The Catalans Dragons will find out who they will meet in the Super League XXVI Grand Final when the second semi-final takes place on Friday night as second placed St Helens take on the Leeds Rhinos who are looking to win the title from fifth position once again.
Leeds laid down their title credentials with a playoff win on the road at Wigan last week but now they head to the Totally Wicked Stadium to take on the defending champions St Helens who are just not going to give their title up without a fight.
Where to watch
The semi-final will be shown live and in full on the Sky Sports Arena channel. The build-up to the huge game begins at 7pm with the kick off coming at 7.45pm.
St Helens
This is the time in a season when we expect St Helens to be at their best. They certainly can’t have any fatigue excuses because they chose to rest a number of players in their final regular season match and then had last week off. St Helens have won the last two Grand Finals so they know all about overcoming the challenges of semi-final football and that will give them a lot of confidence as they bid to complete the Challenge Cup and Super League double.
Another thing that will give St Helens confidence is the fact that in the penultimate game of the regular season they took the Rhinos to the cleaners. They then lost their last match of the normal campaign but we can’t read much into that because rested a whole number of starters. The other thing that will give Saints confidence and belief is a big crowd cheering them on so you have to like where St Helens are right now.
Leeds Rhinos
The Leeds Rhinos have been playing pressure rugby for a while now having had to push hard towards the end of the regular season to get enough wins just to be around for the postseason. That certainly seemed to stand them in good stead last week when they went to the Wigan Warriors and seemed to handle the occasion better than their hosts. You would have to say that was a terrible game standard wise though so Leeds are going to need a whole lot more here.
The other thing it is worth pointing out is that the Wigan attack has struggled nearly all of the season and Leeds took full advantage of that. There is no such problems with the St Helens attack, as the Rhinos discovered last month, so Leeds are going to need to defend a whole lot better than they needed to last week. They are also going to need to be clinical because this St Helens team don’t give up much on their own try line.
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Team News
St Helens are bringing the cavalry back for this semi-final with Tommy Makinson, Lachlan Coote, Kevin Naiqama, Morgan Knowles, James Roby, Mark Percival and Joe Batchelor all back after being rested while Sione Mata’utia and Agnatius Paasi return from injury and suspension respectively.
Leeds Rhinos coach Richard Agar has confirmed that he will be selecting from the same squad he picked from for the win over Wigan last week. That means he is still without Luke Gale, Jack Walker and Liam Sutcliffe among others.
Betting
I mentioned in the first semi-final how freshness might just be the most important thing in these last four showdowns and we saw that as Hull KR were out on their feet in the second half. I fear the same fate my fall upon the Leeds Rhinos here and as such I expect St Helens to continue their title defence right the way through to the Grand Final. Saints don’t just have freshness on their side here, they have the knowledge that in the last three Super League matches between these two sides over the last couple of seasons they have won by margins of 48-0, 40-8 and 40-6.
Leeds Rhinos deserve a lot of credit for going to Wigan and winning last week but they did not play well and it is going to need more than spirit to get them over the line in this contest. It will take oodles of quality which without Luke Gale I’m not so sure they have. Saints have shown over the last couple of seasons that they are incredibly tough to beat in these big matches and as a result of that I’m expecting the home side to win and cover eight points.
Tips
Back St Helens (-8) to beat Leeds Rhinos for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
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