Saints remain unbeaten

St Helens showed their Betfred Super League title credentials as they maintain their perfect start to the season with an outstanding 42-12 victory over Castleford Tigers.

Justin Holbrook’s men were in scintillating form as they ran in eight tries to make it seven wins from seven this season in a one-sided contest at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle.

Lachlan Coote - who finished with 14 points - powered over inside five minutes to set Saints on their way before Regan Grace’s acrobatic finish and Dominique Peyroux’s second try in two matches put the visitors 18-0 up at the break.

Zeb Taia, Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Mark Percival extended Saints’ lead to 32-0 before Castleford captain Michael Shenton grabbed a consolation score with a length-of-the-field interception try against his former team.

Peyroux crossed the whitewash for his second, with Jonny Lomax also dotting down before Jake Trueman touched down for Castleford as St Helens sent out a daunting message for the rest of Super League.

Saints coach Justin Holbrook said: “Obviously I’m really impressed with the boys tonight. They were all fantastic. It’s a tough place to come and play and I thought that was probably our best performance of the year.

“It’s hard to single a player out tonight, which is good as a coach. I thought everyone did their job.

“We expect to play well but I didn’t expect that result tonight, that’s for sure. I know that we are improving every week and that’s great.??

Cas boss Daryl Powell admitted: “I just thought it was two teams playing at different levels to be honest, I thought they were outstanding.

“We just got rattled by the game. The second half was poor. No excuses, just got completely outplayed tonight. They are an outstanding side at the moment.

“We have won some games but we haven’t been playing great, we tried to find a groove for ourselves but we never got in that game tonight. We know we have a job to do, but tonight was a really harsh smack around the chops.??