THERE'S an old saying in sport that you can only beat the team in front of you…and that was certainly the case for the Saints as they demolished the Castleford Tigers at the Jungle.

The 60-4 rout keeps us joint-top of the Betfred Super League along with Wigan, who also have a game in hand, Warrington and Catalans.

Title sponsors Betfred, unsurprisingly have those four as the best bets for Grand Final glory in October. Wigan remain 11/10 favourites, with Saints at 5/2, followed by the Wolves at 15/2 while the Dragons are 8/1.

Back to the Jungle, and it was definitely a game of two halves as the visitors went into the break 8-4 up, having only scored two of the final 11 tries in the first forty.

Waqa Blake picked up a second half hat-trick as the Saints completely demolished the home side, scoring 40 unanswered points in the last 25 minutes.

They completely tore apart the Tigers defence, and did this with 12 players for the majority of the game after Tommy Makinson was judged to have made direct head contact with Tex Hoy.

I’m not too sure - and neither was our coach Paul Wellens in his post match assessment.

Wello questioned the decision and whether there was direct contact to the head or whether it should have just been a yellow card for a late challenge.

We have seen Tommy make these kind of tackles year after year, and he’s one of the best in the business.

It’s such a difficult position to defend on the wing as you are ultimately the last man...and often it’s a do-or-die decision.

It isn’t foul play. Yes it may be mistimed…but when you have to make a split decision at full speed these things happen in contact sport. Do we really want to continuously see our best players sat in the stands?

As well as losing Tommy, sadly we also saw Jake Wingfield leave the field with what looked a serious shoulder injury.

St Helens Star:

I know speaking to Wingy a few weeks back, he’s been struggling for a while with the shoulder so now hopefully he can get this fixed and come back stronger. We wish him all the very best in his recovery.

One of the big positives during the win was the emergence of young prop Noah Stephens.

Noah was given two objectives by his coach: make your tackles and run hard! He certainly did both and looked like he loved every minute of his winning debut in the Red V.

This weekend sees all focus switch to the Betfred Challenge Cup, and unfortunately it will only be the Totally Wicked Stadium in action, not the team as we host Huddersfield vs Warrington on Sunday.

The other semi final sees last year's beaten finalist Hull KR take on the Wigan Warriors at the Eco-Power Stadium, Doncaster.

The Robins had been in great form in Betfred Super League up until last week where they were beaten by Warrington, whereas Wigan come into this weekend on the back of a 48-6 drubbing of the Huddersfield Giants.

I think Wigan will have too much, and will go for the Warriors win by more than 16 which is 7/4 at Betfred.

Then on Sunday, I think it will be Warrington that will set up an all-Lancashire finale at Wembley on the June 8.

Huddersfield have been far too inconsistent this season and have far too many liabilities for me.

Equally, I’m still not convinced Warrington are the real deal yet, but think they have too much for the Giants so I’ll go for Wire by more than 16 points which is a 5/2 shot at Betfred.