St Helens 46–24 Bradford Bulls — Elimination Final, 1998 Super League Finals Series

Elimination Final, 1998 Super League finals series: St Helens 46–24 Bradford Bulls, at Knowsley Road, St Helens on 2 Oct 1998.

Sourcing caveat: Individual try minutes were not confirmed across sources and are omitted rather than guessed at. Lineups sourced this round (round 44, the FINAL round of the Super League finals-series lineups backlog) from Rugby League Project's per-match page (rugbyleagueproject.org/matches/2608), found via a fresh browse from rugbyleagueproject.org/seasons/ that resolved the season-summary page's link list to match numbers 2608-2613 for this season's six finals. Both lineups fetched cleanly on the first pass with real, varied squad numbers (St Helens' Brett Goldspink at 23, Julian O'Neill at 15; Bradford's Stuart Spruce at 28, Steve McNamara at 26) rather than any suspicious sequential 1-17 index — no position-order renumbering artifact encountered, and both benches were complete (4 of 4). Note that Paul Sculthorpe starts at Lock here (his familiar berth in most other seasons of this backlog, unlike the Five-Eighth listing found for the 1999 season in round 43), and Robbie Hunter-Paul starts at Five-Eighth for Bradford rather than the fullback/halfback roles he is more usually associated with. Coaches confirmed via web search: Shaun McRae (St Helens, tenure 1996-1998 per Wikipedia's Shaun McRae article, which states he moved to Gateshead Thunder at the end of 1998 — fully covering this October 1998 match) and Matthew Elliott (Bradford Bulls, tenure 1997-2000 per Rugby League Project's own coaching-record page).