Two late tries from Oliver Gildart squashed St Helens’ faint hopes of summoning one more Betfred Super League miracle and sealed Hull KR’s passage to a second straight Grand Final at Craven Park.
Seven days after Saints stunned Leeds with one of the greatest escapes in the sport’s history, Deon Cross’s try early in the second half had given the visitors a flicker of hope of capitalising on increasingly frayed nerves in east Hull.
But Gildart’s late double confirmed a deserved if not entirely convincing 20-12 victory for the League Leaders’ Shield winners, who will face Wigan at Old Trafford next week in a rematch of the 2024 final in which they came up short.
Rovers, whose advantage was cut again by a late effort from Harry Robertson, dominated the first half but only performed on spurts after the interval, and know they must improve to stand a chance of dethroning Matt Peet’s defending champions.
Having somewhat limped to top spot at the end of the regular season, Willie Peters’ side started with admirable intent with Gildart and Tyrone May among those who stretched the Saints defence in the early stages.
Rovers seized the advantage after 13 minutes when Jack Welsby was sin-binned for hauling down Jez Litten as the Rovers hooker tried to dribble through the visiting rearguard, and Arthur Mourgue took two to get his side off the mark.
Five minutes later the hosts capitalised on their numerical advantage when Burgess spurted down the left and his neat pass inside sent Mikey Lewis scything over, with Mourgue’s conversion taking Rovers’ lead to eight.
Saints had arrived in east Yorkshire with a blueprint having pushed Rovers to the brink in a gruelling four-point encounter on their last visit at the end of August, but they simply looked toothless in the face of Rovers’ relentless aggression.
Rovers extended their lead when Joe Burgess rolled over the despairing challenge of Robertson to touch down shortly before the half-hour, and both Mourgue and Peta Hiku came close to all but sealing it before half-time.
Saints looked a different team at the start of the second half, and raised hopes of another improbable comeback when Cross capitalised on some poor Rovers defence to score five minutes into the second half, Jonny Lomax halving the deficit by booting his conversion off the post.
Mourgue missed a chance to stop the momentum when he skewed a penalty wide after a high tackle by Shane Wright, but Rovers reclaimed their two-score cushion after 64 minutes when Lewis’ kick on the last was flapped back for Gildart to zoom over in the corner.
Gildart was sent over again with just under 10 minutes remaining, after another excellent piece of vision by the impressive May, to all but seal Rovers’ swift return to Old Trafford, despite Robertson’s converted response with five minutes left.
