The Super League XIX season continues on Friday night with a double header of action that sees two of the teams who started out among the six joint leaders in the competition in action as we head towards the halfway point of the campaign.
As is the case throughout the entirety of the campaign, both matches are live on TV for us in the UK to enjoy so as the sun sets on a glorious day in England, why not sit back and enjoy what should be some of the summer rugby at its finest.
Castleford Tigers vs St Helens (20.00 – Sky Sports Arena)
The first match to kick off on Friday evening does so at The Jungle as the Castleford Tigers welcome the former champions St Helens to Yorkshire for a match in which the visitors are overwhelming favourites to come out on top in.
Castleford have shown one or two signs of getting their act together in recent times. Their only defeats in their last five matches have been to the Wigan Warriors who look a cut above anything in the competition at this point. Their battling draw with Leigh last week showed that they are at least a club that is still fighting. They’ll need all of that fight against St Helens, who are likely to have a point to prove themselves given that they were well beaten at Hull KR last week. I don’t see St Helens losing this but they have lost three of their last five in all competitions and don’t look to be firing anything like as potently without Alex Walmsley but I’m not yet in the position where I can trust Castleford so I’ll give this game a miss.
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Leigh Leopards vs Salford Red Devils (20.05 – Sky Sports Action & BBC Three)
The pick of the two matches on Friday night is the one from the Leigh Sports Village as the Leigh Leopards take on local rivals Salford Red Devils with the home side looking to fire up a campaign that hasn’t got going yet and the visitors looking to move into the top two in the division overnight.
Leigh thought they were building up a head of steam when they led Castleford 24-10 heading into the final quarter of their match last week having trounced the Catalans Dragons the week before but then they fell apart in the last 20 minutes and could only draw so that was very much a case of a step forward and then a couple back. Salford have really hit their stride in recent weeks. You wouldn’t say there has been anything flashy about it necessarily but winning is the overriding thing in this competition and they have won seven of their last nine in the Super League, with one of those losses coming against Wigan, which as I said above can be accounted for. One of those wins was against Leigh in the reverse fixture and they will be confident that they can pick up another win. There are definitely points in this Salford side even if they haven’t been displaying it throughout the season and the Leigh defence, with the exception of that Catalans game which was a weird one, has shipped plenty of points. There is no John Asiata for the home side again and I do think they are a different side when he is on the pitch. Salford aren’t as free scoring as I would like on their travels so rather than back them to win this game, I’m going to feed on the lack of Leigh confidence and take the Red Devils with the 6.5pt start which gives us a bit of cover for a home derby win.
Tips
Back Salford Red Devils (+6.5) to beat Leigh Leopards for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Spreadex
