have been Saints’ fourth but the video ref had other ideas.

It should not have been, but it became a turning point.

Penalties and some bad defensive misses threw the game back into the melting pot in the second quarter.

Luke Gale outfoxed the defence with a step and offload, with the supporting Luke Dorn polishing it off.

More poor tackling allowed Dorn to step in for his and Castleford’s second, with Ben Roberts dashing through to level it at half time.

Then the sloppiest of the lot came a few minutes after the break when Mike McMeeken collected a Saints attacking kick.

Saints had half a dozen men back to cover, but inexplicably failed to clamp the ball and stop the offload for Roberts’ second.

That must have woke Saints up and they posted an immediate response when Percival ran a great angle to just about get the ball over.

But after McCarthy-Scarsbrook had thrown a loose offload the Tigers roared back and kicked a penalty goal.

But Saints got a stroke of luck from the restart when Roberts knocked on, and from there Saints regained their grip.

A well-worked move saw Adam Quinlan dash over on the right on 57 minutes.

Then a couple of minutes later a fine offload from Alex Walmsley enabled the space for Tommy Makinson to go over.

But once again the rollercoaster hit down, with Denny Solomona going in at the corner to cut Saints’ lead to 36-32.

More worrying was the sight of Walmsley hobbling off, although it did appear thjat he was trying to run his knock off on the touchline.

Ten miutes from time Wilkin ran into the hole deep in his own half before sending Swift in for his third.

That should have been it, but after Percival had had another try chalked off Cas then enjoyed a series of repeat sets.

Saints defended all that was thrown at them but then Junior Moors crossed to set up a nerve-jangling last couple of minutes.  

Castleford: Dorn; Gibson, McMeeken, Shenton, Solomona; Roberts, Gale; Lynch, Milner, Millington, Holmes, Moors, Wheeldon. Subs: Boyle, Maher, Springer, McShane.

Saints: Quinlan; Makinson, Percival, Jones, Swift; Burns, Walsh; Amor, Roby, Walmsley, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Wilkin, Turner. Subs: Richards, Greenwood, Flanagan, Thompson.