| Hull KR (4) 8 |
| Tries: Hall, Halton |
| St Helens (24) 42 |
| Tries: Mata’utia 2, Makinson 3, Dodd 2, Walmsley Goals: Makinson 5 |
Tommy Makinson scored a hat-trick as St Helens maintained their 100% start to the season with a comfortable eight-try win over Hull KR.
Jonny Lomax teed up Sione Mata’utia to send Saints ahead before Ryan Hall hit back following Lachlan Coote’s pass.
Makinson and Lewis Dodd extended the visitors’ lead before the break with Mata’utia later scoring again.
Alex Walmsley crossed after Makinson’s second, with Frankie Halton running a consolation in before Makinson’s third.
The result kept reigning champions St Helens top of the Super League table having won all four of their games this season, while the Robins slipped to a third defeat from four.
Saints had Konrad Hurrell sent to the sin-bin soon after Mata’utia’s score when he caught Jordan Abdull with a late challenge, with Coote setting up the hosts to score against his former side courtesy of his cut-back to the onrushing Hall.
When Mata’utia returned to the field, however, Saints made swift work of regaining the lead, with Makinson scoring his 150th try for the club before Dodd gave them a 20-point half-time lead.
There were further blows to Hull KR after the break when Coote limped off in the aftermath of Mata’utia’s second try, while Jez Litten was yellow-carded after a challenge on Hurrell.
Saints made their player advantage count when Makinson touched down following some good work from Mata’utia, before Walmsley and Makinson’s late hat-trick score wrapped up their sixth-straight away win against Rovers.
Hull KR boss Tony Smith told BBC Radio Humberside:
“I thought we learned some lessons. Lesson one was that Saints are probably the best performing team of the competition that I have seen so far.
“They are relentless. They were good tonight. We weren’t. I’m not sure how much I should be praising Saints for us not being good because I think that was how it went.
“We weren’t so good, I would have liked us to ask more questions of them like they did us, but that was not the case.”
St Helens head coach Kristian Woolf told BBC Radio Merseyside:
“It’s a tough trip to come up on the day and it’s a fair way to travel, with some tough conditions to play in as well.
“Really early on in you could see we were ready to play. There were some tough periods in the first half and we handled them really well.
“I was particularly happy with the way we came out in the second half, the intensity we started with and making sure we got the job done.”
Hull KR: Coote, Wood, Takairangi, Kenny-Dowall, Hall, Lewis, Abdull, Vete, Parcell, King, Hadley, Halton, Storton.
Interchanges: Litten, Sims, Minchella, Dagger.
Sin-bin: Litten (51)
St Helens: Welsby, Hopoate, Hurrell, Percival, Makinson, Lomax, Dodd, Walmsley, Roby, Lees, Mata’utia, Batchelor, Knowles.
Interchanges: Lussick, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Paasi, Amor.
Sin-bin: Hurrell (17)
Referee: J. Child.
