Prop Joe Ofahengaue scored both Leigh Leopards tries as his side pulled off their first victory at St Helens since 1982 and kept up the pressure on Super League’s top two.<\/b><\/p>\n
Ofahengaue crossed midway through the second half to provide the Leopards with some breathing space after two Gareth O’Brien penalties had put them 4-0 up at the break.<\/p>\n
Saints, who went into the game on the back of five straight victories, enjoyed plenty of possession but could not break down Leigh’s gritty defence.<\/p>\n
Ofahengaue capitalised to grab a second try after Kyle Feldt spilled Lachlan Lam’s kick and, although Harry Robertson belatedly put Saints on the scoresheet, it was too late to prevent the Leopards moving to within a point of second-placed Wigan.<\/p>\n
The two sides traded blows during a lively, yet scoreless opening 20 minutes \u2013 although video referee Jack Smith was called to adjudicate three times in quick succession on possible tries.<\/p>\n
Saints’ Owen Dagnall, stretching to reach Tristan Sailor’s kick, was unable to make a clean connection and Leopards full-back Bailey Hodgson’s quick thinking to ground the ball denied the home side again, sandwiching a disallowed score for Ofahengaue.<\/p>\n
Leigh \u2013 who had overcome league leaders Hull KR and Wigan in their two most recent outings \u2013 soaked up pressure well but errors going forward, from O’Brien and Edwin Ipape, slowed their progress.<\/p>\n
Eventually, it was O’Brien who broke the deadlock, landing a successful kick from 35 yards after Saints scrum-half Moses Mbye had been penalised for interference.<\/p>\n
O’Brien put another penalty attempt wide following a foul by Feldt, but his next \u2013 a routine kick just before the interval \u2013 was successful after St Helens had been rattled by Tesi Niu’s barnstorming tackle to drag Sailor out of touch.<\/p>\n
Saints looked the sharper side after the turnaround, working the ball from left to right and Alex Walmsley’s charge down the middle carried them close to the try-line, only for Leigh’s tenacious defence to hold firm again.<\/p>\n
Having unsuccessfully challenged a knock-on against Jonny Lomax, the home side conceded a penalty and Leigh broke clear, with O’Brien’s short-range pass setting up Ofahengaue to wriggle over between the posts.<\/p>\n
Ipape might have wrapped up the victory, racing away on the counter-attack but failing to find Lam \u2013 and instead it was Ofahengaue who made the points safe, pouncing on Feldt’s fumble and bursting over the line.<\/p>\n
Saints at least averted the indignity of a blank scoresheet on their own turf, with Robertson going over in the corner in the final minute, but it was not enough to deny rampant Leigh their sixth win in seven games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prop Joe Ofahengaue scored both Leigh Leopards tries as his side pulled off their first victory at St…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-270425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114870902027953837","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}