Tuesday 10 April 2018 17:07, UK
Leeds creep closer, vintage Sean O'Loughlin and St Helens sublime without Barba - a review of the best of the weekend's action.
It took a late touchline conversion from Kallum Watkins to provide a buffer just big enough to separate Leeds and Wakefield, who played out a 28-26 Super League thriller at Belle Vue.
The reigning champions continue to go about their business with quiet efficiency, but crept into what turned out to be a belter here.
Wakefield had deservedly led at the break thanks to tries from Jacob Miller and Kyle Wood, but Watkins posted two tries in his 200th appearance as the sides swapped the lead.
Crucially, Watkins hit a difficult touchline conversion in the closing stages.
And that proved to be all that separated the sides when the hooter sounded at the finish after Wakefield had again rallied.
For Trinity, they suffered their fifth loss on the bounce and agonisingly, their last three defeats have a combined margin of just eight points.
Wigan were in the hole against Catalans Dragons and one of the big reasons they got out of the South of France with a win was the performance of captain Sean O'Loughlin.
The evergreen 35-year old moved into the halves as the contest wore on and came up with three try-assists, which included a brilliant back-on-the-inside ball for team-mate Tony Clubb to score one of the tries of the season, late on.
Wigan were 21 points and three tries to nothing down, with half an hour to play, in their match in Perpignan. But staring down the barrel of defeat, second-in-the-table Warriors showed up for the championship minutes to set up a thrilling finale that saw them run out 32-23 winners.
The Easter schedule and the game that immediately follows tends to be one of Super League's big banana skins, but Warrington Wolves continue to grow in momentum.
Showing no signs of any Easter hangover, they hit Salford for three first-half tries to lay the platform for their 22-6 win, which made it five in a row for Wolves.
With this difficult Easter hurdle accounted for, their fans will see no reason why this momentum cannot be maintained.
The much-anticipated collision between St Helens and high-flying Hull FC lost some of its steam before kick-off with the news that Ben Barba was going to have to sit out the contest.
The talismanic full-back has been hugely influential for Saints so far this season, scoring 10 tries in the first nine games, and there were questions about how well St Helens would cope in his absence.
This was exacerbated when the league leaders lost skipper James Roby during the contest. But Saints didn't miss a beat in Barba and Roby's absence with Zeb Taia, Jonny Lomax and Theo Fages filling the void left behind, and then some.
With all the press their Australian full-back has been receiving of late, St Helens may have been starting to feel like a one-man team.
They proved in their 26-12 win over Hull FC that they are anything but.
In a hat-tip to Aussie slang and the absence of their star player, St Helens' win over Hull FC was perfectly captured by this tweet.
Spare a thought for the Parramatta Eels in the NRL who have lost their first five games of the season. The last time they endured this kind of start to the season was 1991.
