Saints overcome Giants
15 Mar 2019
St Helens continued their 100 per cent start to the Betfred Super League season with a 40-12 victory over bottom-placed Huddersfield Giants.
Mark Percival scored two tries as Saints made it six wins from as many matches at the John Smith's Stadium.
Luke Thompson took James Roby's short pass to crash over in the fourth minute, but the Giants responded as Jermaine McGillvary scored in the corner.
That second half from @Saints1890 ??
Back line on 🔥🔥🔥 #NewBeginnings #SLHudStH pic.twitter.com/g81VPYiWqf
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) March 14, 2019
Morgan Knowles touched down under the posts and, although former Saints player Jordan Turner levelled things up, the visitors soon ran away with it.
Percival grounded Jonny Lomax's kick on the stroke of half-time and, after Lachlan Coote booted a penalty, the England centre pounced on a mistake to make it 24-12.
Winger Regan Grace celebrated his new contract with a try, taking Coote's cut-out pass in the corner, before Dominique Peyroux and Lomax added late efforts.
On Coote, who recorded 12 points, Saints coach Justin Holbrook said: “He’s doing a great job.
“He has a lot more responsibility which he’s enjoying. He’s been great for us already but he’s only going to get better.??
Holbrook added: “I thought we did a really good job in the second half. I was really pleased with the way they went about it.
“I’m really happy with the way we’ve started the year, especially with the new players we brought in. The performances they are putting out are fantastic, we just want to keep going the way we are.??
Giants coach Simon Woolford said: “To match Saints for 50 minutes was a positive but I think we made every schoolboy error possible in the second half.
“We forced a pass in our own in-goal, kicked out on the full, came up with silly offloads and our halves threw the ball to no one more often than not.
“We’re just not good enough at the moment. Last week we were fantastic and in the first half today our forwards more than matched theirs but in the second half we just didn’t give ourselves a chance."
