Saints secure Super League title in spectacular fashion

It was the most dramatic finale to the Betfred Super League season – and one that is unlikely to ever be surpassed.

Everyone involved with Super League has done a brilliant job completing the season despite the draconian restrictions caused by the pandemic.

It was right and fitting that the league’s two top teams Wigan and St Helens played out the Grand Final at Hull FC’s KCOM Stadium last Friday. 

Initially, it was a game for the purists, with the evenly-matched clubs, who have been rivals for many a decade, cancelling each other out in a low-scoring affair – and that was against the backdrop of it being the last game for the Warriors’ Sean O’Loughlin who was retiring after 19 years alongside Saints stalwart James Graham.

They slugged it out for 80 minutes, with defences well on top until that most dramatic of endings when Tommy Makinson attempted a drop-goal to settle it after the hooter.

He missed, but the ball hit the post and dropped down perfectly for Jack Welsby to secure the winning try.                                                                                                                                                                             

Welsby, 19, just couldn’t believe he’d written himself into St Helens folklore.

He said: “I was just running aimlessly in truth. I thought Tommy Makinson had got it. I had a really good angle with where I was running and could see where the ball was bouncing. I wasn’t completely sure I was onside or had got the ball down. It’s all a blur now.”

The 2020 Grand Final will now go down as the most memorable of all time, and it’s such a pity it didn’t have the benefit of a 60,000+ crowd at Old Trafford.

Fred Done, the boss of Super League title sponsors Betfred, said: “You just couldn’t make it up. I’d like to applaud Super League for battling on through the pandemic to put on such a spectacle that displayed the fantastic game of RL to its best in front of a worldwide TV audience.

“It was rugby league at its very, very best. You couldn’t separate the two clubs, and I just can’t wait till the new season gets underway in March next year.”