St Helens 24–8 Wigan Warriors — Elimination Final, 2002 Super League Finals Series

Elimination Final, 2002 Super League finals series: St Helens 24–8 Wigan Warriors, at Knowsley Road, St Helens on 11 Oct 2002.

Sourcing caveat: Individual try minutes were not confirmed across sources and are omitted rather than guessed at. Both lineups fetched cleanly with real, varied squad numbers and no suspicious sequential index. St Helens' starting thirteen here — Paul Wellens back at Fullback (1) and Sean Long starting at Halfback (7) — matches exactly, player-for-player and number-for-number, its own Grand Final lineup eight days later, and resolves in the direction expected of this club's usual arrangement, standing in useful contrast to the atypical Wellens-at-Halfback/Stewart-at-Fullback listing on this same club's Qualifying Semi-Final page six days earlier (see that entry's caveat). Wigan's starting thirteen and bench cross-match closely against its two earlier 2002 finals appearances this round, with recurring players (Radlinski 1, Connolly 4, Aspinwall 20, Briscoe 27, O'Neill 6, Lam 7, Newton 9, Craig Smith 10, Furner 12, Farrell 13, Howard 17, Tickle 26, Sculthorpe 24) all identical across all three matches, with a clean tactical swap of Brian Carney (5) in at Wing and Aspinwall shifting to Centre, and Terry O'Connor (8) and Mick Cassidy (11) starting up front over Howard and Tickle, who move to the bench. No duplicate or missing shirt numbers were encountered for either team. Coaches confirmed via web search, reused from this round's other entries: Ian Millward (St Helens) and Stuart Raper (Wigan Warriors).