St Helens won a thrilling encounter 20-18 against their greatest rivals Wigan in a thrilling second game of the Magic Weekend, with Jonny Lomax’s try two minutes from time finally deciding the outcome.
With 15 minutes remaining, Wigan had suffered a massive blow when they lost Brad Singleton to a red card for a high tackle on Curtis Sironen.
St Helens began the game brightly when stand-in goal kicker Jon Bennison kicked a penalty after a high tackle by Singleton on Jonny Lomax.
It took Wigan 30 minutes to take the lead and they did so with a brilliant try by Bevan French, scored in front of his father and uncle who had travelled from Australia to see the game, when he took a brilliant Jai Field cutout pass to score in the corner with Harry Smith adding a super conversion.
Wigan led 6-2 at the interval but they extended their lead within three minutes of the second half when John Bateman collected a brilliant kick inside from French who had sped superbly down the right wing. Smith’s conversion put them ten points ahead.
Saints came back into the game when Joe Batchelor grubber the ball past the defence to score, but Bennison couldn’t add the goal, as he couldn’t when Jack Welsby scored on the other wing soon afterwards.
But then, in the 65th minute, came a key moment when Singleton was dismissed for a high tackle on Curtis Sironen.
Wigan were in no mood to surrender, however, and when Field broke through the defence and kicked forward, French was again on hand to pick up the ball and score a brilliant try with Smith converting for an 18-12 lead.
Saints hit back when Will Hopoate gave a superb pass for Regan Grace to sweep in at the corner, but yet again Bennison was unable to add the conversion.
But Saints weren’t finished and with just two minutes remaining Lomax supported a break by Batchelor to score the winning try to the joy of the Saints coaching staff and their supporters within the stadium. That Bennison again failed with the conversion attempt hardly seemed to matter.
