There was a time not too long ago when meetings between St Helens and Leeds Rhinos were played out on the sport’s biggest stages. At various points over the last two decades, it was not uncommon to find these two sides playing one another in a major final. They were Super League’s market leaders.
However, if one game summed up how the times have emphatically shifted for at least one of these sides, perhaps this was it. It was a familiar tale in the end, with the Saints edging out the Rhinos to book their spot in the Challenge Cup quarter-finals – the 18th time in the last 19 meetings between the teams that St Helens have been victorious.
Leeds have emphatically fallen behind Super League’s leading pack in recent years, underlined by the fact it is now five years since they defeated a top-flight side in the cup, dating all the way back to their win in the 2020 final: the last time the Rhinos won a major trophy. On this evidence, that wait doesn’t look like ending any time soon.
There can be no faulting the effort Brad Arthur has instilled in this side since taking charge midway through last year, but Leeds’ attack and cutting-edge is found wanting against the better sides far too often. At one stage here, before Ash Handley’s try, they had gone almost 160 minutes without scoring one.
By the time Handley did score, this tie had effectively been settled. The Saints are not quite the vintage of recent seasons themselves but when they came alive in a blistering eight-minute purple patch here, scoring 16 unanswered points, you always felt they had enough to progress to the last eight without too many nerves.
“There was a lot to like about our performance but things we’ve got to work on,” their coach, Paul Wellens, said. “We’re in a good spot but there’s improvements in us. We’re developing our game and we want to be a team that can hang tough and then go bang, bang and score tries.”
It was difficult to agree with Arthur’s assessment of his side post-match. You cannot question their effort but they are yet to find a complete 80-minute performance in 2025 that would ask questions of the best sides.
“There was a 10-minute window that hurt us,” he said. “We had good effort and good physicality and stayed in the fight. We’ve got to learn to do that for 80 minutes.” That 10-minute period Arthur points to was indeed crucial – and it effectively swung this tie St Helens’ way.
The hosts led 6-2 at the break after Kyle Feldt’s try, but both sides were low on quality and you felt if one stepped it up fractionally, they could pull away. It was the Saints who did that with three tries in the blink of an eye, the first coming through Tristan Sailor to make it 12-2.
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Another break from Sailor then led to Matt Whitley scoring before the outstanding Harry Robertson marked another impressive display with a try to make it 22-2. Leeds, you felt, had no answer for a lead of that margin given how they were approaching two whole games without a try.
They at least ended that wait when Handley touched down but with the game now in the final quarter, time was against Leeds. They battled valiantly until the end, epitomised by the fact Harry Newman added another try for the Rhinos with two minutes remaining.
However this tie, and the continuation of their miserable Challenge Cup fortunes, had long since been decided.