St Helens vs Leigh Leopards Prediction: Saints to keep marching on

St Helens made it five wins on the spin on Friday with a narrow 6-0 win over Leeds Rhinos - and they'll be hoping to keep the run going when they face Leigh Leopards on Thursday night (20:00, live on Sky Sports Action).

Saints legend Paul Sculthorpe is here with his St Helens vs Leigh Leopards predictions.

Saints defeated the Leeds Rhinos for the second time in five weeks, keeping the hosts scoreless at Headingley.

It wasn’t the ideal start however, Kyle Feldt booting the ball straight over the sideline from kick off, followed by Daryl Clark leaving the field for an HIA nine minutes later.

But the rejuvenated and resilient Saints showed how to respond, holding out the Rhinos with some solid, dogged defence.

It was the home side who broke first, as Saints crossed for the first, and ultimately only try of the game on the 15-minute mark.

Some slick hands down the left edge, gave Owen Dagnall a minimal overlap, but with plenty to do.

Like all great wingers, his special awareness, pace and power saw him get to the line to reach out and put Saints 4-0 up.

This kid is really impressing me since his introduction into the team barely a month ago. He schooled Rhino’s England centre Harry Newman before having too much strength for Lachie Miller.

The Rhinos continued to try and break the Saints defence, but it wasn’t going to happen.

Funnily, watching the game it reminded me of doing an interview alongside Robbie Paul when we beat Bradford in the 2001 Challenge Cup Final at Twickenham, and him saying ‘we could have played for another two hours and we wouldn’t have scored!’ ….this defensive display from Saints on Friday was one of those days.

Two particular individuals led this. Matty Lees, who due to injuries was forced to play the full 80 minutes, at prop! Also, Morgan Knowles, who between them clocked up over 100 tackles.

In 25 degree stifling weather, this was a phenomenal effort. The thing is, neither of these two player just ‘make’ tackles….they hit to hurt, they hit to win collision and dominate the opposing player every time. It is this kind of effort that inspires your teammates to put their bodies on the line.

Saints boss Paul Wellens was clearly delighted with the win, and obviously keeping Leeds to a big fat zero.

There is obviously still work to do on attack, but there were clear chances created, just at times not clinical enough with the final pass.

Saints moved up to fourth in the Betfred Super League table, leapfrogging Leeds, and only one point behind this week’s opponents, Leigh Leopards.

This will be a proper test of where Saints are. Adrian Lam’s team travel to the Totally Wicked Stadium on Thursday evening, on the back of some outstanding form.

In the last two weeks, they have convincingly beaten the top two sides in the league, Wigan and Hull KR respectively.

We know from previous encounters with Leigh, this will be a physical and fiery affair. Saints need to turn up with the same attitude they demonstrated at Headingley.

Elsewhere in Super League, are the league leaders Hull KR starting to wobble? Having only lost one game this season up to a fortnight ago, Rover have lost their last two.

Title sponsors Betfred still price them at 11/10 to do the double having already won the Challenge Cup. Saints after five wins in a row are at 10/1 to lift the Super League trophy come Oct, with Wigan 13/10, Leeds 10/1, Leigh 20/1 and Hull 50/1.

Finally, fair play to the Salford players for keep battling through what has been an extremely challenging year, and at weekend secured only their second win of the season against fellow strugglers Castleford. Both teams no doubt desperate to see the end of this season.

Back to Thursday, this should be a humdinger! The St Helens vs Leigh Leopards Odds are as follows: Saints are 4/9, Leigh 19/10 and the draw 18/1.

With home advantage, I’m going to tip a Saints win by seven points.

And if you fancy a first tryscorer bet, I fancy the wonderkid Harry Robertson at 12/1!

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