There are moments in any Super League season that can feel pivotal. Some are good, some are bad: some can even prove to be a false dawn and merely turn out to be indifferent. But if St Helens are to achieve anything this year, there is one moment here that will certainly rank as season-defining.
Paul Wellens’s side, just as they have been for most of 2025, were nothing special in the opening half-hour against a Leeds team with genuine Grand Final aspirations once again. These two sides have 18 Super League titles between them but recently, there has been only one who has looked like claiming another.
Maybe that perception will not change over the summer. But if it does, you can pinpoint one particular moment in this win. Not a try, not a kick, but a sensational tackle from tSaints’ newest teenage sensation, Harry Robertson, that denied Ryan Hall an interception score that would have put Leeds in front.
Had that happened, it was not outlandish to suggest the Rhinos would have gone on to win and inflict more misery on Wellens and Saints. But Robertson’s effort summed up the many positives about this St Helens display that was built on effort, grit and determination: qualities they have lacked too often this year.
Those traits proved to be enough to capitalise on an off-night from the Rhinos and reduce the gap between the sides to two points. One tackle does not make a summer, as it were, but this is at least a start in convincing the doubting St Helens public that Wellens has the credentials to turn this team around.
“We were really tough, really gritty and we needed to be,” he said. “To keep a team as potent to Leeds as four points is exceptional. Huge credit to the boys.”
Two penalties from Kyle Feldt and a well-worked Deon Cross try were enough to put the Saints 8-0 ahead at half-time, but the big moment came in between all of that.
Tristan Sailor’s loose pass was scooped up by Hall and Leeds, who had not really had a sniff to that point, looked certain to level the scores, with a kick to go ahead. The Hall of a few years ago perhaps would have finished with ease, but Robertson seared across the pitch and made an exceptional cover tackle to bundle Hall into touch.
The reaction from the Saints players said it all about the mood they were in. Riley Lumb’s try seven minutes after the break briefly halved the deficit for Leeds, but they were some way below the standards we have come to expect this year.
Their first defeat in six did not sit well with their coach, Brad Arthur. “It’s a good kick up the backside,” he said. “Maybe we thought we were going better than we thought we were. That’s a reflection of our attitude.”
Lumb’s try proved nothing more than false hope in the end, as the Saints responded in style. A perfectly executed play from a scrum put another exciting homegrown product, Owen Dagnall, in for his second try in two games. How Wellens, a junior product of this club and one of their great players, must have enjoyed a moment like that – as well as Robertson’s incredible try-saving heroics.
Dagnall’s score made it 14-4 and an error-strewn Leeds never looked capable of overturning that deficit with 10 minutes remaining. IIt was Saints who finished stronger as Sailor crossed for a deserved try on the hooter.
That is now four wins in five for Saints, but they needed a win against a real contender to make people notice that all is not lost for one of Super League’s great clubs in 2025.
